University of Chicago Press: New Titles from 'Policy Press at the University of Bristol'

Family Troubles?

Jane Ribbens McCarthy; Carol-Ann Hooper; Val Gillies — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

As the everyday lives of children and young people are increasingly understood as matters of public policy and concern, the question of how we can understand the difference between "normal" family troubles and troubled or troubling families has become more important. In this timely and thought-provoking book, a wide range of contributors address topics such as infant care, sibling conflict, divorce, disability, illness, substance abuse, violence, kinship care, and forced marriage, in an effort to explore how the concept of trouble features in normal families and how the concept of normal features in troubled families.

Politics of Civil Society

Fred Powell — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

In this fully revised edition of his groundbreaking book, Fred Powell looks behind “the mirror of power” to discover the real civil society—or Big Society—that lies beneath it. Articulating three forms of civil society—radical, liberal, and conservative—he examines a complex interplay between state and community, arguing that citizens contend for power via civil society. This is both a historic pursuit dating to antiquity and a contemporary democratic struggle between competing visions of modernity, the stakes of which are no less than “real” politics themselves as experienced by everyday citizens. The second edition includes a new concluding chapter on practical and policy implications.

How Europe Shapes British Public Policy

Janice Morphet — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

How Europe Shapes British Public Policy examines how the European Union became a sectarian issue for citizens of the UK. It analyzes the effects of EU membership in the shaping of key areas, including trade and privatization, the single market, the environment, and the development and implementation of a devolved and decentralized governance. Discussing the ways UK citizens have grown politically disengaged as a result of EU political practices and policy making, it goes on to examine the implications this has had for the depoliticization of government and civil services.

Reclaiming Individualism

Paul Spicker — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Reclaiming Individualism reviews the scope of individualist approaches to public policy, considering how they shape contemporary policy practices. It argues for a concept of individualism based on rights, human dignity, shared interests, and social protection, providing a thorough analysis and classification of individualism as applied to social and public policy. An important resource for those working or studying in these fields, it is a powerful restatement of some of the key values that led to the establishment of individualism as such a strong social force.

Collaborating Planner?

Ben Clifford; Mark Tewdwr-Jones — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This book aims to understand how both specific planning and broader public sector reforms have been experienced and understood by chartered town planners working at local levels of authority across Great Britain. Each chapter outlines the reaction by professionals to reforms promoted by successive central and devolved governments over the last decade, before considering the broader issues of what this tells us about how modernization is rolled out by frontline public servants. This book fills a glaring gap in scholarship and makes ideal reading for students and researchers interested in the UK planning system.

Building the Client's Relational Base

Mark Furlong — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This book makes a challenging—but hopeful—argument for anyone with a client relationship: sustainable and accountable interpersonal relationships are a precondition for health and well-being. It argues that there are always opportunities to deepen the quality and range of the client connection. Compellingly written, it brings a host of case studies to life, weaving insights from critical theory and social epidemiology into explorations of the practical actions that any professional committed to strengthening the relational base of their clients can take.

Champions for Children

Bob Holman — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Many books have been written about Victorian child-care pioneers, but few biographical studies have been published about recent innovators in this crucial field. In the revised edition of this classic book, Bob Holman looks at the lives of six inspirational individuals who made significant contributions to the well-being of disadvantaged children over the course of the twentieth century. Providing an engaging account of his own life—which has been dedicated to improving the lives of children—he makes recommendations for policy and services geared toward tackling family and child poverty.

Child Protection

Siobhan E. Laird — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

As they intervene in families to reduce the risk of harm to children, child-protection social workers are confronting increasingly high levels of hostility and aggression from some parents. Child Protection details applied theories of aggression in conjunction with the skills required for dealing with anger, conflict, and aggressive acts. Employing tools and reflective exercises to assist the application of theory to day-to-day child-protection practice, this indispensable and practical text is ideal for social work students, practitioners, and academics specializing in child protection.

Education Debate

Stephen J. Ball — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

In this fully updated edition of The Education Debate, Stephen J. Ball guides us through a flood of government initiatives and policies concerning education over the past twenty years, showing how these policy interventions have changed the landscape and meaning of education, turned children into learners and parents into consumers, and played their part in the reformation of contemporary governance. Analyzing current policies and ideas around education from a sociological approach, he addresses issues of class, choice, globalization, race, and citizenship. The book will interest student teachers, other students of politics and social policy courses, and the general reader who wants to go beyond the simplistic analyses of newspapers.

