Social welfare & social services

Reviewing diverse sites, including the US, Cambodia, Israel, Poland, Chile, Australia, and Brazil, this book considers how schooling systems are being influenced by the rise of external actors who increasingly determine the content, delivery, and governance of education.

Why do the UK and US disproportionately incarcerate the mentally ill? Via multiple re-framings of the question—theological, socioeconomic, and psychological— Andrew Skotnicki diagnoses a "persecution of the prophetic" at the heart of the contemporary penal system and society more broadly.

Experts review the leading social policy scholarship from the past year in this comprehensive volume. Published in association with the Social Policy Association, this volume addresses current issues and critical debates throughout the international social policy field.

Drawing on interviews with journalists and police officers, this is the first ethnographic study of crime news reporting in the UK for over 25 years. It shows the impediments to crime reporting that exist in the aftermath of the Leveson Report and considers the future of investigative journalism non-profits.

Drawing on first-hand accounts from those living under the systems, this novel study explores the impact of Australia and New Zealand’s income management policies and asks whether they have caused more harm than good.

This book synthesises the challenges of researching everyday life for families on low incomes during the COVID-19 pandemic to improve future policy and practice.

India’s ageing population is growing rapidly. This book examines living arrangements across India and their impact on the provision of care for older adults in India.

Christopher O’Leary provides a fresh perspective on prosocial working choices in this first substantive critique of Public Service Motivation. The book reviews concepts of PSM and research to date and explores the rationales and aims of public and third sector workers before proposing alternative theories for people’s motivations to serve.

Offering a much-needed analysis of the overlooked crisis of food poverty in Ireland, this book brings together the complex picture emerging from interviews with users of food aid, explores the international landscape of food poverty and what action should be taken.

This timely analysis sets out the full impacts of policy reform, austerity and marketisation on our country’s mental health services. Rooted in the experiences of service users and providers, it provides valuable perspectives on our evolving practical and organisational responses to mental distress.

Welfare states are a major feature of many societies. This book draws on qualitative interviews with people receiving various working age welfare payments in Ireland to analyse welfare conditionality and explore stigma, social reciprocity and the notions of the deserving and undeserving poor.

In the first dedicated analysis of its kind, international experts review the rationale and results of arts-based approaches to research, teaching, and practice in social work. The book presents examples of their use and methods to evaluate and theorise results and shows how arts can form outputs from research too.