在英國，社會政策於二次世界戰後始成爲一項學術研究的領 域。本文首先探究英國社會政策研究的發展方法，揭露它如何在社 會政策方面發現一個更具理論和比較性的方式；以及對社會政策漸 趨困厄的政經環境中如何獲得調適。本文亦將描述英國社會政策本 身轉變的方式，以及思考未來可能有問題的部份。接著將嘗試描述 提出更一般性的議題，即關於世界社會政策的未來方向，特別是台 灣。最後，本文認爲一個有關敎授和研究社會政策的新學術社區， 在經濟發展對社會影響之各種公共政策的研究上，須確信能使本身 在這方面有重大的貢獻。

Social policy as a field of academic study was developed in Britain in the years after the Second World War. This article first explores the way the study of social policy developed in Britain, showing how it discovered a need to have a more theoretical and a more comparative approach and to come to terms with the increasingly difficult political and economic environment for social policy. It goes on to outline the way in which British social policy itself has changed and to consider the problematical elements in its future. It then tries to draw some more general lessons about future directions for social policy throughout the world, and in Taiwan in particular. It ends by arguing that an emergent academic community concerned to teach about and research social policy needs to establish itself as able to make a major contribution to the study of the very wide spectrum of public policies concerned with regulating the impact of economic developments on society.