This is the first book to explore the different relationships between active citizenship and civil society, particularly the third sector within civil society. In what ways can the third sector nurture active citizenship? How have the third sector and active citizenship been constructed and reconstructed both locally and internationally, over recent years? To what extent have new kinds of social connectedness, changing forms of political engagement and increasingly complex social and environmental problems influenced civil society action? Written by experts in the field, this important book draws on a range of theory and empirical studies to explore these questions in different socio-political contexts and will be a useful resource for academics and students as well as practitioners.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This is the first book that uses the latest research evidence to build guidance on community-based rehabilitation with the aim of challenging stigma and marginalisation. The case studies discussed, and a strengths-based approach, emphasize the importance of long-term recovery and the role that communities and peers play in the process. Best examines effective methods for community growth, offers sustainable ways of promoting social inclusion and puts forward a new drug strategy and a new reform policy for prisons.
There is growing recognition in practice and policy of how networking contributes to the vitality and cohesion of community life and civil society. The Well-Connected Community provides theoretical insights and practical guidance for people working with and for communities.
This updated edition takes account of the changing political and economic context, including rising social inequalities and community tensions. It considers new approaches to well being, such as social prescribing and the use of social media for local and global organising. This model of community development explains and promotes networking as a skilled and strategic intervention and provides recommendations for good practice.
This book reviews how local social and employment policy fields react to the European Social Fund (ESF) to determine the role of the ESF in local activation policies. Drawing on both sociology and political science literature on welfare state reforms, the author examines what shapes local policy reactions to ESF and what effects these reactions have on change in local policy fields.
Comparing data from 18 local case studies across 6 European countries, and deploying an innovative mixed-method approach, the book presents comparative evidence on everyday challenges in the context of the ESF and discusses how these findings are applicable to other funding schemes.
Leading migration researcher Louise Ryan’s topical and intersectional book provides rich insights into migrants’ social networks.
It draws on more than 200 interviews with migrants who followed various transnational routes in every decade since the 1940s, in order to build valuable longitudinal perspectives and comparisons. With a particular focus on London, it charts how social networks are formed and sustained, how trust is developed and how social support is accessed, and explores the key opportunities and obstacles that migrants encounter.
This is a seminal fusion of migration studies and social network analysis that casts new light on both subjects, essential for those interested in immigration, ethnicity, diversity and inequalities.
As the drive towards creating age-friendly cities grows, this important book provides a comprehensive survey of theories and policies aimed at improving the quality of life of older people living in urban areas.
In this book, part of the Ageing in a Global Context series, leading international researchers critically assess the problems and the potential of designing age-friendly environments. The book considers the different ways in which cities are responding to population ageing, the different strategies for developing age-friendly communities, and the extent to which older people themselves can be involved in the co-production of age-friendly policies and practices.
The book includes a manifesto for the age-friendly movement, focused around tackling social inequality and promoting community empowerment.
Social workers and other social care professionals regularly face the challenges of working with people with alcohol and other drug problems. Yet many receive little, if any, training for working with these issues. As substance use and its social impact on communities and families rises up the political agenda, this book offers a timely support for social workers and other social care staff working in this area.
Supporting people with alcohol and drug problems addresses the current gap in social work and social care education. It provides a combination of research evidence, policy frameworks, and practical hints and tips for good social work practice. Based around practice examples supplied by social workers from both adults’ and children’s social care, it combines knowledge with action. It also provides an important introduction to the evidence base on assessment, intervention and partnership working with specialist substance use colleagues. This book is for all those working in children’s and adults’ social work and social care settings who are working with people who use, or have problems with, alcohol and other drugs.
Foreword by Lisa Berkman, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University
How welfare states influence population health and health inequalities has long been debated but less well tested by empirical research. This book presents new empirical evidence of the effects of Swedish welfare state structures and policies on the lives of Swedish citizens.
The discussion, analysis and innovative theoretical approaches developed in the book have implications for health research and policy beyond Scandinavian borders. Drawing on a rich source of longitudinal data, the Swedish Level of Living Surveys (LNU), and other data, the authors shed light on a number of pertinent issues in health inequality research while at the same time showing how health inequalities have evolved in Sweden over several decades. Topics covered include how structural conditions relating to family, socio-economic conditions and the welfare state are important in producing health inequalities; how health inequalities change over the lifecourse and the impact of environment on health inequalities - at home, at school, in the workplace.
Health inequalities and welfare resources will be invaluable to researchers, students and practitioners in sociology, social epidemiology, public health and social policy interested in the interplay between society and health.
This book addresses the complexity of family change. It draws on evidence from two linked studies, one carried out in the 1960s and the other in the early years of the 21st century, to analyse the specific ways in which family lives have changed and how they have been affected by the major structural and cultural changes of the second half of the twentieth century.
The book shows that, while there has undeniably been change, there is a surprising degree of continuity in family practices. It casts doubt on claims that families have been subject to a process of dramatic change and provides an alternative account which is based on careful analysis of empirical data.
The book presents a unique opportunity to chart the nature of social change in a particular locality over the last 50 years; includes discussions of social and cultural variations in family life, focusing on younger as well as older generations; explores not only what happens within family-households but also what happens within networks of kin across different households and shows the way changing patterns of employment affect kinship networks and how geographical mobility co-exists with the maintenance of strong kinship ties.
The findings will be of interest to students of sociology, social anthropology, social policy, women’s studies, gender studies and human geography at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Social work in the community offers practice guidance to students, practice assessors and practitioners within a political, theoretical, methodological and ethical framework. The book is written from an experiential learning perspective, encouraging the reader not only to understand the ideas and methods but to test them out in their own practice, which additionally provides an element of problem-based learning. The book is written within the framework of the practice curriculum for the social work degree, including the National Occupational Standards and an extended statement of values for practice. This will enable students to use the book to make sense of their practice in relation to the knowledge, skills and values of social work practice in its community context.
