Sociology

Any attempt by governments to stem the tide of early retirement will need to focus as much on employers' management of human resources as on the impacts of social policy. This report focuses on this previously neglected area: employers' policies and practice as a dynamic force in retirement decisions.

This book examines the role of participants in research and how research ethics can be put into practice. Health, social, and journalistic research are currently subject to very different forms of regulation and codes of practice. By including the experiences of researchers and their subjects the book explores the disciplinary divides.

Governments worldwide assume that national competitiveness can be improved by developing workforce skills. This book critically examines this 'high skills' vision at both policy and practice levels. It challenges an oversimplified policy rhetoric that underestimates the complexity of the processes involved in developing a skilled workforce.

New Labour has concentrated many of its social policy initiatives in reinvigorating the family, community and work. But just how 'new' are the ideas driving policy and practice?

This book shows how New Labour has drawn on the ideas and premises of functionalism, which dominated British and American sociological thought from the 1940s to the 1960s.

The enduring and multi-faceted significance of families in society, and their value as a focus for the exploration of social change have ensured that families remain a prominent focus of academic enquiry. This book proposes a new conceptual framework that both challenges and attempts to reconcile traditional and contemporary approaches.

This is the last of three reports in a longitudinal study that has followed the journey of a group of young people from less advantaged families through Higher Education and into the labour market. This report focuses on the young people's progress from full-time study into the graduate labour market. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk

The history of social policy is emerging as an area of growing interest to both students and researchers. This topical book charts the period from the 1830s to the present day, providing a fresh analysis of the relationship between social theory and social policy in the UK.

This study examines the relationship between poverty and informal work. Exploring the experiences of people in low-paid informal work, it contends that unless government seeks to include the informal economy in its strategies, it will never be able to reach its employment or anti-poverty targets.

Free pdf version available at www.jrf.org.uk

Paul Spicker's new book takes the three founding principles of the French Revolution - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - and examines how they relate to social policy today. The book considers the political and moral dimensions of a wide range of social policies, and offers a different way of thinking about each subject.

This book provides the first critically informed discussion of work and workers in the UK welfare sector under New Labour. It examines the changing nature of work and explores the context of industrial relations across the welfare industry.

Systemic Action Research explains how systemic thinking works and how it can be embedded into organisational structures and processes to catalyse sustainable change and critical local interventions.

"Beyond the workfare state" explores equality, discrimination and human rights in relation to employability and 'welfare-to-work' policies bringing together a wide and distinctive range of illustrative studies that gives voice to a variety of potentially marginalised groups.