This book challenges existing stereotypes about the ‘consumer as chooser’. It shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services. The analysis shows that there are many different ‘faces’ of the consumer and that it is not easy to categorise users in particular environments.
Drawing on empirical research, “The consumer in public services" critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Choice may grab the policy headlines but other essential values are revealed as important throughout the book. One issue concerns the ‘subjects’ of consumerism, or who it is that presents themselves when they come to use public services. Another concerns consumer ‘mechanisms’, or the ways that public services try to relate to these people. Bringing these issues together for the first time, with cutting-edge contributions from a range of leading researchers, the message is that today’s public services must learn to cope with a differentiated public.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of social policy and public administration. It will also appeal to policy-makers leading ‘user-focused’ public service reforms, as well as those responsible for implementing such reforms at the frontline of modern public services.
285© The Policy Press • 2012 • ISSN 1744 2648 re se ar ch Evidence & Policy • vol 8 • no 3 • 2012 • 285–309 • http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/174426412X654031 Key words research-based information • determinants of use • school practitioners • research utilisation Use of research-based information by school practitioners and determinants of use: a review of empirical research Christian Dagenais, Larysa Lysenko, Philip C. Abrami, Robert M. Bernard, Jean Ramde and Michel Janosz The trend towards using research knowledge to improve policies and practices is on the
In the past, happiness studies has been dominated by the work of philosophers, economists and psychologists, but more recently there has been a growing interest from social scientist into the natures of happiness and wellbeing.
This original collection draws on the latest empirical research to explore the practical challenges facing happiness researchers today, such as how to conduct happiness research in different cultural contexts, how to theorise wellbeing or how to operationalise definitions of happiness in qualitative and biographical research.
By uniquely combining the critical approach of sociology with techniques from other disciplines, the contributors illuminate new approaches to the study of happiness and well-being.
The liberating promise of big data and social media to create more responsive democracies and workplaces is overshadowed by a nightmare of election meddling, privacy invasion, fake news and an exploitative gig economy.
Yet, while regressive forces spread disinformation and hate, 'guerrilla democrats' continue to foster hope and connection through digital technologies.
This book offers an in-depth analysis of platform-based radical movements, from the online coalitions of voters and activists to the Deliveroo and Uber strikes. Combining cutting edge theories with empirical research, it makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the relationship between technology and society.
This book unpacks how emotions and affect are key conceptual lenses for understanding contemporary processes and discourses around migration.
Drawing on empirical research, grassroots projects with migrants and refugees, and mediated stories of migration and asylum seeking from the Global North, the book sheds light on the affects of empathy, aspiration and belonging to reveal how they can be harnessed as public emotions of positive collective change.
In the face of increasing precariousness, Khorana calls for uncovering the potential of these affects in order to build new forms of care and solidarities across differences, and in the wake of intersecting global crises.
This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes.
Active social policies in the EU makes an important contribution to the debates in this area by: reporting on original international comparative research; reflecting on and critically assessing current activating policies; evaluating the consequences of these policies, as well as challenging the premises they are based on; including the perspectives of service users in its analyses; offering recommendations for the future design of activating policies.
The book will be invaluable for students, lecturers and researchers of social and labour market policies and policy makers. It is essential reading for those interested in issues of inclusion, activation and the role of types of work in promoting inclusion.
Drawing on empirical research with the UK’s two largest charitable food organisations, this book explores the prolific rise of food charity over the last 15 years and its implications for overcoming food insecurity.
As the welfare state withdraws, leaving food banks to protect the most vulnerable, the author questions the sustainability of this system and asks where responsibility lies - in practice and in theory - for ensuring everyone can realise their human right to food.
The book argues that effective, policy-driven solutions require a clear rights-based framework, which enables a range of actors including the state, charities and the food industry to work together towards, and be held accountable for, the progressive realisation of the right to food for all in the UK.
Assessing migration in the context of climate change, Nash draws on empirical research to offer a unique analysis of policy-making in the field. This detailed account is a vital step in understanding the links between global discourses on human mobilities, climate change and specific policy responses. An important contribution to several ongoing debates in academia and beyond.
The issue of homelessness has become extremely important in policy debates during the 1990s. Yet analysis that links the phenomenon of homelessness to wider debates about the changing social and economic environment remains relatively underdeveloped.
This important new book brings together contemporary theoretical debates and original empirical research in order to explore the nature, experience and impact of social change in the new ‘landscape of precariousness’, in which new sets of risks and uncertainties have emerged.
It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, which is essential in developing a more subtle understanding of both the complex processes leading to, and the experience of, homelessness.
Central to contemporary theory and practice is the enhancement of our understanding of how homelessness, disadvantage and social exclusion impact differently on various social groups. Homelessness provides a strong contribution to the academic debate, and is essential reading for students and researchers in a range of subject areas, including housing studies, social policy, socio-legal studies and public administration.
Once considered the preserve of the wealthy, nanny care has grown in response to changes in the labour market, including the rising number of working mothers with young children and increases in non-standard work patterns.
This book presents new empirical research about in-home childcare in Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, three countries where governments are pursuing new ways to support in-home childcare through funding, regulation and migration.
The compelling policy story that emerges illustrates the implications of different mechanisms for facilitating in-home childcare - for families and for care workers.
