Product Description: Contemporary social policy has never been more vigorously contested. Issues range from single-issue campaigns over housing, social care, hospital closures through to organised movements around disability, environment, health and education...read more

Product Description: There are an increasing number of studies devoted to an examination of New Labour's social policies. However, thus far there has been little in the way of substantive discussion of opposition to and conflict around key elements of New Labour's agenda for the welfare state and public sector, from those who are involved in the frontline implementation and delivery of welfare policies...read more

Exploring social policy in the 'new' Scotland is the first book to integrate the description and analysis of social policy in Scotland since devolution in 1999. It has been designed to support the delivery of social policy and related courses in Scotland itself but also to appeal to students on social policy, politics, sociology, public policy and regional studies courses across the United Kingdom, on which devolution and its impact are examined.The contributors are all highly experienced researchers and academics from across the social sciences. The book therefore presents a variety of perspectives and approaches with which to consider the key issues. Up-to-date material on a wide range of social policy topics, including work and welfare, health and social work, criminal justice, education, and urban policy, means that the book will be valuable to academics, researchers, policy makers and practitioners, as well as students.

Product Description: Drawing on a range of theoretical approaches, the authors explore questions that are central to our understanding of how the personal not only is shaped in and through work, but also contributes to social relations at work. Among the issues considered are:that emotional labour is increasingly central to the labour process of welfare work;[vbTab]the changing relationship between ageing, work and personal lives;[vbTab]the ways through which welfare-to-work policies seek to regulate personal lives...read more

`I would encourage undergraduates students to read it, for it does summarise well a classical Marxist analysis of social policy and welfare' - Social Policy The anti-capitalist movement is increasingly challenging the global hegemony of neo-liberalism. The arguments against the neo-liberal agenda are clearly articulated in Rethinking Welfare. The authors highlight the growing inequalities and decimation of state welfare, and use Marxist approaches to contemporary social policy to provide a defence of the welfare state. Divided into three main sections, the first part of this volume looks at the growth of inequality, and social and environmental degradation. Part Two centres on the authors' argument for the relevance of core Marxists concepts in aiding our understanding of social policy. This section includes Marxist approaches to a range of welfare issues, and their implications for studying welfare regimes and practices. Issues covered include: · Class and class struggle · Opression · Alienation and the family The last part of the book explores the question of globalization and the consequences of international neo-liberalism on indebted countries as well as the neo-liberal agenda of the Conservative and New Labour governments in Britain. The authors conclude with the prospect of an alternative welfare future which may form part of the challenge against global neo-liberalism. (view table of contents)

Product Description: For too long the collective struggles of the oppressed over welfare provision and welfare settlement have been ignored, yet such struggles punctuate recent British history. By presenting a series of case-studies of episodes of collective action from the field of social policy and social welfare, Class Struggle and Welfare aims to rediscover this 'hidden history'...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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An intermediate reader for students of English as a second language, featuring anecdotes, riddles, and jokes, accompanied by exercises and activities.