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
Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
During the cost-of-living crisis, schools and nurseries have had to step beyond their educational purpose to offer free food to families through food banks. This book explores how these food banks operate, why families use them and how they affect children’s participation and wellbeing. Drawing on case studies of 12 primary schools and early years settings across England, it examines the impact on family wellbeing, home-school relationships and staff.
The authors argue that the situation will remain unsustainable if this welfare work continues to be unfunded and unrecognised, raising a significant question of who should and who can be responsible for alleviating child poverty.
Written by leading experts from across Europe, this book provides a grounded exploration of innovation in the practice, research and education of social work. It focuses on the role of participation, collaboration and co-creation as key drivers of social innovation within these fields, providing practical examples of social entrepreneurship, people-centred design and participatory led innovation.
The positive outcomes of local social innovations are analysed in the wider European framework, with reflections and recommendations for advancing innovation in policy, service provision, education and research.
Why do disadvantaged students continue to get a poor deal as they progress through England’s education system?
Challenging orthodox thinking about school exclusion, this book powerfully advocates for a fairer education system for disadvantaged students. It argues that the current conceptualisation of ‘exclusion’ – physically removing the student from the school – is insufficient. This approach fails to recognise the layers of exclusion that these students encounter. Students can be excluded within their schools (inner exclusion), not just from school (outer exclusion).
Drawing on student experiences of exclusion and the perspectives of senior leaders, including the author who is a Head of School, this book demonstrates how we can create a fairer education system for disadvantaged students.
Despite the high aspirations of young people from disadvantaged communities, they face barriers that are frustrating the realisation of their educational ambitions.
This book analyses the ‘left-behind’ phenomenon and shows how education has become the new divide in Western society. It explains how denied educational equality and frustrated opportunity are undermining social cohesion and what we can do about it. It challenges meritocratic thinking and the efficacy of widening participation as a policy for social inclusion.
Combining analysis of educational disadvantage at an international level and among Travelling communities with empirical data derived from fieldwork with parents, teachers and students in the European Union (Ireland), this book offers fresh thinking and new hope in relation to young people left behind in the opportunity structure.
In dealing with individual problems and difficulties, critical social work (CSW) is an emancipatory practice which seeks to address social injustice. In this book the author draws on almost 40 years’ experience as a social worker to consider CSW in core areas of practice with children and families.
Fully updated to cover the impact of austerity, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis, this accessible textbook is essential reading for students, educators and practitioners of child and family social work. It features:
• clearly signposted ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ sections;
• over 10 case studies including those drawn from the author’s experience;
• end of chapter ‘Key points’ summaries;
• further reading suggestions.
With expanded coverage of race and intersectionality, contextual safeguarding and critical child protection, the book champions the development of resilient social workers working towards a more just and equal world.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. What matters most in how poverty shapes children’s wellbeing and development? How can data inform social policy and practice approaches to improving the outcomes for poorer children?
Using life course analysis from the Young Lives study of 12,000 children growing up in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam over the past 15 years, this book draws on evidence on two cohorts of children, from 1 to 15 and from 8 to 22. It examines how poverty affects children’s development in low and middle income countries, and how policy has been used to improve their lives, then goes on to show when key developmental differences occur. It uses new evidence to develop a framework of what matters most and when and outlines effective policy approaches to inform the no-one left behind Sustainable Development Goal agenda.
Social mobility needs a re-boot. The narrow, economistic way of measuring it favoured by politicians and academics is unsustainable and is contributing to rising inequality.
This timely book provides an alternative, original vision of social mobility and a route-map to achieving it. It examines how the term ‘social mobility’ structures what success means and the impact that has on society. Providing a new holistic approach that encompasses education, the economy and politics, Atherton recasts the relationship with employers, embracing radical opportunities provided by technology and rethinking what higher education means. He also goes beyond employment to incorporate progress in non-work areas of life.
Based on the need to improve well-being, not just income or occupation, the book addresses one of the key issues facing 21st century society in a new way and provides valuable insights for policymakers and academics.
