SW 475: Integration Seminar
Final Paper Alternative Assignment: Part A
A Day in the Life of a Welfare Office: Using Lipsky’s Concept of Street Level Bureaucracy to Critically Examine Service Quality
Length: 4-6 double spaced pages (Please answer ALL questions thoroughly)
All documents/files related to this assignment as well as class materials/readings are all attached below.
Suggestion: Take a look at the Word Document (in module 13) “Welfare Documentary: Viewers Guide” in preparation for viewing Wiseman’s documentary video “Welfare” (File attached below) and considering the questions for this assignment.
Address the following questions:
(about 1 page) What is a Street Level Bureaucrat? According to Lipsky, why are they important? That is: what makes them sort of a de facto Policy Maker at certain moments in time when they are doing their jobs—how are they consequential to an ordinary citizen interacting with the State (government)?
1. Consider explaining your answer by using an example of typical Street Level Bureaucrat, like a police officer, social worker, teacher or a nurse.
- (about 1 page) Lipsky claims that Street Level Bureaucrats have more discretion and autonomy when they do their jobs than we often realize.
1. What does he mean by this? What is it about the nature of their work that gives them a considerable amount of leeway in how they perform their tasks?
2. Do you agree with Lipsky about this? Consider your placement or any social work job you may be familiar with: do you feel like you have the kind of discretion and autonomy that Lipsky claims Street Level Bureaucrats have? Explain your answer.
- (about 1-2 pages) Watch Fredrick Wiseman’s film “Welfare” and focus in on one or two of the vignettes that he presents (i.e. the stories of clients working their way through their visit to the office). Lipsky argues that there are four problematic conditions of work in Street Level Bureaucracies that often undermine the ability of front line workers to realize their natural aspirations to “do good” in their work.
1. What are these four conditions?
2. Drawing from Wiseman’s documentary film, illustrate at least two of these conditions that you find present in the Welfare Office depicted in the film. For each condition you list, explain why you’ve chosen it (why it matters).
- (about 1-2 pages) Lipsky argues that the way workers respond to the difficult and frustrating conditions of their work is often by redefining their notion of their jobs, their notions of the clients they serve and the way they ration their services (i.e. the worker’s own time, their level of effort and the resources they distribute) in problematic and often unfair ways.
1. Give at least two examples of one or more of these problematic responses that you see in the film. Explain why you selected each example (i.e. why you found it compelling).
What about your example is problematic from the point of view of Social Justice?