Democracy under Attack

Malcolm Dean — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The ongoing News International phonehacking scandal has made abundantly clear that the media’s influence over politics is both immense and largely hidden from public scrutiny. As the scandal grows, a question arises: even when they stay on the right side of the law, to what extent do the media influence the political process? In Democracy under Attack, one of the media’s own—Malcolm Dean, the Guardian’s long-standing chief monitor of social policy—expertly indicts his fellow journalists, revealing the ways their distorted coverage undermines democracy.

Based on four decades of upperlevel UK government briefings and interviews with over one hundred senior policy makers, Democracy under Attack overflows with incisive observations and colorful stories, culminating in a damning list of the seven deadly sins of modern journalists. Dean’s long experience and insider status inform his detailed and disturbing account of news production in Britain, revealing the connections between what goes on in newsrooms, lobbyists’ offices, and Parliament as well as how those connections decisively shape government policy.

Managing Community Practice

Sarah Banks; Hugh Butcher; Andrew Orton; Jim Robertson — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The first edition of this book discussed the meaning, principles, and methods of managing community practice, focusing on the role and skills needed by managers. Since the first edition, there has been an increase in the structured involvement of communities in developing, delivering, and evaluating public policies and projects. This new edition updates all the chapters to address these recent developments and provides new case examples. It also includes new chapters on the manager’s role in community research and key challenges for the future.

Practical Social Pedagogy

Jan Storø — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

In Practical Social Pedagogy, Jan Storø shows the reader how the theories and practices of social pedagogy work together. He combines social pedagogy theories, psychology, sociology, and social work with a social constructionist perspective to help practitioners guide children and young people to cope better with the challenges they face as they grow up. Using many practical examples, he emphasizes the crucial meeting between practitioner and client as the space where the actualities of practice are determined.

Hidden Stories of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry

Richard Stone — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Young people who come into contact with police officers on the streets of Britain today have little idea of the significance of the stabbing death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. Only their parents or grandparents remember the daily news stories for several months following the stabbing of police incompetence and racism. This unique book reminds us of the importance of the Stephen Lawrence case, providing an insider’s view of the inquiry into his murder.

Presenting never-before-seen information about the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, panel member Richard Stone helps explain why it has not brought sufficient results, and why it has failed to change institutional racism. Using the case as a springboard, he discusses wider contemporary issues—such as policing practices and double-jeopardy rulings—and the lessons we can learn from the many details of the case that have otherwise been buried. Hardhitting and full of insights, this book makes essential reading for academics, students, researchers, and anyone interested in crime, police, and institutional racism.

Young Muslims, Pedagogy and Islam

M. G. Khan — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Written by a leading practitioner and academic in the field of youth and community work, this multidisciplinary book approaches the lives of Muslim young people from theoretical, social, and theological viewpoints. M. G. Khan moves beyond notions of gendered provision and confessional activity to ask what defines a Muslim pedagogy. He presents a theoretical frame for Muslim youth work that is accessible to informal educators and Muslims alike, providing insight and analysis of nuances that are only possible from on-the-ground engagement.

Short Guide to Working with Children and Young People

Liesl Conradie; Tyrrell Golding — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Childhood and youth have become increasingly important topics across a range of disciplines, professions, and studies, and The Short Guide to Working with Children and Young People is an accessible introduction to the main concepts and policies surrounding them. Surveying the key theoretical perspectives of child and youth studies, it prepares readers with new ways of thinking about working with children and young people. Clear, concise, and accessible, it allows students to make more informed choices about their career pathways.

Unequal Health

Danny Dorling — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Health inequalities are the most important inequalities of all, and in the United States and United Kingdom they have reached a formidable size. In this new book from provocative critic Daniel Dorling, health inequalities are held up as the scandal of our times. While health is generally better now than it was a century ago, the gaps in life expectancy between regions, cities—even neighborhoods—have surpassed the worst measures recorded over the past century. Drawing on international studies, annotated lectures, newspaper articles, and interviews, Dorling provides an authoritative critique of this egregious social problem, calling for immediate action against an injustice that any leading nation should be ashamed to allow.

Rethinking Community Practice

Gabriel Chanan; Colin Miller — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Combining a reexamination of theory with practical tools and approaches, Rethinking Community Practice provides a new framework for community involvement strategies. Gabriel Chanan and Colin Miller show how this innovative but still amorphous movement can become more coherent, both on the ground and in public policy, by reforming community development, building neighborhood partnerships, measuring outcomes objectively, and synthesizing the best innovations of the past three decades. This is an important new perspective for local public service agencies, practitioners working in communities, and academics and students concerned with these fields.

