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
Moomins, beloved troll creatures of Moominvalley, have captivated hearts worldwide since the 1940s.
This book unveils the Moomin business management journey, from Tove Jansson’s creations to a global art-based brand and a growing ecosystem of companies. Emphasising generosity as a key management principle, it champions caring for people as vital for a thriving organisation.
Generosity, rooted in love, courage and belief in equality, shapes the Moomin ethos, underpinning not just the brand, but also strategic partnerships, engagement with technologies and the virtual world.
Offering rare insights from the Moomin inner circle, this management guide advocates sustainable practices. It unveils the keys to a business devoted to comforting people and fostering good, inspiring a blueprint for lasting success.
At the heart of capitalism lies the idea of “homo economicus”: an ever-rational human being motivated by self-interest which arguably leads societies to economic prosperity.
Drawing on French sociologist Marcel Mauss’ influential theory of “the gift”, Frank Adloff shatters this fallacy to show mutual trust is the only glue that holds societies together; people are giving beings and they can cooperate for the benefit of all when the logic of all when the logic of maximizing personal gain in capitalism is broken.
Acknowledging the role of women, nature and workers in the Global South in transforming society, this book proposes a politics of conviviality, (from Latin con-vivere: living together), for global and environmental justice as an alternative to the pursuit of profit, growth and consumption.
Spanning the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, this comparative study brings maternal workers’ politicized voices to the centre of contemporary debates on childcare, work and gender.
The book illustrates how maternal workers continue to organize against low pay, exploitative working conditions and state retrenchment and provides a unique theorization of feminist divisions and solidarities.
Bringing together social reproduction with maternal studies, this is a resonating call to build a cross-sectoral, intersectional movement around childcare. Maud Perrier shows why social reproduction needs to be at the centre of a critical theory of work, care and mothering for post-pandemic times.
In challenging social science’s established orthodoxies, this first in a series of books is a call for its disciplines to embrace new theoretical paradigms and research methods to better understand the reality of life in a post-COVID world.
By offering a detailed insight into the harmful effects of neoliberalism before the pandemic, as well as the intervallic period the world is currently living through, the authors show how it is more important than ever for social science to evolve and take a leading role in contextualising the biggest crisis of the 21st century.
This is a critical blueprint for ongoing debates about the COVID-19 pandemic and alternative modes of research.
In the past, youth has been seen as a transition into the labour market, but today young people’s identities are increasingly wrapped up in their value as workers.
In this book, young people describe the meaning of work in their own words. Drawing on these narratives, the author reveals how their identities are intertwined with the dynamics of labour and value in post-Fordist capitalism and how social inequalities are manifested through the practices and ethics that young people draw upon to cultivate an economically productive self.
Illuminating the rapidly changing social conditions that mould youth identities, this book represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of youth and work.
Shortlisted for the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2019.
What’s it really like to be a mother with a career working flexibly?
Drawing on over 100 hours of interview data, this book is the first to go inside women’s work and family lives in a year of working flexibly.
The private labours of going part-time, job sharing, and home working are brought to life with vivid personal stories.
Taking a sociological and feminist perspective, it explores contemporary motherhood, work-life balance, emotional work in families, couples and housework, maternity transitions, interactions with employers, work design and workplace cultures, and employment policies.
It concludes that there is an opportunity to make employment and family life work better together and offers unique insights from women’s lived experiences on how to do it.
Women are encouraged to believe that they can occupy top jobs in society by the example of other women thriving in their careers. Who better to be a role model for career success than your mother? Paradoxically, this book shows that having a mother as a role model, even for graduates of top universities, does not predict daughters progressing in their own careers.
It finds that mothers with careers, whilst highly influential in their daughters’ choice of career path, rarely mentor their daughters as they progress. This is partly explained by ‘quiet ambition’ – the tendency of women to be modest about their achievements. Bigger issues are the twin pressures from contemporary motherhood and workplace culture that ironically lead career women’s daughters to believe that being a ‘good mother’ means working part-time. This stalls career progress.
Based on a large, cross-generational qualitative sample, this book offers a timely and original perspective on the debate about gender equality in leadership positions.
