Deserving and Entitled: Social Constructions and Public Policy. Edited by Anne L. Schneider and Helen M. Ingram. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 416p. $89.50 cloth, $29.95 paper.

Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram have assembled 11 essays by scholars who examine how Americans' understandings of social groups shape both the process and substantive outcomes of policymaking. Explaining how such meanings are made and what they imply proves to be a challenge for the contributors to this edited volume. Because the central concepts here are rather amorphous—group entitlement and deservingness—much room remains for argument about how much of either quality the target groups enjoy. The stated purpose of the book, “to explain, examine, and criticize the social construction of deservedness and entitlement in public policy,” is useful and ambitious (p. 2). Though rich in descriptive content on topics such as Revolutionary War pensions, policies toward Japanese-Americans, housing discrimination law, welfare, and microenterprise development, most of the essays raise many more questions than they answer regarding how socially constructed meanings come to be, how they matter for policy development, and the conditions under which such understandings significantly matter. Examining how public policies enhance or hinder the development of full citizenship is the central question running through these thought-provoking chapters.