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
Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and peacebuilding into dialogue with education, this book examines the challenges youth and their teachers face in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands.
Youth in these places must reconcile with the violent past of their parents’ generation while also learning how to live with people once on opposing ‘sides.’ This book traces how students and their teachers form connections to the past and each other that cut through the forces that might divide them. The findings illustrate novel ways to think about the potential for education to assist post-conflict recovery.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is recurrently depicted as an enterprise that unites humanity in a common pursuit of a more just and sustainable world. But how is this enterprise pursued on a planet that is enormously unequal? Drawing on biopolitical theory and rich empirical data from different contexts around the world, this book explores how ESD is unpacked depending on whether people are rich or poor.
The book demonstrates how ESD is adapted to the lifestyles and living conditions of different populations. The implication of this depoliticized sensitivity to local ‘realities’, the book argues, is that inequality becomes accommodated and that different responsibilities are assigned to rich and poor. Ultimately, the book considers alternatives to this biopolitical divide.
This book provides an important lens for understanding how interlocking humanitarian crises caused by armed conflict, natural disasters, forced displacement and, more recently, a global health pandemic have adversely impacted teaching and learning.
It brings together evidence from multiple, diverse research-practice partnerships in seven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The authors provide a clear account of the key academic, policy and practice questions on education in crisis contexts and consider our capacity to develop just and resilient education systems.
Education in India concentrates on exam performance and consequently the teacher in India often acts as a disseminator of textbook material, as well as maintaining class discipline and respect. This book explores low-income female teachers’ speech and syntax as a crucial resource in which agency, freedom and empowerment is enacted within a strong oral tradition in India.
The book demonstrates how this socially and economically marginalised group overcome prejudices to develop relational agency and embed their authority. It shows how they establish their values and why their beliefs shape attitudes to aspiration, achievement and freedom of choice. It concludes with recommendations for policy and improvements to reflective practice in teaching.
Bringing together the perspectives of researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and practitioners, this book critically interrogates the Western-centric assumptions underpinning education and development agendas and the colonial legacies of violence they often uphold.
The book considers the crucial connection between the idea of sustainable futures and the demand to decolonise education. Containing an innovative mixture of text, stories and poetry, it explores how decolonised futures can be conceived and enacted, offering theoretical and practical examples, including from practice in educational and cultural organisations. In doing so, the book highlights education’s potential role in facilitating processes of reparative justice that can contribute to decolonised futures.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
The transition to more just and sustainable development requires radical change across a wide range of areas and particularly within the nexus between learning and work.
This book takes an expansive view of vocational education and training that goes beyond the narrow focus of much of the current literature and policy debate. Drawing on case studies across rural and urban settings in Uganda and South Africa, the book offers a new way of seeing this issue through an exploration of the multiple ways in which people learn to have better livelihoods. Crucially, it explores learning that takes place informally online, within farmers’ groups, and in public and private educational institutions.
Offering new insights and ways of thinking about this field, the book draws out clear implications for theory, policy and practice in Africa and beyond.
Robust university–industry partnerships are vital to achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and create a better world for everyone.
Developing the theory and practice of the ‘5th Generation University’, this book shows how cross-sector collaboration and innovation are crucial to maximising the societal benefits of research, education and knowledge exchange, while also driving economic growth and productivity.
The authors bring extensive experience in working at the interface between academia, industry and government to demonstrate how universities can effectively combine transdisciplinary programmatic activities and strategic corporate philanthropy. They explain how long-term alliances can be forged to have a transformational impact on the greatest challenges facing our world such as climate change.
India will soon be the world’s most populated country and its political development will shape the world of the 21st century. Yet Hindu Nationalism – at the helm of contemporary Indian politics – is not well understood outside of India, and its links to the global neoliberal trajectory have not been much explored.
This important book shows for the first time why it is education, not a failed political system, that led to the rise of Modi and the right-wing nationalist ideology of Hindutva. It provides in depth insight into contemporary Indian politics and wider societal acceptance of India’s Hindu nationalist trajectory, as well as examining the role of class.
The first five years of Modi rule failed to bring about the development that had been promised and have seen India’s rapid change from a largely inclusive society to one where minorities are denied their basic rights.
How can higher education contribute to tackling today’s complex challenges?
In this wide-ranging book, Anke Schwittay argues that, in order to inspire and equip students to generate better responses to global challenges, we need a pedagogy that develops their imagination, creativity, emotional sensibilities and practical capabilities.
Schwittay proposes a critical-creative pedagogy that incorporates design-based activities, experiential teaching, serious play and future-oriented practices. Crucially, she demonstrates the importance of moving beyond analysing limitations to working towards alternatives for more equitable, just and sustainable futures.
Presenting concrete ideas for the reimagination of higher education, this book is an essential read for both educators and students in any field studying global challenges.
This timely and accessible book explores the links between politics, learning and sustainability. Its central focus is the future of people and the planet itself. The challenges that we face in combatting climate change and building a more sustainable world are complex and the book argues that if we are to successfully meet these challenges we need a fundamental change in the way we do politics and economics, embedding a lifelong commitment to sustainability in all learning. We have no option but to make things work for the better. After all, planet earth is the only home we have! The book will be important reading for academics and students in a variety of related subjects, including politics, public policy, education, sustainable development, geography, media, international relations and development studies. It will also be a valuable resource for NGOs and policy makers.
