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
Schools play a vital role in safeguarding children and young people, yet there has been little research into how schools identify and respond to child protection concerns, and their engagement with local authority children’s services.
This book highlights the findings of a major ESRC-funded study on the child protection role played by schools, their decision-making processes and involvement in inter-agency working. Crucial reading for academics, practitioners and managers in children’s social care and education, it evaluates the impact of recent policy developments, including the Academies and Free Schools programme, as well as the restructuring of local authority children’s services.
How can we support children’s and young people’s mental wellbeing in a digital age?
Through a series of informative and thought-provoking case studies, this book explores how to enable children and young people to stay safe, happy and mentally healthy at a time when so much of their lives are spent online. Featuring contributions from across research and practice, with the voice of the child at its heart, the book offers simple, practical guidance for improving wellbeing based on real-world evidence. It will be essential reading for parents, carers and professionals working with children across a range of school and community settings.
Anchored in accounts of young people’s personal experiences of loneliness, this book addresses important questions about tackling today’s epidemic of loneliness among young people.
It explores experiences of loneliness in early life, how it is navigated when first encountered and considers how social conditions of poverty, precarity, inequality and competitive pressures to succeed can dramatically influence these feelings.
Presenting diverse and nuanced social accounts of loneliness, the authors explore ways to harness the creative and positive potential of loneliness and provide evidence-based recommendations for policy makers, practitioners and young people to help tackle the crisis.
Nuanced interconnections of poverty and educational attainment around the UK are surveyed in this unique analysis.
Across the four jurisdictions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, experts consider the impact of curriculum reforms and devolved policy making on the lives of children and young people in poverty. They investigate differences in educational ideologies and structures, and question whether they help or hinder schools seeking to support disadvantaged and marginalised groups.
For academics and students engaged in education and social justice, this is a vital exploration of poverty’s profound effects on inequalities in educational attainment and the opportunities to improve school responses.
This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes.
Active social policies in the EU makes an important contribution to the debates in this area by: reporting on original international comparative research; reflecting on and critically assessing current activating policies; evaluating the consequences of these policies, as well as challenging the premises they are based on; including the perspectives of service users in its analyses; offering recommendations for the future design of activating policies.
The book will be invaluable for students, lecturers and researchers of social and labour market policies and policy makers. It is essential reading for those interested in issues of inclusion, activation and the role of types of work in promoting inclusion.
