Product Description: The greatest problems facing humanity today are climate change, poverty, and the increasing separation between the rich and poor. The aim of this book is to examine the social constructions that have led to these breakdowns, and provide potential solutions that are based on a fundamental change in the structure of society and the values on which a new and better social system can be built...read more

Product Description: The search for ‘the Decent Society’ – a fit place in which to live – has informed policy at both governmental and international level. This book analyses its nature and devises a consistent way of measuring the concept world-wide on the basis of a coherent theory of agency within social structure...read more

An understanding of social policy is vital for engaging practically with social work values, and dealing with political and ethical questions about responsibility, rights and our understanding of ‘the good society’. This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to social policy, tailored to the needs of a social work audience. The new edition of this popular and accessible text analyses current policies and policy themes relevant to social work, and locates them in the context of fundamental social policy principles and debates. It discusses the nature of social policy and its relationship to social work, and covers essential themes such as: - service user participation and involvement - the balance between individual, societal and state responsibility for people’s wellbeing - the interactions of the state, the private sector, voluntary organisations and the family - the relationships between needs, rights and choices - the purposes and challenges of professional social work - the meanings of ‘equality’, ‘prevention’ and ‘personalisation’. Each chapter ends with activities for reflection and analysis, and suggestions for further reading. Social Work and Social Policy is invaluable for students undertaking social work qualifying courses, all of whom are required to demonstrate an understanding of the social policy contexts of practice.

Product Description: Creating and Contesting Social Inequalities: Contemporary Readings offers readings on a variety of topics, with a focus on the "how" of inequality. Rather than structuring the book topically, editors Carissa M. Froyum, Katrina Bloch, and Tiffany Taylor have organized the readings around social processes that reproduce and maintain inequality...read more

Product Description: Social policy is central to social work practice. This textbook is designed to help students, practitioners and academics think critically about the relationship between policy and practice; particularly in how policy both structures and informs practice...read more

Product Description: Ageing populations are a major consideration for socio-economic development in the early twenty-first century. This demographic change is mainly seen as a threat rather than as an opportunity to improve the quality of human life, especially in Europe, where ageing has resulted in a reduction in economic competitiveness...read more

Product Description: Social quality thinking emerged from a critique of one-sided policies by breaking through the limitations previously set by purely economistic paradigms. By tracing its expansion and presenting different aspects of social quality theory, this volume provides an overview of a more nuanced approach,  which assesses societal progress and introduces proposals that are relevant for policy making...read more

Product Description: Development in Crisis: Threats to human well-being in the Global South and Global North, is a provocative, engaging and interesting collection of real-world case studies in development and globalization focusing on under-emphasized threats to growth and human welfare worldwide...read more

Product Description: The notion of social harm is currently being explored as an alternative field of study within criminology, but the definition of social harm, the question of responsibility, and the methodologies for studying harm remain undeveloped...read more

Product Description: How do you gauge the accomplishments of policy and its failures? While a number of nations are successful in optimizing a socio-economic welfare function, others are woefully falling short of the optimal frontier. Diagnostics for a Globalized World proposes a reformulation of the inherited theory of economic and social policy (codified in the 1950s by Jan Tinbergen) to find a diagnostic tool in measuring the effectiveness of economic and social policy...read more

Product Description: The welfare state plays a key role in people’s everyday lives in developed societies. At the same time, the welfare state is contested and there are constant discussions on how and to what degree the state should intervene, influence and have an impact on the development of society...read more