This up-to-date and accessible text fills an important gap in the market by introducing students to social policy perspectives on social problems.

• Written in an accessible, student-friendly style, using subheadings, boxed material, tables, and up-to-date examples
• Each chapter includes a brief outline of the issues to be explored and question sections to help learning, develop evaluative skills and encourage project work
• Includes an annotated guide to further reading, helpful internet addresses, and a bibliography of sources cited
• Chapters can be used independently or in conjunction with others addressing related questions

Margaret May is one of the editors of The Student's Companion to Social Policy (1997) and of the forthcoming Blackwell Dictionary of Social Policy (2001).

Edward Brunsdon's publications include contributing to and editing The Social Policy Review (1996-1998) and studies of private welfare (in R Page & S Silburn (eds) British Social Welfare in the Twentieth Century (1999) and welfare management (in S Horton & R Farnham (eds.) Public Management in Britain (1999).

Edward Brunsdon and Margaret May are Principal Lecturers in Social Policy in the Department of Sociology and Applied Social Studies at London Guildhall University.

Robert Page is currently a Reader in Social Policy at the University of Leicester. He is the author of Stigma (1984) and Altruism and the Welfare State (1996). He is the co-editor (with Vic George) of Modern Thinkers on Welfare (1995) and (with Richard Silburn) of British Social Welfare in the 20th Century (1999).