Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete 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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The need for paid care workers to provide professional, good quality care for those needing daily support continues to grow throughout the world.
This book explores the recent experiences of diverse paid care workers in four very different national contexts – Finland, Canada, South Africa and England – to learn from their experiences during COVID-19 and its aftermath. Drawing on care workers’ own perspectives, this book shows how recruitment and retention of paid care workers remains challenging due to the pandemic and demographic changes, their precarious labour market position, low pay and the difficulties of delivering care.
Discover how fiction can breathe life into your research.
Fiction – in the form of everyday storytelling, prose, plays, films, folktales, and comics – can be powerful and resonant. This engaging book introduces the ways in which fiction can inform, inspire and enliven all kinds of research.
Presenting a range of case studies and examples from diverse disciplines, this book explores how and why researchers have employed fiction and fictional techniques throughout the research process, including using fiction to communicate research findings. An essential primer to thinking creatively with fiction, the book:
• discusses a range of theoretical perspectives on the use of fiction in research;
• explores challenges and ethical questions for researchers using fiction;
• offers practical advice, creative prompts and resources.
Enabling the reader to reflect on how fiction might be used in their own research, this comprehensive introduction will help students and experienced researchers embark on their own research-based fiction projects in no time.
What are the building blocks of the new societal architectures after COVID-19? What are the evolving lifestyle patterns, social connections and relationality, and what can biographical research bring to explore these unprecedented societal circumstances?
This first book in a new series "Advances in Biographical Research" focuses on the place of biographical research in analysing and shaping social futures characterized by physical distancing and isolation, social fragmentation, trauma and vulnerability, including breaks in biographical trajectories.
Written by experienced and early career researchers, it demonstrates how biographical research responds to new societal architectures: theoretically and empirically.
Over the past decades, ‘photovoice’ has emerged as a participatory and creative research method in which participants capture and discuss their reality through photographs.
This indispensable ‘how-to’ book with exercises and visual aids takes novice and veteran researchers through the practicalities and ethics of applying this approach. Written by experienced teacher Nicole Brown, the book:
• outlines the conceptual foundations and historical development of the approach;
• redefines photovoice as a research method and as a framework;
• explores how photovoice can be used in all stages of research from data collection to dissemination;
• provides guidance and food for thought to get researchers started on their project.
Each chapter ends with exercises that focus readers• learning and understanding by practically engaging them in the work presented throughout. The examples and visual aids will help them recognise all the details presented and represented in a photograph.
For researchers who would like to try their hand at photovoice as a method or as a framework to foster a more participatory approach, this is the ultimate guide to kickstart their project.
This book firmly positions lived experience-led expertise as a unique and compelling form of knowledge in decolonising and disrupting research, teaching and advocacy.
Based on the insights of people with first-hand experiences, each chapter presents unique accounts and reflections on a diverse range of social justice issues. Together, the authors’ perspectives centre lived experiences in the production of knowledge, challenge outsider-imposed views, and create new research and writing norms. They demonstrate that when lived experience experts lead the way, their knowledge of how to address social injustices can enrich, transform and decolonise research, teaching and advocacy.
This collection is an invaluable resource for academic and community-based researchers, practitioners, advocates, educators, policymakers, students and people whose lived experiences and views continue to be marginalised across diverse settings.
The soundscape of prison life – for both inmates and staff – is that of constant clangs, bangs and jangles. What is the significance of this cacophonous din to those who live and work with it? This book tells the story of a year spent with a UK prison community, bringing its social world vividly to life for the first time through aural ethnography.
Kate Herrity’s sensory criminology challenges current thinking on how power is experienced by the imprisoned and the lasting effects of incarceration for all who spend time in these environments.
Increasing numbers of researchers are using arts-based, embodied or creative methods. They promote rapport and connection, facilitating research that reaches beyond surface understanding to expose authentic stories and hidden, richer truths. Whilst powerful, these methods can have unintended consequences and the potential for harm.
Drawing on case studies and lessons learned from programmes and work across research, therapy, education, art and science, this engaging book explores and demonstrates the porous borders of research.
It invites researchers to reflect and consider the boundaries and consequences of their work in order to deepen and widen its applicability and impact across science, art, education and therapy.
This book invites the reader to think about collaborative research differently. Using the concepts of ‘letting go’ (the recognition that research is always in a state of becoming) and ‘poetics’ (using an approach that might interrupt and remake the conventions of research), it envisions collaborative research as a space where relationships are forged with the use of arts-based and multimodal ways of seeing, inquiring, and representing ideas.
The book’s chapters are interwoven with ‘Interludes’ which provide alternative forms to think with and another vantage point from which to regard phenomena, pose a question, and seek insights or openings for further inquiry, rather than answers. Altogether, the book celebrates collaboration in complex, exploratory, literary and artistic ways within university and community research.
Since the mid-2010s, virtual reality (VR) technology has advanced rapidly. This book explores the many opportunities that VR can offer for humanities and social sciences researchers.
The book provides a user-friendly, non-technical methods guide to using ready-made VR content and 360° video as well as creating custom materials. It examines the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to using VR, providing helpful, real-world examples of how researchers have used the technology. The insights drawn from this analysis will inspire scholars to explore the possibilities of using VR in their own research projects.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines face a gender gap that has been exacerbated during COVID-19.
Drawing on research carried out by the Women in Supramolecular Chemistry (WISC) network, this essential book sets out the extent to which women working in STEM face inequality and discrimination. The authors use approaches more commonly associated with social sciences, such as creative and reflective research methods, to shed light on the human experiences lying behind scientific research. They share fictional vignettes drawn from research findings to illustrate the challenges faced by women working in science today. Additionally, they show how this approach helps make sense of difficult personal experiences and to create a culture of change.
Offering a path forward to inclusivity and diversity, this book is crucial reading for anyone working in STEM.
