Collection: Bristol University Press and Policy Press comprehensive eBook and Journals collection
If you are an institution that prides itself on having a comprehensive bank of the latest social science research, then access our entire eBook and journals list. It is a wonderful opportunity to provide a truly unique collection of award-winning research from one of the UK's leading social science publishers.
You can have instant access to over 2,000 eBooks and 8,000 journal articles from our incredible range of 22 journals including 50 years of Policy & Politics. This collection gives you full DRM-free access to a vast range of the research we have been publishing since 1996 and is a truly premium collection with access to the full Policy & Politics archive (1972–present).
Journals included in this collection include: Consumption and Society; Critical and Radical Social Work; Emotions and Society; European Journal of Politics and Gender; European Social Work Research; Evidence & Policy; Families, Relationships and Societies; Gender and Justice; Global Discourse; Global Political Economy; International Journal of Care and Caring; Journal of Gender-Based Violence; Journal of Global Ageing; Journal of Poverty & Social Justice (2002–present); Journal of Psychosocial Studies; Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice (2018–present); Justice, Power and Resistance; Longitudinal and Life Course Studies; Policy & Politics (2000–present); Voluntary Sector Review; Work in the Global Economy.
Within our eBook collection, 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 of over 2,000 titles. 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 and accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
This collection also means you will never miss a journal article, eBook or Open Access publication because your content will be refreshed as part of an ongoing renewal process. We will update the collection on an annual basis which includes over 220 new books and 450 new journal articles a year.
Bristol University Press and Policy Press Complete eBooks and Journals Collection
This book offers a candid and unflinching account of the PhD experience in a sector marked by precarity, insecurity and intense competition. Throughout the volume, current and former PhD students reflect on their varied journeys, addressing challenges such as balancing study with family life, navigating ethical dilemmas and managing mental health.
The collection brings together a diverse range of voices from the PhD community, sharing personal thoughts, lived experiences and "in-the-moment" accounts of life as a doctoral candidate within the context of higher education.
By demystifying the PhD journey and offering valuable insights, this book serves as essential reading for both PhD students and their supervisors.
This book examines the progress of the development of public policy evaluation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from multiple perspectives. It describes both past developments and the current state of evaluation across the region, focusing on how political regimes, administrative traditions and policy advisory systems shape evaluation processes in different contexts.
With contributions from a diverse list of international authors, it investigates the historical development of evaluation across the MENA region and analyses the political landscape, highlighting emerging trends and potential challenges that could influence the future of the field.
An essential resource for researchers and practitioners in evaluation, public policy and the MENA region, the book also provides students with the practical knowledge and essential skills needed for careers in evaluation and policy analysis.
Poetic inquiry is an arts-based approach integrating the humanities and sciences to enhance the quality of social science research and its dissemination.
This insightful guide sheds light on the transformative power of poetic inquiry in academic research. Blending poetry with scholarly work, it offers practical advice on crafting research poems, distinguishing them from literary poems and determining when and how to incorporate them into your studies.
The book:
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helps researchers to explore and express their research creatively;
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emphasises diverse and decolonial viewpoints and paths to knowledge;
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features methods, case studies, prompts and exercises from the Global South and North.
Perfect for researchers eager to explore new dimensions of expression, this guide enriches all aspects of the research process.
As the cost of living rises, British households face unprecedented levels of debt. But many commentators characterise those who stash away envelopes, leave telephones ringing, or hide from debt collectors as irresponsible.
The first full-length ethnography of debt problems in Britain, this book uses long-term fieldwork on a southern English housing estate to give a sensitive retelling of the everyday lives of indebted people.
It argues that the inequalities of debt go beyond economic questions to include the way state coercion hinders people’s efforts to define what they truly value. Indeed, from finance to housing and even parenthood, the potential for dispossession has become a pervasive method of power that strikes at the heart of personal life.
Available open access digitally under CC-BY licence.
Development and environmental challenges are often framed at the global or planetary scale, but in a vague or apolitical manner. This book develops a theoretically rigorous and politicized concept of the planetary to intervene in contemporary debates on global development, and to enhance our critical understanding of development as we approach the second quarter of the twenty-first century.
Chapters explore key themes and processes including urbanization, demographic change, health, financialization, and infrastructure development. Referencing diverse cases and examples drawn from across the world, the book argues that the futures of global development are inseparable from environmental challenges and transformations.
Practitioners and managers in child protection often struggle to focus on the needs of children and families in the face of ever-expanding bureaucracy.
This book brings together authors from across Europe to explore the strategies and solutions that promote doing things right by those in need rather than to the letter of procedure. It argues that more flexible, community/relationship/partnership-based approaches are required to meet the needs of parents and children experiencing difficulties and risk of harm.
Essential reading for academics, practitioners, managers and policy makers in social work and child welfare, it contributes to the development of reflective thinking and spotlights the potential of co-production and co-creation.
The beauty industry thrives on creating a sense of dissatisfaction with appearance, with social media adding pressure to conform to idealized images of beauty. One solution to remedy this dissatisfaction has been found in the normalization and growing use of products for bodily improvement such as facial injectables and weight loss drugs.
The Harms of Beauty investigates the toxicity of consumer culture driving individuals’ willingness to harm themselves, others and the environment in their pursuit of image and body perfection. The data presented in this book is a product of an ethnographic study that, in part, responds to the lack of work offering a lived-experience perspective of the ways in which macro-level socio-economic changes and pressures exert themselves on young people.
This ethnographic study provides insight into the wider life-worlds of consumers and sellers, following them not only as they engage with licit and illicit beauty markets, but also through their attempts to navigate contemporary society. It provides an insight into one facet of the harmful beauty industry, highlighting the nature of counterfeit consumption and supply, and the interconnection between the various spheres of consumers and sellers, supply and demand, online and offline and work and leisure. The empirical data uncovers the ways in which the pervasiveness of hyper-comparison in contemporary society is a key catalyst behind beauty use and its widespread harm, one that is further intensified in virtual spaces.
In today’s digital world, platforms are everywhere, shaping our social and cultural landscapes. This groundbreaking book shows how platforms are not just technical systems, but complex networks involving diverse people, practices and values. It explores a wide range of digital platforms, using insights from science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology and cultural theories to offer fresh perspectives on how platforms, media and devices function and evolve.
Blending ethnographic work with technical analysis, this is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the digital age.
Being ‘REF-able’. The impact agenda. The student experience. University audit culture has infiltrated academic life, but how should we respond?
Drawing on a five-year Institutional Ethnography of UK universities, the author provides a feminist take on the neoliberal university and abolitionist reflections on audit culture.
For feminist and other critical academics, the interpretative power involved in audit processes provides an opportunity to collectively challenge and subvert, re-read and re-write institutions. This book challenges the myths and misinterpretations around how academic audit processes work, arguing that if we are complicit then we have agency to do them differently.
All too often, human systems are criticised for failing those they are meant to serve. One example is the growing awareness of the overlooked needs of adolescents facing harm in their communities. This has highlighted a need for new systems that enable practice that is ethical, effective and grounded in supportive relationships. But how can this be achieved?
Appealing to those interested in Contextual Safeguarding and beyond, this book shares ‘real-life’ lessons from research, covering:
• Practical guidance and tools for changing systems using embedded methods;
• Navigating complex relationships and emotions in organisational change; and
• Using theory and concepts to support change.
The book’s lively and creative style makes it accessible for researchers, students, professionals and anyone committed to system change in children’s social care.
