In discussions about ‘race’, empire, imperialism – and the decolonisation of the curriculum in European universities – the discipline of Romani Studies has, until recently, been relatively quiet. This article seeks to address this silence and offers commentary on the institutional silences, via both disciplinary historical and contemporary country-specific analysis. A case study is investigated to tease out the ontological and epistemological transitions from early 19th Century Gypsylorism to 21st Century Critical Romani Studies: the teaching and learning of Romani Studies at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. We argue that the legacy of Gypsylorism, as much as the political climate in which the teaching and learning of contemporary Romani Studies occurs, are important aspects to consider. In moving forwards, we suggest that the models and pedagogies adopted at CEU since 2015 offer a useful and critical template for other universities and departments to consider adopting in progressing Romani knowledge production.

Within the United Kingdom (UK), many of the arguments driving devolution and Brexit focused on equality. This article assesses how notions of equality have been shaped over the past two decades. Using a chronology of theoretical, political and public interpretations of equality between 1998 and 2018, the article highlights the shifting positions of Northern Ireland (NI) and the rest of the UK. NI once led the way in relation to equality legislation, and equality was the cornerstone of the Good Friday/Belfast peace agreement. However, the Equality Act 2010 in Great Britain meant that NI was left behind. The nature of future UK/EU relationships and how these might influence the direction and extent of the equality debate in the UK is unclear. While this article focuses on the UK, the questions that it raises have global application, due to the international influences on equality discourse and legislation.

The policy drive to support carers is a longstanding national and international priority. Research about the design and delivery of support for carers is critical to the underpinning evidence base. Through a timely exploration of a third sector perspective, the UK-based study discussed in this article provides insights into approaches to, and the commissioning of, support for older carers and carers of people with dementia. The study highlights the importance of: embedding carers’ perspectives in service developments; the provision of both generic and targeted support which adopts a nuanced and tailored approach; titrating the delivery of information and advice at a pace to match carers’ needs; capturing quantitative and qualitative dimensions in service evaluation; and increased quantity and longevity of funding. Such insights not only complement existing research but are also generalisable to other countries at a similar stage in the development of carer support.

Development of effective policy responding to recent increases in rough sleeping in England requires an understanding of the needs of people experiencing homelessness. Research on multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH) should be central to policy development as it highlights the interactions between ‘homelessness’ and ‘deep social exclusion’. This article focuses on the nexus between mental health and homelessness within MEH. Mixed methods findings from Nottingham, England, are used to investigate the role of mental ill-health in the pathways into MEH. This included a survey of the mental health needs of homeless people and ‘homeless pathway’ interviews. Survey results demonstrated high levels of diagnosed and self-reported mental health issues. Interviews highlighted that mental ill-health and homelessness were closely associated with adverse life experiences and could not be viewed in isolation from them. The article contributes further insight on the specificities of mental health issues, their temporal ordering, and interrelationship with homelessness experiences.

While recent research shows a gradual increase of young Māori in Higher Education it remains the case that inequality amongst the Indigenous population remains entrenched and institutionalised. This article explains how national governments in Aotearoa New Zealand have failed to address the colonial disparities and inequalities in the Higher Education system. In this process we will show, through the lens of historical privilege and institutional racism, how these processes continue to shape and frame both opportunities and experiences for Māori youth. The article will also highlight what strategies are needed if a more inclusive Higher Education system is to be developed that addresses the disparities that young Māori encounter.

While specialist women’s refuges have been central to responses to family violence since the 1970s, their work is under-researched. Little is known outside the family violence sector about the support they provide and how it assists women and children. There have been some critiques of their work but there is limited knowledge of the constraints women’s refuges face. Based on interviews and focus groups with 100 professional stakeholders and twenty-two service users, this article analyses the work of women’s refuges in the Australian state of Victoria in an effort to inform policy reform. The research found that refuges’ underpinning gendered analysis, focus on safety and support and advocacy to ensure women’s human rights are met have much to offer further developments in responding to family violence. In doing so, the article contributes to critical debates about the operation of refuges and the need for specialist family violence services.