Residential Child Care in Practice

Leon Fulcher; Peter Doran; Mark Smith — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Written by experienced practitioners and academics, this book surveys the practice of residential child care. It takes as its starting point the fact residential child care requires workers and children to share a common life-space in which the quality of interpersonal relationships is crucial. Each chapter presents practice scenarios that highlight relevant policies and allow for the discussion of knowledge, skills, and values. Residential Child Care in Practice will appeal to child- and youth-care students, teachers, and practitioners, while also making valuable contributions to the emerging literature around social pedagogy.

SPSS Step by Step

Cole Davis — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

SPSS Step by Step is a concise overview for beginning and intermediate statistical test users. Clearly written—and without relying on mathematical formulas—it covers topics such as qualitative data analysis, multiple regression, survival analysis, and factor analysis. A logically ordered guide to analyzing everyday problems, it will prove invaluable for undergraduate and postgraduate students and academics undertaking or teaching research and will also be of interest to professionals in social work, criminal justice, health, and education.

School Admissions and Accountability

Mike Feintuck; Roz Stevens — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The processes for allocating places at secondary schools in England are always controversial. School Admissions and Accountability addresses issues relevant to school admissions over the past sixty years, exploring three primary ways it has been done: planning via local authorities, quasi-market mechanisms, and random allocation. Each approach is assessed on its own terms, but also examined via constitutional and legal analysis. The book shows how repeated failure to identify and pursue specific values for school admissions underlies questions regarding the fairness of the process. Interdisciplinary in approach, it makes the issue of school admissions relevant and accessible to a wide readership in education, social policy, and sociolegal studies.?

Social Workers Affecting Social Policy

John Gal; Idit Weiss-Gal — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Social Workers Affecting Social Policy is the first book to undertake a cross-national study of social worker engagement in social-policy formulation processes. At its core, it asks how social workers influence social policy in various national settings. It offers insights into social worker involvement in policy change, the social work discourse, and education in different countries. It will be of interest to social work practitioners, students, educators, and researchers, as well as to social-policy scholars.

Better Health in Harder Times

Jan Walmsley; Celia Davies; Mike Hales; Ray Flux — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

In the wake of current public services turmoil, this book reexamines the collective compact that created the UK’s public health services in the 1940s. Drawing on testimony from service users and service providers, the contributors explore topics such as new ways of living and working with long-term health conditions, meaningful and effective approaches to service redesign, use of information technology, leadership, coproduction, and quality of service. Better Health in Harder Times is a book composed of short, accessible contributions that will be of interest to a wide range of social-policy readers.

Adolescent-to-Parent Abuse

Amanda Holt — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

This is the first academic book to focus on adolescent-to-parent abuse. It discusses what we know about parents’ experiences of this type of abuse and critically examines how it has been explained from psychological, sociological, and sociocultural perspectives. It also outlines how policy makers and practitioners can usefully respond to the problem. Written in an accessible style, Adolescent-to-Parent Abuse is an essential tool for academics, policy makers, and professionals with an interest in domestic violence and child protection.

Children and Young People's Cultural Worlds

Sara Bragg; Mary Jane Kehily — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Growing up in an increasingly media-saturated, commercial, and globalized world, children and young people in contemporary society encounter and must creatively adapt to a range of cultural phenomena. Offering a critical introduction to childhood in the digital age, Children and Young People’s Cultural Worlds challenges common concepts and concerns about childhood innocence held by many adults. It examines the diversity of childhood experiences and relationships—the distinctiveness of children’s worlds—and explores topics such as the consequences of age and the experience of living in different cultural contexts.

Utilizing contributions from scholars in a variety of different fields, it is interdisciplinary and international in scope. Including resources for teachers and students such as learning outcomes, activities, and additional readings and commentary, this well-written and beautifully presented book will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in new perspectives on childhood in the digital age.

Mixed Communities

Gary Bridge; Tim Butler; Loretta Lees — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Encouraging social and class diversity in neighborhoods has been a major goal of urban policy and planning in a number of different countries. Mixed Communities draws together case studies by a range of international experts to assess the impacts of social mix policies and the degree to which they might represent stealth gentrification, as well as their relationship to wider social, economic, and urban change. From the perspectives of researchers, policy makers and planners, and the residents of the communities themselves, this volume draws on lessons from international comparisons.

