From parks and libraries to pubs and schools, social infrastructures are the everyday places that bring people together, support community life, and foster connection. As interest in the concept grows, this timely and accessible edited collection offers a comprehensive overview of social infrastructure—its origins, development, and practical impact.Packed with innovative case studies from the UK, Europe, Australia, and the US, it highlights how these shared spaces can shape urban l...

In recent years, the UK has seen the emergence of a new approach to violence reduction—the public health approach. This method prioritises early intervention and holistic support to prevent violence upstream. This movement, based in part on a perceived success story in Scotland, has led to the founding of more than twenty Violence Reduction Units in England and Wales, and more than £200m of funding to support evidence-based interventions. This book is based on a four-year, multi-method stu...

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Preventing Violence argues that we can move towards safer and better societies by advancing holistic public health approaches to violence prevention.It explores the serious limitations of contemporary public health approaches and proposes an alternative path forward. Based on data from a three-year, ESRC-funded project 'Public Health, Youth and Violence Reduction', it also examines in-depth the work of 20 Violence Re...

Available open access digitally under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence.For many children and young people, Britain is a harmful society in which to grow up. This book contextualizes the violence that occurs between a small number of young people within a wider perspective on social harm.Aimed at academics, youth workers and policy makers, the book presents a new way to make sense of this pressing social problem. The authors also propose measures to substantially improve the lives of B...

Mollie Gerver considers when bodies such as the UN, government agencies and NGOs ought to help refugees to return home. Drawing on original interviews with 172 refugees before and after repatriation, she resolves six moral puzzles arising from repatriation using the methods of analytical philosophy to provide a more ethical framework.

Education policies should drive success and equity but in many countries they are failing to do so. Situating the cases of England and Australia within broader global policy trends, this book critically analyses what has gone wrong.The authors draw on extensive research in education to review the impact of multiple policies on students, teachers and schools, with a focus on communities where children and young people need education most. They issue a fundamental challenge to the po...

Social policy is central to social work practice. This textbook is designed to help students, practitioners and academics think critically about the relationship between policy and practice; particularly in how policy both structures and informs practice. Reflective questions help critical thinking and links to websites of substantive information across the UK and internationally help keep you up-to-date with policy developments.The authors′ experience and skills in working with di...

Poverty remains one of the most urgent issues of our time. In this fully updated edition of her important and widely acclaimed intervention on the topic, Ruth Lister introduces readers to the meaning and experience of poverty in the contemporary world.The book opens with a lucid discussion of current debates around the definition and measurement of poverty in industrialized societies, before embarking on a multifaceted exploration of its varied interpretations. Drawing on thinking ...

This engaging and accessible text offers a concise overview of social work which will appeal to anyone needing a quick introduction to social work as a discipline. It contains essential information for all prospective and new social work students, the theories and policy and practice frameworks as well as current issues facing social work today. Illustrated with many examples from practice, it covers social work with many service user groups including children and families, adults, older p...

The new edition of this established core textbook continues to give an insightful, authoritative and accessible overview of competing theoretical positions on the sociological study of childhood. The book explores the ways these theories inform key themes, including education, work, identity and agency.The study of childhood has taken on an increasingly global focus in recent years, honing in on how issues of rights, protection and development shape the lives of children and those ...

Child protection systems differ across the four countries of the United Kingdom, and understanding the differences provide important opportunities for learning and improving day-to-day practice.This authoritative book compares UK child protection systems with other systems world-wide as well as scrutinising and comparing the systems in different parts of the UK. Reflecting on the impact of devolution, the authors consider and critically analyse the way child protection systems are ...

This book is an edited collection of original papers which challenge in a very direct manner the dominant behviourist and functionalist views that have come to entrap those who live, work and conduct research in the areas of educational leadership, and focusing instead on the structures and processes within schools as organisations that frustrate, distort and ultimately stifle educative relationships the writers provide a much needed way of reconceptualising both thought and action in so-c...