This article describes the social care funding and delivery arrangements of a varied selection of developed countries, focusing on long-term care of older people. International evidence and latest reforms can inform the debate as countries struggle economically. Some have opted for mandatory social insurance that provides universal coverage. A premium is paid and if the insured individual or relatives require support, they are entitled to it. Others opted for a similar universal system but with earmarked taxation, while others fund their social care entirely from general taxation. Many chose a safety-net system in which benefits are means-tested leaving wealthier individuals to secure private arrangements of care. Within the UK, the level of support varies as Scotland provides personal care free of charge, being more generous than England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There is no “one solution”, but understanding different options can help in the discussion of current and future reforms.

Given the imperative to redress the education inequalities between Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and White students, this contribution explores advances and challenges from within Social Work education (SWE) in relation to the experiences of Black social work students. Drawing on critical race theories and the concept of racial battle fatigue, it explores the impacts of race and racism on students’ academic experience and wellbeing. It proposes the significance of relational wellbeing which has been a constant strand within Social Work education and comprises a valuable approach to the decolonisation process within higher education (HE). Linking this to critical pedagogy, it highlights the role of staff to build safety, confidence and trust to support students to overcome prior education experiences of under-attainment, disadvantage and social marginalisation. Despite the pervasiveness of managerialism within HE, which compromises the teacher-student relationship and emphasises measured changes in student ‘outcomes’, Social Work educators are invited to nurture safe and transformational learning environments.

In this ‘state of the art’ review, we draw on the Irish and UK context to ask ‘what can welfare stigma do?’ Our question provokes thinking about welfare stigma not as an inevitable ‘cost’ of the structure of welfare provision, but as something that does socio-political work and which may be deliberately mobilised to do so. This, we argue, is a particularly pertinent question to ask in the Irish and UK contexts, bound together by some shared liberal welfare regime characteristics that are particularly associated with welfare stigma and by the effects of a period of austerity capitalism that continues to re-shape the meaning and experience of welfare. Yet, going beyond welfare stigma as inherently negative, we highlight a limited literature on resistance that suggests the potentialities of welfare stigma in the service of positive social change toward a new welfare imaginary.

The repeated circulation of anti-welfare discourses has served to encourage limited and often incorrect public understandings of issues pertaining to welfare. Central to these processes is the social construction of notions of ‘deservedness’ and ‘undeservedness.’ In this article we examine the 2017 ‘Welfare Cheats, Cheat Us All’ (original emphasis) campaign initiated by the Department of Social Protection in the Republic of Ireland. We present our analysis of the dominant discourses evident in the campaign itself and the in-house discussions in the lead up to the campaign. Our article shows that this Irish campaign rehearses a familiar international discourse which follows distinct patterns or rules, and we evidence, in keeping with other moral panics, the spurious nature of the data being used to exaggerate the scale and extent of welfare ‘fraud’.

Growth-dependent welfare states contribute to climate emergency. The ecological economics, degrowth, and sustainable welfare literatures demonstrate that to re-embed Western production and consumption patterns in environmental limits, an encompassing social-ecological transformation would need to be initiated very soon. This article focuses on the potential roles of the welfare state and social policy in this transformation, applying the concepts of ‘sustainable welfare’ and ‘safe-operating space’. Based on two Swedish studies, it also provides an empirical analysis of the popularity of selected eco-social policies designed to steer the economy and society towards this space: maximum and basic incomes, taxes on wealth and meat, as well as working time reductions. In analogy to the historical role of the state in reconstituting the welfare-work nexus in the post-WWII era and its present engagement in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, it is argued that a more interventionist state is required to grapple with climate emergency.

