Joel Blau

Joel Blau, D.S.W.
Professor of Social Policy
Director of the Ph.D. Program
Phone: (631) 444-3149
Email: joel.blau@stonybrook.edu

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EDUCATION

D.S.W., Columbia University
M.S.W., Hunter School of Social Welfare (Community Organizing)
A.B., Columbia University

AREAS OF INTEREST

History of social welfare, poverty, homelessness, the political economy of social welfare, and comparative social welfare, as well as the major U.S. social programs for food, income supports,  health care, housing, and employment policy

Dr. Joel Blau has taught at Stony Brook School of Social Welfare since 1987. He received his D.S.W. from Columbia (1987), his MSW in Community Organizing from Hunter School of Social Welfare (1978), and his A.B from Columbia University (1966). He is the author (with Mimi Abramovitz) of the social welfare policy textbook, The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy (Oxford University Press, Third Edition, 2010), as well as Illusions of Prosperity: America's Working Families in an Age of Economic Insecurity (Oxford University Press, 1999), and The Visible Poor: Homeless in the United State (Oxford University Press, 1992). Choice designated The Visible Poor as one of the outstanding academic books of  1992; it was also chosen by World Hunger Year as one of the one hundred most significant books on homelessness and poverty.

Dr. Blau's academic interests range across the field of social welfare policy. They include the history of social welfare, poverty, homelessness, the political economy of social welfare, and comparative social welfare, as well as the major U.S. social programs for food, income supports,  health care, housing, and employment policy. His courses at the  School of Social Welfare reflect these interests: he teaches the undergraduate course on the political economy of social welfare; a course on homelessness for both BSW and MSW students; the year-long MSW policy course; and both social welfare policy seminars in the doctoral program. He has also sponsored or served as a committee member on more than a dozen dissertations.

Currently, in addition to drafting an entry on the history of federal public provision for the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Political and Legal History, he is also writing a chapter of the role of social welfare in the economy (Sage Press) and editing the late Christopher Dykema's professional memoir about his forty years in social work. Every three years, he devotes one year to preparation of a new edition of his policy textbook, The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy.

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