Social Citizenship
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Now that New Labour has been in power for two years, it is possible to make assessments regarding their projects and achievements. One of New Labour’s biggest and most controversial objectives is welfare reform. Where citizenship is concerned, these reforms are significant in an era of extreme social inequality. Further, citizenship takes on different meanings and modes based on the tradition from which it stems, i.e., democratic, communitarian, liberal, and authoritarian. While rumors of the demise of the welfare state are somewhat premature, there is no denying that many conventional welfare state aspects are being dismantled. Rapid technological advance and the transition from the industrial age to the age of information also impact the discourse on citizenship and the modern welfare state. Yet, lack of education, poverty and unequal access to them plague many, compounded by the growing gap between rich and poor that has steadily widened since the beginning of the 1990s. This creates, for many, a constrained sense of citizenship, “…the limited sense of obligation and belonging which people obtain from often highly restricted conceptions of citizenship, and how such conceptions may be insufficient to allay the immanent anxieties associated with the imperatives of contemporary lifestyles” (Dean and Melrose, 1999, p. xiii). Underneath the inequality, exclusion and nature of modern citizenship, we also see popular beliefs
. . .
uardian, “Ministers are alarmed that, despite a highly-publicized national literacy strategy for schoolchildren, nearly a quarter of adults have difficulty reading a broadcast newspaper” (Smithers, 1999, p. 1). Nonetheless, many of Tony Blair’s programs aimed at education have been blasted as being favoritism for the academically or financially elite. He recently sponsored a comprehensive campaign to the tune of millions of dollars that offers 10 per cent tuition subsidies to parents who send their children to private schools. However, like the private school vouchers being utilized in the U.S., critics contend that these policies only deprive those already most in need of access to quality education (i.e., the academically and financially disadvantaged). As one critic contends, “When our great leader proclaimed his battle-cry, what he actually said was: ‘Educate some, Educate some, Educate some.’…His plan says ‘Save five grand by sending them [children] here. Nothing wrong with that if it didn’t also say to the 90 percent of kids left behind: ‘We’re not saying you’re thick, but if you went on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and they asked your name, you would have to phone a friend’” (Reade, 1999, p. 8).
One of the biggest
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Dean Melrose, Tony Blairs, David Blunkett, Margaret Melrose, Martin Johnson, INTRODUCTION Labour, Union Students, Guardian March, Chris Woodhead, Mirror March, social citizenship, guardian march, modern welfare, mirror march, quality education, garner richard, richard 1999, dean melrose, garner richard 1999, garner 1999, march 19 pp, 19 pp, carvel john 1999, smithers rebecca 1999, dean melrose argue,
Approximate Word count = 3801
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
