Drawing on a range of theorists and competing perspectives, this substantially updated and expanded second edition places social theory at the heart of social work pedagogy.
This book imaginatively explores ways in which practitioners and social work educators might develop more critical and radical ways of theorising and working. It is an invaluable resource for students and contains features, such as Reflection and Talk Boxes, to encourage classroom and workplace discussions.
This new edition includes:
· An extensive additional chapter on Foucault
· Reworked and expanded versions of the chapters featured in the highly-praised first edition
· Revised Reflection and Talk Boxes
· New and updated references to stimulate further reading and research
The state is increasingly experienced as both intrusive and neglectful, particularly by those living in poverty, leading to loss of trust and widespread feelings of alienation and disconnection.
Against this tense background, this innovative book argues that child protection policies and practices have become part of the problem, rather than ensuring children’s well-being and safety.
Building on the ideas in the best-selling Re-imagining child protection and drawing together a wide range of social theorists and disciplines, the book:
• Challenges existing notions of child protection, revealing their limits;
• Ensures that the harms children and families experience are explored in a way that acknowledges the social and economic contexts in which they live;
• Explains how the protective capacities within families and communities can be mobilised and practices of co-production adopted;
• Places ethics and human rights at the centre of everyday conversations and practices.
There has already been much discussion and critique of the New Public Management, and the impact of auditing and inspection on professional work in schools, hospitals, local government and the police. This study, by a qualitative sociologist, uses interpretive methods to examine this new form of regulation from the inside.
Based on interviews with inspectors, quality assurance managers, and auditors, as well as with professionals struggling with red tape, it offers a critical and insightful account of organisational change. The author includes vivid accounts of how quality assurance procedures and systems work in practice, conveying a sense of what is practically involved in the work of counting, measuring and managing quality, and the everyday frustrations of professionals dealing with ever-increasing amounts of paper work and red tape.
This book should be essential reading for anyone concerned about the rise of this new bureaucracy and the contemporary state of the professions. It is intended to support courses on quality assurance and the New Public Management in public administration and management. It also provides an accessible introduction for students in socio-legal studies, sociology and social policy about the effects of neo-liberalism on public sector work.
Reflexivity is vital in social research projects, but there remains relatively little advice on how to execute it in practice. This book provides social science researchers with both a strong rationale for the importance of thinking reflexively and a practical guide to doing reflexivity within their research. The first book on the subject to build primarily on the theoretical and empirical contributions of Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive work, it combines academic analysis with practical examples and case studies, drawing both on recent reflexive research projects and original empirical data from new projects conducted by the author. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the book will be of interest to researchers from all career stages and disciplinary backgrounds, but especially early-career researchers and students who are struggling with subjectivity, positionality, and the realities of being reflexive.
This illuminating book offers a fresh and contemporary guide to the field of sociology. By demonstrating the versatility of the sociological imagination, the authors reveal the ways in which thinking sociologically can help us to understand the personal, social and structural changes going on in the world around us.
Using real world case studies, the book addresses key sociological themes such as:
· global social transformations
· social divisions and inequalities
· social theory and its practical applications
· the personal and the political
Providing a set of concepts, tools and perspectives for analysing our social world, the book equips the reader with an understanding of how to start thinking sociologically. With helpful features such as end-of-chapter summaries, key definitions and recommended readings, it is an invaluable resource for students taking an introductory sociology course or those studying sociology at further or higher education level.
Convict criminology is the study of criminology by those who have first-hand experience of imprisonment. This is the first single-authored book to trace the emergence of convict criminology and explore its relevance beyond the USA to the UK and other parts of Europe.
Addressing epistemological issues of ‘insider research’, it presents uniquely reflexive scholarship combining personal experience with critical perspectives on contemporary penality. Taking a gendered approach and focusing explicitly on men, it covers:
• the way prisoners, ex-prisoners and prison research contribute to criminological knowledge
• historical figures in criminology whose prison experiences are rarely recognised
• the way racism, colonialism and class shape penal experience and social worlds
Drawing from his own experience of imprisonment, prison research and criminology, the author demonstrates how this experience can expand the criminological imagination. It is a novel and compelling account for students, teachers, academics and penal practitioners. It will inform, educate and entertain anyone working in criminal justice, the legal and para-legal professions and those with an interest in social justice.
Medical sociology has long been concerned with the role played by specialist forms of expertise in enabling the governance of ‘troublesome’ social groups – including those who are unwell, ‘deviant’ and criminally insane. However, only recently has it begun to explore how the state ensures the public is protected from acts of medical malpractice, negligence and criminality. Against the background of a series of high-profile scandals, including the case of Dr Harold Shipman who murdered over 200 of his patients, this topical and authoritative book examines how the regulation of doctors has been modernised by reforms to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service and the introduction of the quality assurance process of medical revalidation. In doing so, it questions whether there is evidence to support the argument that revalidation serves the public interest by ensuring that individual doctors are fit to practise.
Highlighting areas of good practice and areas for further research and development, the book is ideal for academics and postgraduates interested in medical sociology, socio-legal studies, medical law, medical education, health policy and related subjects
Research on well-being reveals the significance of personal relationships, trust and participation to sustain quality of life, yet it is the economic model that remains the dominant basis for political and social institutions and policy.
In this original book, Bill Jordan presents a new analysis of well-being in terms of social value, and outlines how it could be incorporated into public policy decisions. He argues that the grandiose attempt to maximise welfare and regulate social relations through contract, in line with the economic theory of information and incentives, is counterproductive for well-being. Instead, both the quality of personal experience and the restraints necessary for a convivial collective life would be better served by a focus on cultures and institutions. This book will be an essential text for academics and students in social theory, social welfare, public policy and governance.
Bill Jordan is Professor of Social Policy at Plymouth and Huddersfield Universities. He has held visiting chairs in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary. He worked for 20 years in the UK social services, and is the author of 25 books on social policy, social theory, politics and social work.
COVID-19 has exposed defects in our current political–economic order: extreme wealth inequality, an ideology-driven government, a greedy corporate sector, a precarious labour force and a looming climate catastrophe.
This accessible book offers a unique blend of moral imagination and social–political analysis to overcome these defects. It focuses on two characteristics of contemporary societies – hegemony and complexity – that have inhibited our ability to imagine, and take seriously, better practices and institutions.
Considering housing, work, governance, finance, climate change and more, this book presents feasible and pragmatic solutions which are informed by a comprehensive vision of a flourishing, sustainable and richly democratic society.
New Labour has concentrated many of its social policy initiatives in reinvigorating the family, community and work in the paid labour market. But just how ‘new’ are the ideas driving New Labour’s policy and practice?
In this book, Simon Prideaux shows how New Labour has drawn on the ideas and premises of functionalism, which dominated British and American sociological thought during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
The book provides an accessible overview of the theories that underpin the policies of New Labour, including the often labyrinthine theories of Talcott Parsons, Amitai Etzioni and Anthony Giddens; examines the ideas of Charles Murray and John Macmurray, philosophers publicly admired by Tony Blair; looks at the sociological origin of debates and controversies that surround the provision of welfare in both the US and UK and considers the alienating effects that New Deal schemes may have in Britain today.
Not so New Labour’s innovative approach to the analysis of social policy under New Labour will be invaluable to academics, students and researchers in social policy, sociology, politics and applied social studies.
