Education and learning

This is the classic assessment of the state of child well-being in the UK. This fourth edition has been updated to review the latest evidence, including the impact of the economic crisis and austerity measures since 2008. An essential resource.

Drawing on eight countries as case studies Professor Alan France tells the story of what impact the 2007 global crisis and the great recession that followed has had on our understandings of youth.

This timely book provides an alternative vision of social mobility and a route-map to achieving it. It examines how the term ‘social mobility’ structures what success means and the impact that has on society. It recasts the relationship with employers and covers progress in non-work areas of life.

Teacher education in times of change offers a critical examination of teacher education policy in the UK and Ireland over the past three decades. Written by a research group from five countries, it makes international comparisons, and covers broader developments in professional learning, to place these key issues and lessons in a wider context.

Using the UK government’s play strategy for England (2008-10) as a case study, this is the first book to look in detail at children’s play within public policy. It is an essential tool for practitioners and campaigners around the world.

This is the first book to take a radical approach to socially just, community centred research. Challenging traditional models for conducting social science research within marginalized populations, it examines the relationships between research, knowledge construction, and political power/legitimacy in society.

This collection of 12 new and revised essays on child care and children’s services gives a unique and lasting review of child care services explaining significant political, economic, legal and ideological aspects of this history from the mid-1850s.

In examining how our identity shapes the knowledge we produce, Mental health service users in research considers ways of 'doing research' which bring multiple understandings together effectively, and explains the sociological use of autobiography and its relevance.

This book offers a comparative analysis of alternative education in the UK, focusing on learning spaces that cater for children and young people. It constitutes one of the first book-length explorations of alternative learning spaces outside mainstream education.

Challenging current thinking, this important book is the first to focus on the role of area-based initiatives to tackle the link between education, disadvantage and place. Aimed at all those actively seeking to tackle disadvantage, including policymakers, practitioners, academics and students.

Education under siege considers the English education system as it is and as it might be. It identifies the current system’s strengths and weaknesses and proposes radical changes to ensure fair education for all.

In this book, leading experts examine how early education and care is organised and funded in eight different countries. Bringing together recent evidence, the book provides rich insights on how policies work in practice, and the extent to which they help or hinder the provision of high quality education and care.