Poverty, Inequality and Social Justice

The issues involved in poverty, inequality and social justice are many and varied, from basic access to education and healthcare, to the financial crisis and resulting austerity, and now COVID-19. Addressing Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 5: Gender Equality, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities and Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, our list both presents research on these topics and tackles emerging problems. A key series in the area is the SSSP Agendas for Social Justice.

This focus has always been at the heart of our publishing with the view to making the research in this area as visible and accessible as possible in order to maximise its potential impact.

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Poverty, inequality and social justice, we aim to address the following goals: 

Poverty, Inequality and Social Justice

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The Best Interests Assessor (BIA) Practice Handbook is firmly grounded in real-life practice and remains the only textbook focusing directly on the BIA role. Offering clear and practical advice on the legal elements of the role, and the values and practice elements of working within the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) framework, this is essential reading for BIA students and practitioners.

This fully-updated edition takes account of recent legislative changes, including the planned changes from the Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS), recent case law and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on BIA practice.

Packed with advice on delivering effective, person-centred, rights-driven practice, it includes:

  • case studies;

  • legal summaries;

  • decision-making activities;

  • CPD support;

  • examples of new case law in practice.

Looking forward, the book considers the new context for practice in the Approved Mental Capacity Professional (AMCP) role within the LPS and the potential roles that BIAs might fulfil in this new framework in the future.

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Perspectives on Rights to Participation
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This much-needed volume fills an overlooked gap in adult safeguarding – the digital arena – in providing a comprehensive overview of policy and practice in supporting vulnerable adults online.

Providing an essential analysis illustrated by recent court rulings and case studies, the authors advocate for the effective support of adults with learning disabilities and/or mental capacity issues in their digital lives without compromising their privacy and participation rights.

The text balances a theoretical exploration of the tensions between participation and protection, legislation, human rights, professional biases and social wrongs. It encourages a critical approach in adopting both a practical and realistic understanding for policy makers, professionals and students in social work, law and adult social care.

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Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education
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Demands for excellence and efficiency have created an ableist culture in academia. What impact do these expectations have on disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent colleagues?

This important and eye-opening collection explores ableism in academia from the viewpoint of academics' personal and professional experiences and scholarship. Through the theoretical lenses of autobiography, autoethnography, embodiment, body work and emotional labour, contributors from the UK, Canada and the US present insightful, critical, analytical and rigorous explorations of being ‘othered’ in academia.

Deeply embedded in personal experiences, this perceptive book provides examples for universities to develop inclusive practices, accessible working and learning conditions and a less ableist environment.

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Changes in perception and policy 1948–79
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Created during and after the Second World War, the British Welfare State seemed to promise welfare for all, but, in its original form, excluded millions of disabled people. This book examines attempts in the subsequent three decades to reverse this exclusion. It is the first to contextualise disability historically in the welfare state and under each government of the period. It looks at how disability policy and perceptions were slow to change as a welfare issue, which is very timely in today’s climate of austerity. It also provides the first major analysis of the Disablement Income Group, one of the most powerful pressure groups in the period and the 1972 Thalidomide campaign and its effect on the Heath government. Given the recent emergence of the history of disability in Britain as a major area of research, the book will be ideal for academics, students and activists seeking a better understanding of the topic.

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Towards participatory social policy
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The UK welfare state is under sustained ideological and political attack. It has also been undermined by accusations of paternalism and past failures to engage with the very people it is intended to help.

This unique book is the first to critique the past, present and future welfare state from a participatory perspective. Peter Beresford, champion of user involvement, draws on pioneering theories and practice of welfare service user movements to offer a blueprint for a new participatory social policy. He controversially challenges orthodox social policy and the limitations of both Fabian and Neo-liberal perspectives in engaging people to improve their own welfare, drawing on service users ‘ own ideas and experience, including fascinating vignettes from his own family’s experience, to demonstrate the value of ‘user knowledge’.

Filling a much-needed gap in the literature, this accessible text will provide a great introduction for students and a road-map for practitioners of an alternative vision for a future participatory and sustainable social policy. It will also command much wider interest from everyone concerned with how we look after each other in future in society.

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Is employment really the answer?

This is the first book to challenge the concept of paid work for disabled people as a means to ‘independence’ and ‘self determination’. Recent attempts in many countries to increase the employment rates of disabled people have actually led to an erosion of financial support for many workless disabled people and their increasing stigmatisation as ‘scroungers’. Led by the disability movement’s concern with the employment choices faced by disabled people, this controversial book uses sociological and philosophical approaches, as well as international examples, to critically engage with possible alternatives to paid work. Essential reading for students, practitioners, activists and anyone interested in relationships between work, welfare and disability.

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A vision for social justice
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In an era of ongoing economic failures, as governments cut support to the poorest, the richest continue to get richer and those in-between are squeezed by rising costs and flagging incomes, the challenges for social cohesion – and for social justice – seem overwhelming. As inequality increases, it can become harder to empathise with life experiences far removed from our own, particularly when fuelled by a sense of injustice. Our samenesses and our differences can remain unseen, unvalued or misunderstood.

In this ambitious, wide-ranging book, the author sets out a vision for social justice as ‘inclusive equality’, where barriers to equality and inclusion are removed to the maximum extent possible while preserving and strengthening social cohesion. Weaving together themes from the theoretical literatures on social justice, poverty, discrimination and social exclusion, she explores relationships between equality, diversity and inclusion - a novel approach that reveals clear, practical implications for the design and delivery of social policy.

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In an era of scarce social resources the question of the changing social policy constructions and responses to disabled people has become increasingly important. Paradoxically, some disabled people are realising new freedoms and choices never before envisioned, whilst others are prey to major retractions in public services and aggressive attempts to redefine who counts as ‘genuinely disabled’.

Understanding disability policy locates disability policy into broader social policy and welfare policy writings and goes beyond narrow statutory evaluations of welfare to embrace a range of indicators of disabled people’s welfare. The book critically explores the roles of social security, social support, poverty, socio-economic status, community safety, official discourses and spatial change in shaping disabled people’s opportunities. It also situates welfare and disability policy in the broader conceptual shifts to the social model of disability and its critics. Finally it explores the possible connection between changing official and academic constructions of disability and their implications for social policy in the 21st century.

The book is supported by a companion website, containing additional materials for both students and lecturers using the book, which is available from the link above.

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Value incommensurability and the politics of recognition
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Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This important book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, including liberal egalitarianism, existentialism, and elements of post-modernism and post-structuralism. These philosophies are applied to policy and practice debates, especially concerning disability issues, but also relating to gender and multiculturalism. It will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students across a range of social studies disciplines.

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Disability is an increasingly vital contemporary issue in British social policy especially in education. Education, disability and social policy brings together for the first time unique perspectives from leading thinkers including senior academics, opinion formers, policy makers and school leaders. Key issues covered include: law and international human rights frameworks; policy developments for schools and school leaders; educational inequalities for disabled children and young people and curriculum design and qualifications changes for children who are being failed by the current education system.

The book is a milestone in social policy studies, of enduring interest to students, academics, policy makers, parents and campaigners alike.

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