In defence of care: The importance of care as a positive concept

Abstract

This article is about the implications of the different uses of the concept of care in the research and debate on home care. It can be read as a comment on the British debate, seen with Norwegian eyes, and from a starting point where care is a positively loaded concept. The article begins with a definition of care, in order to try to identify some core elements, and then proceeds to examine two main lines of attack on care in the British debate. A distinction between care as an ideal and as practice is introduced, and the article tries to demonstrate how the outcome of caring can be seen as a result both of political attitudes and of different forms of organisation. The article concludes by discussing why we need to save ‘care’ as a positive concept in the evaluation of formal systems providing care as a social service.

Citation

Rønning, R. (2002), "In defence of care: The importance of care as a positive concept", Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 34-43. https://doi.org/10.1108/14717794200200025