Textbooks
Policy Press publishes a range of textbooks and other learning resources across the social sciences to suit a variety of course and learning needs. These are designed with students in mind and include many accessible features – from case studies and chapter summaries, to revision questions and illustrative boxes and diagrams.
The majority of our textbooks are available as consumer eBooks as well as in print and we are happy to discuss bespoke options such as print and digital packages or creating unique collections to suit your course needs. Our content is available through the key institutional content providers VitalSource and Kortext in early 2015, allowing seamless integration with VLE platforms. If you would like to discuss how we could help with your course resources, please contact pp-sales@bristol.ac.uk.
For more information about our textbooks, please see Information for Lecturers.
Understanding Social Security
Issues for Policy and Practice
The political and economic landscape of UK social security provision has changed significantly since the 2008 financial crisis. This fully revised, restructured and updated 3rd edition of a go-to text book covers all the key policy changes and their implications since the elections of 2010 and 2015.
Understanding Research for Social Policy and Social Work (Second Edition)
Themes, Methods and Approaches
Understanding Police Intelligence Work
This is the first textbook to offer a comprehensive and up-to-date account of police intelligence work based on current research, and to assess how intelligence may be used wisely and ethically to influence policing policy and practice.
Understanding inequality, poverty and wealth
Policies and prospects
This major textbook provides students with a critical understanding of poverty and social exclusion in relation to wealth, rather than as separate from it.
Understanding immigration and refugee policy
Contradictions and continuities
The book provides an essential background to understanding debates surrounding immigration and refugee policy. It examines different theoretical approaches to immigration and explores links between immigration policy, welfare and social exclusion, as well as documenting migrants' experiences in negotiating and challenging these policies.
Understanding Human Need
One of the few resources available to provide an overview of human need as a key concept in the social sciences, this accessible and engaging second edition models existing practical and theoretical approaches to human need while also proposing a radical alternative.
Understanding Housing Policy
Focusing on principles and theory and their application in the process of constructing housing policy, with boxed examples and case studies throughout, this fully revised 3rd edition addresses the range of socio-economic factors that have influenced UK housing policy in recent years.
Understanding Health Policy
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.
Understanding Health and Social Care
This engaging and accessible text, now in its third edition, provides a comprehensive introduction to health and social care. This new edition has been updated to cover recent developments, including the integrated care agenda, potential regional devolution and austerity.
Understanding Family Meanings
A Reflective Text
Understanding Family Meanings provides an overview of the basic concepts and theories related to families using readings with questions and analysis to encourage reflection and learning. It focuses on family meanings as the key underpinnings for academic study and professional training.
Understanding equal opportunities and diversity
The social differentiations and intersections of inequality
This book challenges the official discourse that shapes the debates on Equal Opportunities and Diversity (EO&D) at national, regional and European level and will be a key text for students and researchers of EO&D in many fields.