European Journal of Social Quality

The European Journal of Social Quality has been succeeded by the International Journal of Social Quality. The European Journal was published from 1999 until 2006. Here is an overview of its contents.

Volume 6, Issue 2, 2006

Social Quality and Modern Public Health:

Developing a Framework for the Twenty-First Century

Public Health Issues with guest editor Paul Ward, Flinders University Australia and contributions by:

-Paul Ward, Paul Redgrave and Cathy Read: Operationalizing the Theory of Social Quality: Theoretical and Experiential Reflections from the Development and Implementation of a Public Health Programme in the UK

-Ota de Leonardis: Social Capital and Health, Research Findings and Questions on a Modern Public Health Perspective

-Johan van de Kerckhove: Towards a New Philosophy in the Prevention Strategy on Health and Safety at Work: Pro-activity and Well-being

-Oeij, Dhondt, Wiezer: Conditions for Low-Stress Risk Jobs: Europe’s Case

-Bissell: Social Capital and Community Pharmacy: an exploratory study

-Peter Taylor-Gooby: The Rational Actor Reform Paradigm: Delivering the Goods but Destroying Public Trust

-Paul Ward: Trust, Reflexivity and Dependence: A ‘Social Systems Theory’ Analysis in/of Medicine

-Denis Bouget: Book review on David Phillips’s book Quality of Life, Concept, Policy and Practice, 2006.

The focus of this special issue of the European Journal of Social Quality is to explore and understand the utility, relevance and operationalisation of the Theory of Social Quality for public health policy and practice. Paul Ward writes in his editorial:

‘As such, the Theory of Social Quality has great potential in public health by acting as a mechanism of (or conduit for) ‘knowledge transfer’ between research and policy/practice. It can provide the theoretical framework for understanding public health problems in addition to engaging with the policy relevant domains: a lens through which academics, policy makers and public health practitioners can understand and conceptualise their ‘lifeworlds’ in addition to developing meaningful outcomes. In other words, the Theory of Social Quality can make sense of theory, policy and practice, thus facilitating dialogue between members of the respective ‘camps’.’

 

Volume 6, Issue 1, 2006

The European Social Model and European Values –

Issues of Convergence and Divergence

As David Phillips writes in his editorial:

‘A central question running through several papers relates to convergence: are European societies converging and, if so, then to what are they converging? Is the European Social Model still viable or is the enlarged EU moving inexorably towards a ‘race to the bottom’ in the context of trying to reach the Lisbon goal of becoming the world’s most dynamic and competitive economy, in the dog-eat-dog political economy of an unstoppable globalisation?’

Contents:

-Editorial: Social Quality, Values, Convergence and the European Social Model, David Phillips

-Social Quality in Rousseau, Paule-Monique Vernes

-Social Quality – Opening Individual Well-Being for a Social Perspective, Peter Herrmann

-Covenants, External Effects and Employability, Ton Korver and Peter R.A. Oeij

-Exporting or Pulling Down? The European Social Model and Eastern Enlargement of the EU, Gábor Juhász

-Convergence in Social Welfare Systems: From Evidence to Explanations, Denis Bouget

-Uniting Europeans by Values: A Feasible Enterprise?, Jan Berting

 

Volume 5, Issues 1&2, 2005

This Volume presents a compilation of articles produced by the participants of the European Network on Indicators of Social Quality, based on their reports about the application of the new social quality indicators in fourteen European countries (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK). In these papers the first results of the application of indicators of social quality are discussed and interpreted. The views of two important NGOs are presented in papers by the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) and the International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW), European Region.

As Professor Dave Gordon of Bristol University writes in his editorial: ‘It is clear that any project for producing internationally comparable operational measures of Social Quality faces huge intellectual and practical difficulties. However, the papers in this issue show that a great progress has been made by the ENIQ project and that an empirical framework for social quality research has now been successfully established.’

-Editorial: Indicators of Social Quality, David Gordon

-Indicators of Social Quality: Outcomes of the European Scientific Network, Laurent J.G. van der Maesen and Alan C. Walker

-Indicators of Social Quality: Outcomes for Belgium, Veerle de Maesschalck

-Social Quality in Britain: A Welfare State?, Sue Hacking

-Social Quality in Finland, Mika Vuori, Mika Gissler and the National Group of Experts

-Social Quality: The French Case, Denis Bouget and Frederic Salladarré

-Social Quality in Germany, Michael Ebert, Ilona Ostner, Uschi Brand and Steffen Kühnel

-The ‘Social Quality’ Perspective in Greece, Maria Petmesidou and Periklis Polyzoidis

