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
This book invites the reader to think about collaborative research differently. Using the concepts of ‘letting go’ (the recognition that research is always in a state of becoming) and ‘poetics’ (using an approach that might interrupt and remake the conventions of research), it envisions collaborative research as a space where relationships are forged with the use of arts-based and multimodal ways of seeing, inquiring, and representing ideas.
The book’s chapters are interwoven with ‘Interludes’ which provide alternative forms to think with and another vantage point from which to regard phenomena, pose a question, and seek insights or openings for further inquiry, rather than answers. Altogether, the book celebrates collaboration in complex, exploratory, literary and artistic ways within university and community research.
This book uses a range of interpretive approaches to reveal the dynamics of service users’ and professionals’ individual experiences and life-worlds. From their research the contributors show how biographical methods can improve theoretical understanding of professional practice, as well as enrich the learning and development of professionals, and promote more meaningful and creative practitioner - service user relationships.
The book:
· reviews applications of biographical methods in both policy and practice in a range of professional contexts, from health and social care to education and employment;
· explores the impact of social change in three main arenas - transformation from Eastern to Western types of society in Europe, major shifts in social and welfare principles, experiences of immigration and of new cultural diversities - on professional practice;
· critically evaluates subjective and reflexive processes in interactions between researchers, practitioners and users of services;
· considers the institutional arrangements and cultural contexts which support effective and sensitive interventions;
· draws on actual projects and tracks reflection, progress and outcomes.
With contributions from leading international experts, it provides a valuable comparative perspective. Researchers, policy analysts and practitioners, postgraduate students, teachers and trainers will find this book a stimulating read.
