Social issues & processes

This book analyses the political and long-term systemic factors associated with the failures to control COVID-19 in England. Exploring the role of key policy actors, it focuses on two policy failings during the first wave: the establishment of a ‘Test, Trace and Isolate’ system and responses to the high death rate in care homes for older people.

Challenging social science’s established orthodoxies, this book is a call for academia to embrace new theoretical frameworks and research methods to better understand the reality of life in a post-Covid world.

The role that nurseries play in supplementing family care is an important subject – but in the UK, there is currently little consensus about what nurseries should provide, how they should be run, and who should pay for them. In this book, Helen Penn asks: is there a more considered way ahead?

Dan Newman and Jon Robins combine investigative journalism and academic scholarship to examine how the lives of people suffering problems with benefits, debt, family, housing and immigration are made harder by cuts to the civil justice system.

Almost every aspect of society will change after the pandemic, but if we learn lessons then life can be better. Featuring expert authors from across academia and civil society, this book offers ideas that might put us on alternative paths for positive social change.

Catherine Oliver shows why the veganism movement has become a powerful social, political and environmental force. She discusses the health and environmental benefits of veganism, explores the practical and social impacts of the shift to eating plants, and explains why veganism is not just a diet, but a way of life.

How should we treat animals? The field of animal rights raises pressing questions about how humans treat the other animals as livestock farming exerts an increasing toll on the planet, and we learn more about their capacity to think and experience pain. This book shows what the world might look like if animals had greater rights.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC- ND This accessible, yet authoritative book shows how the pandemic is a syndemic of disease and inequality. It argues that these inequalities are a political choice and we need to learn quickly to prevent growing inequality and to reduce health inequalities in the future.

This practical guide provides user-friendly, concise, expert and up-to-date guidance for both new and experienced hate crime caseworkers and advocates. Full of relevant, up-to-date evidence based research and policy, it will enable practitioners to be confident and knowledgeable in supporting victims of hate crime.

This book calls for a bold forward-looking social policy that addresses continuing austerity, under-resourced organisations and a lack of social solidarity. Based on a research programme by the Webb Memorial Trust, a key theme is power which shows that the way forward is to increase people’s sense of agency in building the society that they want.

Why do anti-corruption efforts routinely fail? What kind of world are they creating? Looking at luxury art, antiquities, superyachts and populist politics, this book explores the connection between luxury and corruption, and offers an alternative to the received wisdom of how we tackle corruption.

This unique book provides an insider's view of the seminal inquiry into Stephen Lawrence's murder. This accessible and engaging book includes analysis of hitherto inaccessible transcripts, and shows how the Inquiry was undermined to the point of failure to produce the desired results.