I
Id - In psychoanalytic theory, the part of the personality that contains the basic instincts, urges, and desires.

Ideology A system of beliefs and values that explains society and prescribes the role of government.

Imbalance between skill supply and demand - a structural factor impacting on unemployment, indicates a mismatch of skills, and that people are unable to take jobs in their geographic area, etc.

Immigrant - A person who comes to settle in Canada as a permanent resident. 

Impacts - The significant consequences of a government program activity, either intended or unintended, and either positive or negative.

Impairment - Any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function.  

Implementation - Putting a plan or program to work.

Inadequate demand - an explanation for unemployment, is based on Keynsian economics.

Incidence - The number of new cases of a condition reported during a given period of time, such as the previous year.

Income maintenance programs - Social welfare services that attempt to ensure adequate financial resources for people.

Income security - is income support in the form of demogrants, social insurance, social assistance, and income supplementation that can be unconditional or based on an income or needs test, or negative income tax.

Income security programs in Canada - Unemployment Insurance, Old Age Security, Social Assistance, G.I.S. (Guaranteed Income Supplement), Worker's Compensation, Child Benefit, Disability, Tax-delivered income security system (E.g., R.R.S.P.).

Income supplementation - are programs that, as the name suggests, supplement income that is obtained elsewhere whether through paid employment or through other income security programs. These programs are not intended to be the primary source of income. Family Allowance (which is also a universal demogrant) and National Child Benefits are income supplementation programs.

Income/leisure choice theory - an explanation of poverty, income differences are due to individual preferences between income and leisure.

Indenture A type of social welfare service formalized by the Elizabethan Poor Law that placed orphans and children who had been removed from needy families in the homes of people who agreed to provide care in return for the child's labor.

Independent variable - The experimental variable that the researcher manipulates.

Indexed benefits - When a program is indexed to inflation, it keeps up with the buying power of the dollar. If a program does not keep up completely with the buying power of the dollar, an income supplement actually decreases over time.

Indian - The term Indian is a generic one, used in much the same way as Native, a means of ”outside-naming”. Used to describe those who are descendants of the first inhabitants of what is now Canada.

Indian Act - Legislation that provides the Government of Canada with the legal framework of authority over Indians and lands reserved for Indians, as stated in the Constitution Act, 1867. The main purpose of the Act is to control and regulate Indian lives. A class of people defined by the Indian Act, referring to the descendants of the first inhabitants of Canada, prior to the arrival of Europeans. An Indian is a person who is registered or entitled to be registered in the Indian Register (a centralized record).

Indicator - A specific quantitative and/or qualitative measurement for each aspect of performance (output or outcome) under consideration.

Indirect social work - work of benefit to those in need, but the work is often with organizations that advocate, research, plan and implement social service and income security programs.  Most often those who do indirect social work will be working with government, social service agencies or what are called advocacy or research groups, and organizations whose purpose is to advocate for and with people in need and conduct research.

Individual Living Movement - a key element in the struggle to achieve human rights legislation for people with disabilities; recognized as the civil rights movement for people with disabilities in Canada and the United States; originated in the United States in the early 1970s, and was introduced into Canada in 1979.

Individualism  - A philosophy of life stressing the priority of individual needs over group needs, a preference for loosely knit social relationships, and a desire to be relatively autonomous of others' influence.

Indoor relief – A type of social welfare service in which services are delivered in a residential facility rather than in the home of the recipient. Non-institutional methods of relief were replaced with institutional ones, such as asylums, poor houses, and houses of industry.  People were forced to work for their relief by the use of a workhouse test This replacement represented a significant change in philosophy of care for people with disabilities, as people with disabilities were no longer considered part of the social order.

Industrial adjustment - an economic factor impacting on unemployment, involves production moving from high-wage countries to low-wage countries, old factories closing and moving to factories with newer technology. This process leaves trails of unemployed people, with technology replacing human labour.

Industrial capitalism - The rise of industrial capitalism is an era important to the development of a modern system of public and private social welfare and social work. Subsistence and barter systems decreased as people entered the labour market in order to survive.

Industrial Revolution The era in which machine power replaced human and animal power in the production process, generally said to have first begun on a large scale in England during the 1600s.

