Patricia Kennedy is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy in the School of Applied Social Science at University College Dublin, Ireland. She has taught social policy since 1993 and co-founded the Irish Social Policy Association in 1997.

Key Themes in Social Policy provides an accessible and authoritative introduction to over 100 key concepts used in social policy, from autonomy to wellbeing.

Introduction 1. Active Welfare 2. Agency 3. Altruism 4. Assistance Payments 5. Asylum Seeker 6. Autonomy 7. Basic Income 8. Benefit 9. Beveridgian Welfare 10. Bismarckian Model 11. Black Economy 12. Body 13. Bureaucracy 14. Capabilities 15. Capitalism 16. Categorical Benefits 17. Child Allowances 18. Citizenship 19. Class 20. Claw Back 21. Collectivism 22. Commodification and De-Commodification 23. Communitarian 24. Community 25. Comparative Social Policy 26. Conditionality 27. Corporatism 28. Crisis of Welfare 29. Critical Junctures 30. Democracy 31. Dependency 32. Deserving/ Undeserving 33. Disability 34. Discretion 35. Discrimination 36. Diswelfares 37. Division of Labour 38. Earnings 39. Eligibility 40. Employment 41. Entitlement 42. Environmentalism 43. Equality 44. Ethnicity 45. Fabianism 46. Families of Nations 47. Family 48. Feminism 49. Fiscal Welfare 50. Functioning 51. Flexicurity 52. Gender 53. Globalisation 54. Global Social Policy 55. Health 56. Household 57. Human Capital 58. Human Trafficking 59. Ideology 60. Individualism 61. Individualisation 62. Keynesianism 63. Labour 64. Liberal 65. Liberty 66. Lone Parents 67. Male Breadwinner 68. Maternity 69. Marxism 70. Masculinities 71. Means Test 72. Migration 73. Mixed Economy of Welfare 74. Models of Welfare 75. Need 76. New Social Movements 77. Occupational Welfare 78. Path Dependency 79. Patriarchy 80. Poverty 81. Power 82. Power Resources 83. Public Policy 84. Quality Of Life 85. Race 86. Rationing 87. Redistribution 88. Resilience 89. Risk 90. Selectivity 91. Sexuality 92. Social Administration 93. Social Assistance 94. Social Divisions 95. Social Exclusion 96. Social Insurance 97. Social Justice 98. Social Policy 99. Social Quality 100. Sustainable Development 101. Stigma 102. Stratification 103. Theory 104. Universalism 105. Wages 106. Welfare / Well Being 107. Welfare Regimes 108. Welfare State 109. Work-Life Balance