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
You are looking at 1 - 10 of 596 items for :
- Type: Book x
- Sociology x
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This powerful book analyses Britain’s Tory Party’s endemic racism, immigration policies and imposition of austerity, exposing how 14 years of Tory rule have deepened inequality and division.
With vivid examples, from the Windrush scandal and Grenfell tragedy to Islamophobia, Cole reveals how “hostile environment” policies, the “age of austerity” and brutal budget cuts have shaped lives and communities. Combining sharp analysis with historical context, the book uncovers how these issues are deeply tied to capitalism and class struggles.
In the light of the rise of the far right in Britain and offering both immediate solutions and a vision for systemic change, this crucial work challenges us to imagine a fairer, more compassionate society grounded in justice and solidarity.
This book offers a unique look into how couples manage paid employment, housework and childcare. The author explores how employment structures, policies and practices intersect with individual attitudes to either reinforce or challenge gender inequalities in the domestic sphere through the ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ of gender.
The book introduces a new typology of fathering as a key mechanism through which policies affect domestic divisions of labour, demonstrating how this typology shapes the tasks men undertake and the impact of this on women’s ability to act on their ‘preferences’ about how to combine paid work and home
By examining couples' negotiations of housework and childcare, the book highlights the disparity between men’s and women’s reports on household duties, revealing distinct gendered differences in how these tasks are conceptualized and measured.
This book examines the evolving relationship between multiculturalism, religion and diversity in Western Europe, proposing a shift towards a post-multicultural approach to address religious and secular pluralism.
The author responds to criticisms of multiculturalism's approach to public religion, including perceived group reification and limited focus on intra-group domination, gender and sexuality equalities. Through a critical dialogue between multicultural theory and political theology, the book offers an original framework for post-multicultural recognition.
Enriching multiculturalism by integrating religious reason and institutional pluralism, this book contributes crucial new insights to debates on religion, equality and diversity in public life.
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Stigma has long been a central concern for social scientists studying health and illness. Yet, in existing work, stigma often escapes definition and clarification, is treated as universal and constant, and becomes a vague catch-all term for a range of conditions and situations.
This book initiates a process of recalibrating the conceptualisation of stigma. The book features original analyses from early- and mid-career scholars focusing on diverse issues, including mental health, racism, sex, HIV, reproduction, obesity, eating disorders, self-harm, exercise, drug use, COVID-19 and disability.
This ambitious book offers new perspectives to stimulate and intensify conversations around stigma, and highlights the valuable contributions of sociological approaches to the study of health and illness.
Available open access digitally under CC BY NC ND licence.
Preventing Violence argues that we can move towards safer and better societies by advancing holistic public health approaches to violence prevention.
It explores the serious limitations of contemporary public health approaches and proposes an alternative path forward. Based on data from a three-year, ESRC-funded project, Public Health, Youth and Violence Reduction, it also examines in-depth the work of 20 Violence Reduction Units in England and Wales.
The book makes clear recommendations for policy makers, practitioners and researchers working to prevent violence and improve the lives of children and young people.
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Following on from The Hand Behind the Invisible Hand and A Realist Philosophy of Economics, this new book drawn from Karl Mittermaier’s writings examines the intricate relationship between economic theory and real-world economic experiences.
Despite the centrality of subjectivism in both philosophy and economics, these fields have often overlooked each other’s insights. Mittermaier challenges this disconnect, advocating for a shift from deterministic models to a more reflective approach in economics. He examines the historical, methodological and philosophical dimensions of economic theory, highlighting its struggle to connect economic theory to empirical data and individuals’ lived experiences.
Originally penned between 1979 and 1982 and now published posthumously, this work remains a crucial contribution to contemporary economic discussions.
The gap between personal and formal politics has been widening globally and locally. As personal politics have become more inclusive and egalitarian inspired by new social movements, neoliberal ideologies have undermined democracy, increasing isolation, inequality, poverty, disease and environmental threat. Yet this paradox may also offer a path to transformation.
Using international evidence and examples, The Antidote explores what we can learn from the equalisation of personal roles and relationships that’s been taking place, to help us reconnect with ourselves and each other and make possible more participatory and liberatory policy and politics. It sets out the barriers we face and offers a route map to bring an end to the destructive effects of unfettered neoliberal ideology, economics, policy and politics.
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.
As the cost of living rises, British households face unprecedented levels of debt. But many commentators characterise those who stash away envelopes, leave telephones ringing, or hide from debt collectors as irresponsible.
The first full-length ethnography of debt problems in Britain, this book uses long-term fieldwork on a southern English housing estate to give a sensitive retelling of the everyday lives of indebted people.
It argues that the inequalities of debt go beyond economic questions to include the way state coercion hinders people’s efforts to define what they truly value. Indeed, from finance to housing and even parenthood, the potential for dispossession has become a pervasive method of power that strikes at the heart of personal life.
Available open access digitally under CC-BY licence.
Development and environmental challenges are often framed at the global or planetary scale, but in a vague or apolitical manner. This book develops a theoretically rigorous and politicized concept of the planetary to intervene in contemporary debates on global development, and to enhance our critical understanding of development as we approach the second quarter of the twenty-first century.
Chapters explore key themes and processes including urbanization, demographic change, health, financialization, and infrastructure development. Referencing diverse cases and examples drawn from across the world, the book argues that the futures of global development are inseparable from environmental challenges and transformations.