Industrialization - The introduction of the factory system, that is, specialized establishments where there is the centralization of power-driven machinery and where workers gather specifically for the purpose of production. The workers work for wages and do not own the tools of production.

Industrialization and Children as Adults - an historical phase in which children began working in factories. The development of a capitalist economy in England began with weaving factories where the labour force consisted largely of children. Children were not seen as needing special care or nurturing, were largely ignored and severe punishment was acceptable to enforce rules.

Inferential statistics - Mathematical analyses that move beyond mere description of research data to make inferences about the larger population from which the sample was drawn.

Informal helping - When people spontaneously seek help or offer it to others.  It is usually provided by people who do not have any special training as helpers.

Informed consent - A procedure by which people freely choose to participate in a study only after they are told about the activities they will perform.

In-kind services Programs that provide resources people need instead of money with which to purchase them.

Inpatient - One who lives in an institution 24 hours a day, where treatment is provided.

Inputs - Resources (i.e. expenditures or employee time) used to produce outputs and outcomes.

Institut Canadien - Founded in December 1844 in Montreal by young French intellectuals to create a center for French culture and patriotism. It quickly became a political as well as cultural force in francophone areas, they had leftist leanings, and became known as "rouges" for their sometimes radical nature. The Institut died out by 1885.

Institutional racism - Those forces, social arrangements, institutions, structures, policies, precedents and systems of social relations that operate to deprive certain racially identified categories equality .

Institutional view of social welfare - A view that emphasizes the preventive role of social welfare in modern industrial societies. View that the welfare of the individual is the responsibility of the social collective. The market will not, and cannot, meet the needs and aspirations of a people and, therefore, the optimal distribution of welfare can only be achieved by an acknowledgement that there is a significant role for a publicly-funded and organized system of programs and institutions.

Intake - Intake is usually the first step taken by a worker when a client seeks help.  Intake is a process whereby a request for service is made by or for a person and it is then determined whether and what kind of service is to be provided.  The social worker attempts to gather initial information from the client in order to determine what assistance is needed, and whether the agency and worker is the appropriate provider.  

Internal dialogue -The sentences that people tell themselves and the debate that often goes on "inside their head" a form of self-talk, or inner speech.

Internal migration - a structural factor impacting on unemployment, involves people moving from rural to urban areas seeking employment.

International social work  - can refer to comparative social welfare or the examination and comparison of the social welfare systems in different countries (mostly in industrialized economies).  It can also denote the work of social workers working in international organizations such as governmental or voluntary organizations, operating in, or interested in, the social development and welfare field, and to assist in the carrying out of social planning, social development, social action and welfare programs sponsored by such organizations.  Finally, international social work refers to practice in a country other than your own.

Intervention - a step in which a client provides the social worker with information and shares whatever progress has been made in attempting to resolve the problem.

Interventionist Phase of social welfare (1941 to 1974) - A characteristic of the Interventionist Phase (1941 to 1974) was that there was a strong postwar desire for security, due to the atmosphere that surrounded the severe unemployment. People wanted to avoid another depression. Provisions of the Interventionist Phase marked the rise of many of Canada's social welfare programs, such as daycare, the Unemployment Act,

Interviewing - Specialized pattern of communication with specific goals.

Introjection - The uncritical acceptance of others, beliefs and standards without assimilating them into one's own personality.

Inuit - are Aboriginal peoples of Canada that have traditionally used and occupied, and currently use and occupy, the lands and waters of the area ranging from the Yukon and Northwest Territories to northern Quebec and Labrador. They are sometimes refereed to as ‘Eskimo’, which is considered a derogatory term by the Inuit themselves. Politically, the Inuit were never included in the Indian Act, but became a federal responsibility in 1939. In 1972, the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (ITC) was established to preserve their culture.

Investor immigrant - An immigrant who has successfully operated, controlled or directed a business, indicates to the Minister, in writing, that they intend to make an investment or have an investment, and has a net worth, accumulated by their own endeavours, of at least $800,000. 

Involuntarily unemployed A category of need under the Elizabethan Poor Law, comprised of those who had suffered some kind of misfortune.

Involuntary clients - those who accept services because of a legal mandate such as prisoners on parole, or children in care.

Involuntary social work - when a social worker is required by law to assist a child in danger.

Irrational belief - An unreasonable conviction that leads to emotional and behavioural problems.