Social theory

This book provides the theoretical context for the Youth Empowerment Partnership Programme programme. It gives a full account of the process and outcomes of its unique development and reflects on the lessons learnt for future policy.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This important book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, and applying them to policy and practice debates.

What does it mean to age in an ageist society? Applying interdisciplinary perspectives about everyday life to vital issues in older people’s lives, this is a critical guide to inform thinking and planning our ageing futures.

Nils Christie’s (1986) seminal work on the ‘Ideal Victim’ is reproduced in full in this edited collection of vibrant and provocative essays that respond to and update the concept from a range of thematic positions.

Beer in the United States has always been bound up with race, racism, and the construction of white institutions and identities. This unique book carves a much-needed critical and interdisciplinary path to examine and understand the racial dynamics in the craft beer industry and the popular consumption of beer.

We praise those people who do things for others. But the symbolic power of giving means glow of 'goodness' that charity provides can be taken advantage of. Drawing on original data and Bourdieu's sociology, this book examines a wide range of charity examples to provide an entertaining critique of how contemporary charity works.

Employing a generational analysis, this book offers an original approach to the study of Higher Education and documents the changing nature of the relationship between academics and students. Examining wider issues of culture and socialisation, this is a timely contribution to current debates about the University around higher education.

Outsourcing of domestic work in the UK has been steadily rising since the 1970s, but little research has considered White British women. This book argues that outsourced domestic cleaning can either be done as mental and manual skilled work or as manual and ‘natural’ emotional/affective labour, depending on the work conditions.

This book considers what makes us happy, using a new approach that directly addresses the circumstances under which highly subjective well-being is experienced, often with surprising results. 

This student-friendly textbook uses theoretical perspectives to bring to life social theories relating to health and illness. including binge drinking, obesity, the prominence of therapy and the search for happiness.

This book is the first to theorise and define the social harm concept beyond criminology and seeks to address these omissions and in doing so provide a platform for future debates, in this series and beyond.

Using Sweden as a case study, this book combines theories of family practices, care and childhood studies with the personal perspectives of nannies, au pairs, parents and children to provide new understandings of what constitutes care in nanny families.