Review of One Nation Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance

Book review of Jill Quadagno, One Nation Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has no National Health Insurance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. $ 28.00 hardcover

Review of Quixote’s Ghost: The Right, the Liberati, and the Future of Social Policy

Book review of David Stoesz, Quixote\u27s Ghost: The Right, the Liberati, and the Future of Social Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. $ 35.00 hardcover

Review of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. Alex Vitale

Book review of Alex Vitale, City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. New York: New York University Press, 2008. $40.00 hardcover,$20.00 papercover

The Disposable Blog: Using the Weblog to Facilitate Classroom Learning and Communications

This article describes two case studies: one is from a graduate course in social work practice evaluation taught by the second author; the other is from an undergraduate political science course in media and politics taught by the first author. These cases describe the way blogs, created by students and the professors, facilitate communications within the class, reduce paperwork for the professors, and let students practice their “public voices.” While the cases are specific to two courses — Masters-level social work and undergraduate political science – the concepts are easily transferred to others. The article begins with a history and literature review of blogs used pedagogically; next, the reader is walked through the creation of a blog using currently popular online tools; the next two sections are devoted to the two cases; and the final section attempts to draw some generalizations about using blogs in the classroom

Review of \u3cem\u3eQuixote\u27s Ghost: The Right, the Liberati and the Future of Social Policy.\u3c/em\u3e David Stoesz. Reviewed by Stephen Pimpare.

Book review of David Stoesz, Quixote\u27s Ghost: The Right, the Liberati, and the Future of Social Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. $ 35.00 hardcover

Review of \u3cem\u3eOne Nation Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance.\u3c/em\u3e Jill Quadagno. Reviewed by Stephen Pimpare.

Book review of Jill Quadagno, One Nation Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has no National Health Insurance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. $ 28.00 hardcover

Welfare Reform at 15 and the State of Policy Analysis

This article offers a review of welfare reform evaluation studies, summarizing research that has generated a consensus among mainstream policy analysts that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) has had few effects beyond caseload reductions and increases in employment. Given that supporters and opponents alike expected the law to have profound consequences, the article considers two ways to explain this surprising outcome, showing that (1) quantitative policy analysis has been ill equipped to capture the PRWORA's effects and (2) expectations were nonetheless wrong because they failed to appreciate how thoroughly Aid to Families with Dependent Children had already been eroded in the decades prior to its reform. Welfare reform was not the beginning of a process of policy change; it was the end of one. In response to these findings, the article describes how a more critical perspective on reform matters for social work researchers! , advocates, and practitioners

The Failures of American Poverty Measures

How we think about need or deprivation-how we judge its severity, its causes and effects, and the progress we have made (or not made) over time in reducing it-has much to do with how we define and then measure it. And, we measure it poorly. The insufficiencies of official data on American poverty are reasonably well known, yet they continue, nonetheless, to be the principal means by which we gauge need in the United States. After a review of such official measures, this article discusses alternative means of evaluating need in the United States, highlighting the benefits of examining poverty across the life-course, and attending to inequality and other indicators of a relative poverty; it then discusses the advantages of turning toward human rights- and human development-based frameworks for better defining and quantifying deprivation. It concludes with a brief review of the political obstacles to such policy reform

Review of \u3cem\u3eCity of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics.\u3c/em\u3e Alex Vitale. Reviewed by Stephen Pimpare.

Book review of Alex Vitale, City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. New York: New York University Press, 2008. $40.00 hardcover,$20.00 papercover

The Disposable Blog: Using the Weblog to Facilitate Classroom Learning and Communications

This article describes two case studies: one is from a graduate course in social work practice evaluation taught by the second author; the other is from an undergraduate political science course in media and politics taught by the first author. These cases describe the way blogs, created by students and the professors, facilitate communications within the class, reduce paperwork for the professors, and let students practice their 'public voices.' While the cases are specific to two courses-Masters-level social work and undergraduate political science-the concepts are easily transferred to others. The article begins with a history and literature review of blogs used pedagogically; next, the reader is walked through the creation of a blog using currently popular online tools; the next two sections are devoted to the two cases; and the final section attempts to draw some generalizations about using blogs in the classroom