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From Poor Law to Positive Discrimination*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Richard Batley
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Abstract

The principle of positive discrimination in favour of the poor has emerged out of a tangled history of social welfare debate about universalism and selectivity. Positive discrimination, based on the idea of ‘inclusive’ selectivity, represents something of a hybrid of the two concepts. The ‘rediscovery of poverty’ and the recognition that universal benefits were not adequate or reaching intended beneficiaries contributed to the general case for specially channelled services. But the government's response has tended to be piecemeal, responding to specific pressures and criticisms with a wide array of small and separate programmes of positive discrimination. This article traces the particular pressures, in race relations, which contributed to the emergence of the Urban Aid Programme and shows what lessons were learned from the experience of the American poverty programmes.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1978 , pp. 305 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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