People-Centred Public Health

Jane South; Judy White; Mark Gamsu — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

People-Centred Public Health examines how members of the public can be involved in delivering health improvement through volunteering. Drawing on a study of lay engagement in public health and using case studies and real-life examples, this timely book provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of policy, practice, and research in this area. In an economic and political climate where there is renewed interest in the role of the citizen, the authors challenge old orthodoxies in public health and build a coherent argument for radical change in the way public agencies support lay action.

Poverty and Insecurity

Tracy Shildrick; Robert MacDonald; Colin Webster; Kayleigh Garthwaite — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Poverty and Insecurity is the first book to examine the relationship between social exclusion, poverty, and the labor market. It challenges long-standing and dominant myths about the unemployed and the poor by exploring their lived realities. Work may be the best route out of poverty, but for many people employment does not solve recurrent poverty, with many individuals trapped in a low-pay, no-pay cycle between lowwage jobs and unemployment. Based on unique qualitative and longitudinal research, the book shows how poverty and insecurity have now become the defining features of working life for many.

Youth Participation in Europe

Patricia Loncle; Morena Cuconato; Virginie Muniglia; Andreas Walther — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

In a period when social unrest and youth dissatisfaction has manifested itself through highly public protests, the question of youth participation in democratic societies is at the forefront. This book offers a fresh look at youth participation, examining official and unofficial constructions of participation by young people in a range of sociopolitical domains. It explores the motivations and rationales underlying official attempts to increase participation among young people and offers a critique of those various efforts’ effectiveness. Based on original research data from a significant study, it provides a thorough analysis of an important sector of democratic societies.

Understanding Childhood

Mary Jane Kehily — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Nationally and globally, childhood has become a crucial topic of sociopolitical debates and policy initiatives. Understanding Childhood offers a fresh look at how childhood has changed in recent years. It reveals how children’s needs and experiences have achieved a new visibility in wider social and political discourse.

Despite the privileges afforded to children in the West, the typical childhood experience there is no longer seen as an ideal model for other parts of the globe. Recent reports and policy concerns suggest that growing up in the West may be marked by the commercialization of childhood, which can lead to unhappiness, poor health, loss of innocence, and a general lack of well-being. The contributors here introduce readers to the cross-disciplinary field of childhood studies and offer an exciting and unique exploration of childhood as a concept, in the process engaging with a range of contemporary issues that shape our ideas of childhood both as an ideal and as a lived experience. Exploring childhood from a variety of research perspectives and traditions, Understanding Childhood also serves as a powerful introduction to careers in childhood service.

Work, Health and Wellbeing

Sarah Vickerstaff; Chris Phillipson; Ross Wilkie — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

The relationship between health and work is widely recognized as complex and multifaceted. In the context of an aging population, our ability to enable individuals with health issues to continue working is becoming more critical. Addressing these current policy concerns, Work, Health and Wellbeing brings together new, original research from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to investigate how we can define and act on a biopsychosocial model of ill health to improve work participation in middle and later life.

Social Work and Social Theory

Paul Michael Garrett — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

In order to work effectively, social workers need to understand theoretical concepts and develop critical theory. In Social Work and Social Theory, Paul Michael Garrett seeks to bring the profession into dialogue with the anticapitalist movement and encourages a new engagement with theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu, and Nancy Fraser. It provides an accessible and exhilarating introduction for practitioners, students, and social work academics interested in social theory and critical social policy. It will be a vital resource aiding anyone intent on creating a more radical social work and a useful teaching tool to spark lively classroom discussion.

Squeezed Middle

Sophia Parker — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

The issue of living standards is arguably the biggest challenge facing economists and politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom today. The product of a year-long fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, The Squeezed Middle brings together leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US experience of stagnating wages and rising living costs.

American workers have not benefited from growth for an entire generation: adjusting for inflation, the average American worker today earns as much as the average American worker did in 1975. During the last decade British workers have had a similar experience—they can no longer assume that when the economy grows their wages will grow with it. With contributions from a number of leading economic and policy thinkers, this collection analyzes the impact of different policies on those with low to middle incomes and explains what lessons the UK can learn from America’s so-called lost generation. A timely and crucial book, it is essential reading for anyone concerned about the living standards crisis and will have great relevance to policy makers and researchers in the UK, United States, and beyond.