-Social Quality in Hungary: In the Framework of ENIQ, Szilvia Altorjai and Erzsébet Bukodi

-The Irish National Report, Séamus Ó Cinneide, Jean Cushen and Fearghas Ó Gabhan

-Social Quality in Italy, Chiara Saraceno and Susanna Terracina

-European Network on Indicators of Social Quality: Summary of the Dutch National Report, P. Steffens and Chris R.J. de Neubourg

-Portugal – Reflecting on the Context and the Conditional Factors, Pedro Perista, Heloisa Perista and Isabel Baptista

-Social Quality in Slovenia: Emergent Individual Risks and Disappearing Fora to Discuss Them, Masa Filipovic, and Ruzica Boskic, Srna Mandic

-Social Quality in Spain, Juan Monreal and Salvadora Titos

-Social Quality in Sweden, Göran Therborn and Sonia Therborn

-Indicators of Social Quality and the Anti-Poverty Strategies, Barbara Demeyer and Fintan Farrell

-The View from ICSW, Aki Siltaniemi and Marja-Liisa Kauppinen

-Empowerment: The Core of Social Quality, Peter Herrmann

The article on Indicators of Social Quality: Outcomes of the European Scientific Network, Laurent J.G. van der Maesen and Alan C. Walker can be downloaded here.

Volume 4, Double issue 1 & 2 (2003)

Flexibility and Security in Employment

This double issue of the Journal , which gathers a number of papers produced in the context of a research project recently conducted by the European Foundation on Social Quality and nine European partners, is again devoted to the crucial policy-field of employment. Indeed, at national and European Union levels, employment continues to be the most difficult and conflict-ridden part of the social and economic policy agenda, as it has been for the best part of the last three decades.

Contents

Editorial – From Unemployment to Flexicurity – Opportunities and Issues for Social Quality in the World of Work in Europe

– François Nectoux and Laurent van der Maesen

Social Quality, Employment and its Flexicurity

– Laurent van der Maesen

Flexible and Secure: Adaptability and the Employment Relationship

– Joint Report Team: Dave Gordon, Joyce Hamilton, Ton Korver, Laurent van der Maesen, Monica Threlfall, Ruud Vlek, Georg Vobruba

Working Time and Time for Care in Europe

– Joint Report Team: Dave Gordon, Joyce Hamilton, Ton Korver, Laurent van der Maesen, Monica Threlfall, Ruud Vlek, Georg Vobruba

Social Quality and the Policy Domain of Employment in Belgium

– Jozef Pacolet and An Marchal

Social Quality and the Policy Domain of Employment in Finland

– Pekka Kosonen and Jukka Vänskä

Social Quality and the Policy Domain of Employment in Hungary

– Erzsébet Bukodi and Péter Róbert

Social Quality and the Policy Domain of Employment in the Netherlands

– Ton Korver

Social Quality and the Policy Domain of Employment in Portugal

– Heloisa M. Perista and Pedro Perista

Review: A Review of A. van Bruggen’s Individual Production of Social Well-Being

– Jan Berting

 

Volume 3, Double issue 1 & 2 (2001)

Citizenship and Welfare

This double issue groups a number of contributions that approach the theme of citizenship and welfare protection from various angles, all relevant to the debates that are taking place in Europe today on this issue. Because the reform programmes of the social security and welfare systems that are now implemented in many countries question the basic tenets that have supporting the Welfare State since the Second World War, issues of solidarity and social responsibility are hotly disputed. This affects citizenship insofar as it concerns the boundaries of identity. At European level, the intricate relationship between identity and welfare protection has been identified as one of the most complex and difficult issue confronting democracies on the continent.

Editorial

– François Nectoux

European Integration and the Reform of Social Security in the Accession Countries

– Zsuzsa Ferge

Community Citizenship and Community Social Quality: The British Jewish Community at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

– David Phillips

Social Quality as a Tool for Policy Analysis: The Place of Children in Family Policy

– Yitzhak Berman

EMU and the Social Environment

– Lei Delsen

Quality in the Balance: on the Adaptive and Mimetic Nature of Subjective Well-Being

– Thierry Kochuyt

Reconceptualisation of Social Quality

– Anne Fairweather, Borut Roncevic, Maj Rydbjerg, Marie Valentová, Mocja Zajc

Review ‚ Social Quality: A Vision for Europe

– Heiner Ganssmann

Review ‚ Some Preliminary Considerations about Social Cohesion and Social Quality

– Laurent J.G. van der Maesen

 