Population ageing and international migration are two of the major societal trends challenging European elderly care regimes at present. Virtually no research has addressed how public discourses about the implications of these trends for elderly care are shaped in different countries. This article addresses this knowledge gap, examining how Swedish daily newspaper (SvD and DN) reporting on elderly care between 1995 and 2017 (N=370) depicts the impact of increased ethno-cultural diversity on this sector. Through content analysis, this article brings attention to the representations of migrants and culture that this reporting has deployed, and the rhetorical practices that the reporting has relied on (i.e. genre stratification, hegemonisation, homogenisation, normative referencing and idealisation/ diminishment). The article exposes how the ‘Othering’ of migrants is accomplished in Sweden’s daily newspaper reporting on elderly care, and problematizes the ethea of inclusiveness and equality of care with which we have come to associate this welfare sector.

University staff from African, Asian and other Minoritised Groups (AAMG) are not resigned to the pervasiveness of white supremacy in the corridors, classrooms, and lecture theatres of the academy. This article articulates a self-study, where we employ our own narratives and stories, as leaders, teachers, and students on a race-specific initiative. The work presented here attempts to offer a counter-narrative to the colour-evasive discourse and policymaking throughout the English Higher Education sector that perpetuates deficit perspectives for AAMG students. In addition to this, we propose a ‘Progressive Relational Pedagogy’ that provides a strong foundation for meaningful work across the Higher Education sector. In doing so, we provide a way forward in policy and practice to sustain the cultural richness, heritages, and authenticities of AAMG students. The narrative concludes with pragmatic steps towards enhancing organisational alignment, integration and governance through a race inclusion lens, courtesy of leveraging steps from a Race Inclusion Framework that is underpinned by the LEAD Enterprise Ontology (von Rosing and Laurier, 2015; Caine and von Rosing, 2018).

This article explores the importance of anti-racism in a higher Education context. With reference to the recent discussions on de-colonising the curriculum, I reflect on the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement. I argue more vehemently than ever before – enough is enough – we have no choice but to teach against racism. This article discusses the importance of de-colonising the curriculum and Higher Education and creating learning environments that open out discussions about everyday racism. This, I argue, is core to our anti-racist practise if we intend to build a fairer and a more anti-racist world.

More nation states are now committing to zero net carbon by 2050 at the latest, which is encouraging, but none have faced up to the transformation of economies, societies and lives that this will entail. This article considers two scenarios for a fair transition to net zero, concentrating only on climate change, and discusses the implications for contemporary ‘welfare states’. The first is the Green New Deal framework coupled with a ‘social guarantee’. I argue that expanded public provision of essential goods and services would be a necessary component of this strategy. The second scenario goes further to counteract runaway private consumption by building a sufficiency economy with ceilings to income, wealth and consumption. This would require a further extension of state capacities and welfare state interventions. The article provides a framework for comparing and developing these two very different approaches.

Extra care housing aims to meet the housing, care and support needs of older people, while maintaining their independence in self-contained accommodation. Evidence from several studies suggests that it has benefits for residents in terms of costs and outcomes, and can provide a supportive environment for people with dementia, although the benefits for residents with greater care needs are less clear. Budgetary pressures and increasing eligibility criteria are altering the balance of care between residents and resulting in more task-focused, less personalised care. An increasing shortfall in provision and incentives for developers to concentrate on ‘lifestyle’ provision raise questions about the long-term viability of the model for supporting local authority-funded residents. Responses to the coronavirus pandemic also raise questions about future housing and care arrangements, and these need to be addressed in the government’s long-delayed plans for social care.

Stigma is not the automatic outcome of power differentials, but a distinctive moral inscription generated through cultural evaluations and governmental processes. Research on welfare recipients records how the unemployed displace stigma onto other welfare recipients, positioning other(ed) claimants as the ‘real unemployed’ or ‘scroungers’. Theoretically we adapt Butler’s analysis of the psychic processes whereby subjects are formed by disavowal of discourses which abjectify them. Arguably, this is functional for the governmentalising processes of generating jobseeking, with a latent function of reinforcing activation policies. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we trace how Irish individuals negotiate the stigma attributed to or foisted upon Welfare claimants, in welfare offices and informal social interactions and in job interviews – how they attempt to ‘pass’ as good JobSeekers and pass stigma on to others. Curiously, many welfare claimants suggest governmental interventions for distinguishing and discriminating between the deserving and undeserving adopting the stigmatising perspective.