Textbooks

This fully updated edition of a bestselling book explores the processes and institutions that make health policy, examining what constitutes health policy, where power lies, and what changes could be made to improve the quality of health policy making.

This fully updated edition of an essential introductory text offers a concise guide to the key structures and concepts in social policy and is designed to work in partnership with unique, innovative digital content that adds depth and provides a truly integrated way of learning.

Full of up-to-date case studies, practice examples and points for reflection, this exciting textbook explores theoretical frameworks for working with people with learning difficulties.

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.

Through the framework of understanding health inequalities as a 'wicked problem' the book develops an applied approach to researching, understanding and addressing these by drawing on complexity theory.

This text makes sense of the multiple ways in which urban issues and problems have been addressed in different places at different times. From initiatives that focus on social tensions within the urban realm, to those which seek to develop cities as economic entities, it provides an accessible discussion and critique of some key approaches.

Written by an experienced author and widely respected academic, this valuable book asks whether the planning system is to blame for the frequent criticism it receives and discusses the ways in which management theories, tools and techniques can be applied to planning.

Essential reading for students, this book uses a problem based learning approach through the application of case studies to explain the transformation agenda and the implications for adult health and social care.

An Introduction to Critical Criminology offers an accessible introduction to foundational and contemporary theories and perspectives in critical criminology which introduces students to theories and perspectives about the causes of crime, and the operation of the criminal justice system.

An important contribution to topical debates about social work education and the identity of the profession, drawing lessons from the recent history of social work to identify how and why it has lost its privilege and influence.

This comprehensive, accessibly written resource, is designed to help students and practitioners explore partnerships in creating, contributing, consuming, commissioning or critiquing evidence in and for social work practice.

This unique and topical companion provides expert analyses that explore the interface between criminal justice and mental health. It consolidates scholarly analysis of theory, policy and practice and practical debates, in addition to the theoretical and ideological concerns surrounding risk assessment, treatment, control and management.