Volume 2, Issue 2 (2000)

Social Quality of Employment

This special issue focuses on one of the most important policy issues in contemporary societies and also one of the key determinants of social quality: employment. The five articles in this section, from contributors in the south as well as the north of the European Union, report on different aspects of employment and the social relations of work. Together the articles provide a critique, not only of traditional conceptions of employment and its measurement, but also of the current thrust of EU and many national employment strategies. They also suggest a way forward based on a much more comprehensive definition of work, which recognises the great diversity in forms of employment, paid and unpaid, in the EU and the big differences in the employment experiences of men and women. An active social model must be based on a comprehensive understanding of work and not just full time paid employment. This would provide a more realistic basis for policy than outdated models of employment predicated on male work patterns. It would also open the way to understanding the complex relationship between social quality and different forms of employment, some of which may be undertaken in combination or linked sequentially. This step, finally, would provide the evidence base for a social policy for work.

Editorial

– Alan Walker

European Employment: A New Approach to Analysing Trends

– Monica Threlfall

The Social Meaning of Employment and Unemployment

– Miguel Laparra Navarro and Manuel Aguilar Hendrickson

Regulating Labour: Employment Policy in Europe

– Ton Korver

The Role of Organising Labour in De-Industrialising Economies

– Anke Hassel

Being Young in Italy, The Paradoxes of a Familistic Society

– Chiara Saraceno

Forum ‚ The Logic Enlargement: The European Union and the Expansion of the Sphere of European Interests

– Georg Vobruba

Social Quality: A New Vision for Europe

– Laurent J.G. van der Maesen

 

Volume 2, Issue 1 (2000)

Age and Autonomy

With the proportion of older generations growing rapidly in the population of industrialised countries, autonomy has become a recurrent theme in debates about the quality of life of people as they age. It is also a focus of policy-making for creating conditions in which older people can maintain and enhance their personal and social independence, as individuals and as citizens. Yet social interdependence is often an external dimension of autonomy, while the reality that life ends can not be escaped. The wealth of data on ageing accumulated in various countries can help us to reconsider some of the premises of the debates and assess the real impact of policies on autonomy and old age.

Editorial

– Anne Showstack Sassoon and Wendy Stokes

Time, age and Autonomy

– Jan Baars

From Gender to the Political Economy of Ageing

– Carroll L. Estes

Towards a Conceptual Framework for ‘Ageing in Place’ of Frail Older Adults

– Piet P.J. Houben

What is It Like to Grow Old? Ageing in Some Recent Women’s Fiction

– John Mepham

The Designerís Role in the Ageing Process

– Malcolm Johnson

Review ‚ Social Gerontology: Concepts and Concerns in the US and Europe

– Anne Jamieson (review article)

Forum ‚ For Whom is Europe? A Friendly Reply,

– Henry R. Huttenbach

 

Volume 1, Double issue 1 & 2 (1999)

Social Quality in Europe

This double number regards the introduction of the Journal and the social quality approach. It is a co-production of the Kingston University and the European Foundation on Social Quality. The promotion of the social quality of life for citizens and the social cohesion of communities in the European Union calls for a more inclusive and participatory approach to policy-making. It requires tackling existing social problems such as poverty, unemployment and restricted access to health, education or justice as a part of a broader agenda, and not simply through corrective policies. Papers in this first issue explore how improvement of social quality in Europe and elsewhere depend upon a more inclusive and balanced approach, putting social quality on an equal footing with economic efficiency and progress, and also propose analyses of policies and experiments which have developed new directions in this context.

Editorial

– François Nectoux and Fleur Thomése

Social Quality and the Future of the European Union

– Alan Walker

Social Market, Social Quality, and the Quality of Social Institutions

– Ota de Leonardis

Who is Europe for

– Wolfgang Beck and Laurent J.G. van der Maesen

The Impact of Economic Restructuring on Social Life: Fate or Choice

– Jan Berting and Christiane Villain-Gandossi

Some Conceptual and Operational Considerations on the Social Quality of Europe

– Ivan Svetlik

Social Quality in Everyday Life: Changing European Experiences of Employment, Family and Community

– Sue Yeandle

Social Quality ‚ A New Concern in Hungary

– Zsuzsa Széman

The Third Sector and the Process of Modernisation

– Peter Herrmann

The Significance of Public Transfers for Absorbing Social Shock during Transformation in the New German States

– Thomas Lenk and Volkmar Teichmann

On Politics and Policy of Social Quality

– Göran Therborn

Social Quality of Europe

– Inigo Sagardoy de Simón

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