Research
You will find a complete range of our peer-reviewed monographs, multi-authored and edited works, including original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
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Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Older adults’ civic engagement has become a key concern in academic and policy debates in recent years. However, existing studies on this topic remain fragmented across various conceptual and methodological approaches.
This book provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and multidimensional perspective on older adults’ civic engagement. It proposes a conceptual framework which understands civic engagement as a multidimensional concept encompassing a diversity of activities through which older adults contribute to their communities and wider society. Contributors explore the factors shaping older adults’ participation in various civic activities across the life course, considering their diversity in terms of social locations such as gender, health status, migrant background, socioeconomic background and residential arrangements.
By analysing past and current research, policy and practice, the book offers recommendations for future efforts to advance the field.
Vulnerability theory offers an alternative to social-contract and rights-based paradigms. Beginning with the corporeal body, the theory argues we are inevitably and constantly dependent on social institutions that are generated (and ideally monitored) through law. Accordingly, vulnerability theory argues for a state attentive to the needs of the universally ‘vulnerable subject’.
Based on lectures at Trinity College Dublin that focused on four foundational concepts, this book highlights how vulnerability theory differs from individualistic liberal frameworks.
Calling for a reorientation of law toward a collective responsibility-based approach, it is essential reading for anyone interested in political theory, social justice, and sociolegal scholarship.
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Based on in-depth fieldwork with Belgian children aged 10 to 16, this book examines how children in shared physical custody define and negotiate their place within the household of each parent.
The authors analyse how family practices within and between each dwelling shape children’s sense home, and the strategies and skills children develop to manage and position themselves in these different environments.
Challenging common stereotypes and giving voice to children in shared custody, the book provides valuable insights for practitioners and scholars to better understand and support children and their parents.
Practitioners and managers in child protection often struggle to focus on the needs of children and families in the face of ever-expanding bureaucracy.
This book brings together authors from across Europe to explore the strategies and solutions that promote doing things right by those in need rather than to the letter of procedure. It argues that more flexible, community/relationship/partnership-based approaches are required to meet the needs of parents and children experiencing difficulties and risk of harm.
Essential reading for academics, practitioners, managers and policy makers in social work and child welfare, it contributes to the development of reflective thinking and spotlights the potential of co-production and co-creation.
This edited collection brings together a range of experts on surrogacy, at a time when the law in the UK has been fully reconsidered for the first time in generations.
Society has developed significantly since surrogacy laws were first written and the existing law is out of date and no longer fit for purpose. Each chapter in this collection considers one aspect of surrogacy regulation and analyses the potential effectiveness of proposed reforms or suggests what changes should be made based on experience in other jurisdictions.
This is an unprecedented contribution to the public and regulatory debate on surrogacy.
Generation Z has grown up with a global financial crisis, a pandemic, the climate emergency, growing autocracy and wars. Survival, not just equity, is at stake.
As debate rages about how to ensure a fairer and sustainable society, this book challenges short-sighted economic policies, asking where we want to be in 20 years’ time and how we might get there.
Offering fresh, and sometimes counter intuitive, thinking on a range of economic issues including monetary policy, housing and university funding, it argues in favour of policy guardrails to protect the future, higher interest rates, and a burst of inflation. Robots and AI should be seen as positive replacements for population growth.
This is an original, readable and entertaining take on how we can change course before it is too late.
How can we help children make a difference, allowing them to shape their communities, locally and globally? Drawing on a rich blend of academic research and case studies, Alison Body critically examines societal structures, including education, communities and cultural narratives, that shape children's understanding of active, philanthropic citizenship.
Children as Change-Makers calls for a reimagining of philanthropy as a form of participatory citizenship, advocating for a philanthropic ecosystem framed by justice, solidarity and collective action. It serves as a roadmap for all stakeholders – from individuals to institutions – to empower children as agents of positive social change, fostering a more just world for generations to come.
In the 21st century, global demographics are rapidly changing, with a higher population of middle-aged people than ever before. As the ‘sandwich’ generation, people in midlife often experience significant work and intergenerational caring responsibilities, yet they are the subject of relatively little research.
This short, accessible book redresses the balance in offering a geographical approach to how people embody and claim space in midlife while analysing the influences of gender, class and location. The author considers midlife in varying socio-cultural and geographical contexts, viewed through the lens of the global neoliberal shift.
Literature on sex, intimacy and sexuality in later life has been heavily influenced by perspectives from more affluent regions, perpetuating the belief that the West is more sexually progressive and liberal than other cultures.
This book challenges this belief by exploring diverse cultures and perspectives from the majority world, which are often overlooked. It highlights the importance of learning from cultures in the global South and East, dismantling stereotypes that frame them as sexually conservative or inferior.
Variously drawing on structuralist, postcolonial and decolonial theory as well as social anthropology, the book critically examines binaries related to culture, age, sex and intimacy, highlighting the need to decentre Western perspectives as the benchmark while other cultures and practices are misunderstood.
Gender diversity and non-conformity are becoming increasingly visible within society. As more trans and non-binary service users ‘come out’ and trans populations age, practitioners and service providers working in health care, social care, welfare services and housing, will begin to see a growing number of older gender-diverse service users.
With contributions from trans and non-binary scholars and practitioners and those with lived experience, this book outlines what good care and support looks like for older trans and non-binary people. This book provides a range of reflective learning activities that can be used by educators, policy makers and practitioners in healthcare, social care, public and community services to develop their knowledge and skills to ensure their practice is affirmative and inclusive.
