Policy Press

Sociology and Social Theory

Sociology is a growth area for us and our books in sociology and social theory include exciting work from new authors and well-known academics, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate textbooks.

Our wide range of sociology and social theory books include high quality research and range from textbooks through to specialised monographs. Many also ‘make a difference’ in a tangible way, whether it be informing a key policy or practice debate, or improving the education of students.

Showing 13-24 of 285 items.

Preventing Intimate Partner Violence

Interdisciplinary Perspectives

This book brings together researchers and practitioners from a range of fields to examine strategies and programs for preventing intimate partner violence (IPV). It provides paths to more efficacious prevention strategies and highlights ways that all stakeholders can work more effectively toward reducing violence.

Policy Press

Research Justice

Methodologies for Social Change

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.

Policy Press

The Harms of Work

An Ultra-Realist Account of the Service Economy

This book discusses workplace harm through an ultra-realist lens and examines the connection between individuals, their working conditions and management culture. It investigates the reorganisation of labour markets and the shift to flexibility and highlights working conditions and organisational practices within which multiple harms occur.

Bristol Uni Press

Continuity and Change in Voluntary Action

Patterns, Trends and Understandings

Drawing on extensive survey data and written accounts of citizen engagement, this pioneering book charts change and continuity in voluntary activity since 1981. Part of the Third Sector Research Series.

Policy Press

Science, Belief and Society

International Perspectives on Religion, Non-Religion and the Public Understanding of Science

This wide-ranging book critically reviews the ways in which religious and non-religious belief systems interact with scientific methods, traditions and theories. Moving beyond the traditional focus on the United States, the book shows how debates about science and belief are firmly embedded in political conflict, class, community and culture.

Bristol Uni Press

Welfare, Inequality and Social Citizenship

Deprivation and Affluence in Austerity Britain

Offers a rare and vivid insight into the everyday lives, attitudes and behaviours of the rich as well as the poor across the UK, demonstrating how those marginalised and validated by the existing welfare system make sense of the prevailing socio-political settlement and their own position within it.

Policy Press

Trusting on the Edge

Managing Uncertainty and Vulnerability in the Midst of Serious Mental Health Problems

This book explores issues central to contemporary theoretical debates around the nature of trust, linking abstract concerns to empirical analysis with interviews with service-users, practitioners and managers.

Policy Press

Partnerships

Machines of possibility

How did partnerships come to emerge almost everywhere and at almost the same time? What is the inner logic of partnerships? And at what point does that logic begin to break down? This book improves our understanding of the shifting ground on which partnerships and agreements must be reached in today's hyper-complex society.

Policy Press

Researching Happiness

Qualitative, Biographical and Critical Perspectives

Edited by Mark Cieslik

This original collection draws on the latest empirical research to explore the practical challenges facing happiness researchers today. By uniquely combining the critical approach of sociology with techniques from other disciplines, the contributors illuminate new qualitative and biographical approaches of the study of happiness and well-being.

Bristol Uni Press

Youth, Work and the Post-Fordist Self

Drawing on empirical research, this book provides an innovative exploration of youth and work, showing how youth identities are connected with the dynamics of labour and value in contemporary capitalism.

Bristol Uni Press

Pioneering Social Research

Life Stories of a Generation

Presenting the landmark Pioneers life stories project, this one-of-a-kind book documents how modern social research in the UK was shaped. It combines a fascinating history of the generations who built outstanding and influential social research with a valuable resource for future research and teaching on methods.

Policy Press

The Criminalisation of Social Policy in Neoliberal Societies

From anti-terrorism agendas, to the punishment of the poor and the governance of parenting, this book explores how diverse fields of social policy intersect more deeply than ever with crime control and in so doing, deploy troubling strategies.

Bristol Uni Press