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A constructionist approach to the study of social problems and housing policy provides a theoretically informed means of analysing the ways in which housing policy is formulated and implemented. Yet despite a strong commitment by housing researchers to policy relevance, constructionist studies of how specific social problems are generated and deployed have so far made only a limited impact on housing research. The paper addresses this lacuna by first discussing important literature and the key conceptual issues in this field of study. This is followed by a discussion of two examples from recent UK housing policy (the shift in the 1980s from defining lone mothers as the victims of housing shortages to a morally questionable group subverting needs-based allocation policies and the re-emergence of anti-social behaviour as a problem on housing estates). The paper's conclusion is that the 'construction of problems' provides a rich source of new material as well as offering significant opportunities to develop a more critically informed housing research agenda.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Human Society
Research Group:	Sociology
Research Field:	Urban sociology and community studies
Objective Division:	Indigenous
Objective Group:	Pacific Peoples community services
Objective Field:	Pacific Peoples community services not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Jacobs, KA (Professor Keith Jacobs)
ID Code:	26656
Year Published:	2003
Web of Science® Times Cited:	75
Deposited By:	Sociology and Social Work
Deposited On:	2003-08-01
Last Modified:	2010-06-18
Downloads:	1 View Download Statistics