Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Community care has long been the preferred policy for caring for dependent people. This book, first published in 1988, challenges accepted ideas about community care, arguing that it is based on assumptions about an 'ideal model' of family life which in practice disadvantages both disabled and older people and women carers alike.

New to this Edition:
- Takes full account of major developments in community care since 1988
- Draws on an eclectic range of feminist, historical and ethnographic sources
- Proposes alternative and collective approaches to caring

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Dalley is a development worker at the Kings Fund Centre for Health Services Development, London. She argues that the current policies and allocation of resources in community care of the young, sick, and disabled are based upon an ideology that assumes the primacy of family, and the "traditional role" of women within it. She traces the history of "familism" and of the ideology of possessive individualism in Western thought. This she contrasts with ideologies of collectivism as a structural principle and moral concept. Dalley provides a challenging feminist critique of prevailing attitudes toward care. The final chapters include the outline of an alternative model of genuinely collective care. Dalley's bibliography covers a range of sources from Britain and the US. Subject and name index, but no illustrations, figures, or tables. The book is physically well produced. A useful addition to collections in social work, health sciences, sociology, public policy, history, and women's studies.