Policy Press

Poverty, inequality and social justice

The issues involved in poverty, inequality and social justice are many and varied, from basic access to education and healthcare, to the financial crisis and resulting austerity, and now COVID-19. Addressing Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 5: Gender Equality, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities and Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, our list both presents research on these topics and tackles emerging problems. A key series in the area is the SSSP Agendas for Social Justice.

This area has always been at the heart of our publishing with the view to making the research in this area as visible and accessible as possible in order to maximise its potential impact. 

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Poverty, inequality and social justice, we aim to address the following goals:

SDG Publishers compact logoSDG 1: No povertySDG 5: Gender equalitySDG 10: Reduced inequalitiesSDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions

Showing 157-168 of 697 items.

Forgotten Wives

How Women Get Written Out of History

Forgotten Wives examines how marriage has contributed to the active ‘disremembering’ of women’s achievements. Ann Oakley uses case studies of four women married to well-known men to ask questions about gender inequality and contributes a fresh vision of how the welfare state developed in the early 20th century.

Policy Press

A Watershed Moment for Social Policy and Human Rights?

Where Next for the UK Post-COVID

This book demonstrates that an alternative approach to social policy, based on human rights and social justice, is necessary to tackle the existing systemic inequalities brought to the foreground by COVID-19.

Policy Press

Socially Distanced Activism

Voices of Lived Experience of Poverty During COVID-19

Drawing on case studies from APLE Collective groups, this book interrogates the term ‘lived experience’. It critically investigates how knowledge gained from lived experiences of poverty is integral to developing effective COVID-19 policies.

Policy Press

The Unequal Pandemic

COVID-19 and Health Inequalities

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC- ND This accessible, yet authoritative book shows how the pandemic is a syndemic of disease and inequality. It argues that these inequalities are a political choice and we need to learn quickly to prevent growing inequality and to reduce health inequalities in the future.

Policy Press

Ability, Inequality and Post-Pandemic Schools

Rethinking Contemporary Myths of Meritocracy

Alice Bradbury discusses how the meritocracy myth reinforces educational inequalities and analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience might challenge how we classify and label children as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.

Policy Press

Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia

Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education

Edited by Nicole Brown

Embedded in personal experiences, this collection explores ableism in academia. Through theoretical lenses including autobiography, autoethnography, embodiment, body work and emotional labour, contributors explore being ‘othered’ in academia and provide practical examples to develop inclusive universities and a less ableist environment.

Policy Press

Living Wages and the Welfare State

The Anglo-American Social Model in Transition

Addressing the rapidly shifting politics of the minimum wage in six English-speaking countries, Shaun Wilson analyses minimum wage policies within a political-economy narrative. Topical and poignant, this book identifies the success of living wage campaigns as central to both welfare state change and alternatives to the Basic Income.

Policy Press

Adoption from Care

International Perspectives on Children’s Rights, Family Preservation and State Intervention

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND. This book explores how children’s rights are weighed against parents’ rights in a range of countries, and examines how governments and legal and welfare professionals balance those rights following the decision that children cannot grow up in their parents’ care.

Policy Press

The Struggle for Social Sustainability

Moral Conflicts in Global Social Policy

Leading interdisciplinary scholars focus on the ‘social’ of social policy. This ground-breaking volume tackles pressing ‘social questions’ and critically engages with contested conceptions of ‘the social’ which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policy makers.

Policy Press

Interprofessional Collaboration and Service User Participation

Analysing Meetings in Social Welfare

This book examines how interprofessional collaboration and service user participation are challenged in multi-agency meetings, demonstrating how collaborative and integrated welfare policy is contingent on the interactional practices of professionals and service users and providing examples of best practice.

Policy Press

Practical Lessons from Policy Theories

First published as a special issue of Policy & Politics, this critical and practical volume challenges policy theory scholars to change the way they produce and communicate research. Leading scholars propose eight ways to synthesis and translate knowledge to equip scholars to clearly communicate their insights with each other and a wider audience.

Policy Press

The Children of Looked After Children

Outcomes, Experiences and Ensuring Meaningful Support to Young Parents In and Leaving Care

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Based on groundbreaking original research, this book provides a comprehensive account of the issues surrounding pregnancy and parenthood for young people in and leaving care, considering the role of state as corporate parent and grandparent.

Policy Press


Related journals

Journal of poverty and social justice cover

Journal of Poverty and Social Justice

Welfare regimes in the global South: does the capability approach provide an alternative perspective?
Sophie Plagerson and Leila Patel

Basic income and a public job offer: complementary policies to reduce poverty and unemployment
Felix FitzRoy and Jim Jin

Monitoring progress towards sustainable development: multidimensional child poverty in the European Union
Yekaterina Chzhen, Zlata Bruckauf and Emilia Toczydlowska

Much ado about poverty: the role of a UN Special Rapporteur
Philip Alston, Bassam Khawaja and Rebecca Riddell

Including services in multidimensional poverty measurement for SDGs: modifications to the consensual approach
Alba Lanau, Joanna Mack and Shailen Nandy

For better or for worse: does the UK means-tested social security system encourage partnership dissolution?
Rita Griffiths

CCTs and conditionalities: an exploratory analysis of not meeting conditional cash transfer conditionalities in Chile's Families Programme
Tal Reininger, Cristobal Villalobos and Ignacio Wyman

Welfare regimes in the global South: does the capability approach provide an alternative perspective?
Sophie Plagerson and Leila Patel

Basic income and a public job offer: complementary policies to reduce poverty and unemployment
Felix FitzRoy and Jim Jin

Monitoring progress towards sustainable development: multidimensional child poverty in the European Union
Yekaterina Chzhen, Zlata Bruckauf and Emilia Toczydlowska

Is there evidence of households making a heat or eat trade off in the UK?
Carolyn Snell, Hannah Lambie-Mumford and Harriet Thomson

Leaving no one behind? Reaching the informal sector, poor people and marginalised groups with Social Health Protection
Claude Meyer, David Evans et al.

Gender, ethnicity and activism: 'the miracle is when we don't give up...'
Anna  Daróczi, Angela Kocze et al.

‘We are constantly overdrawn, despite not spending money on anything other than bills and food’: a mixed-methods, participatory study of food and food insecurity in the context of income inequality [Open Access]
Katie Pybus, Madeleine Power, and Kate E. Pickett

A consequence of a tragedy: nowcasting poverty rate in Syria
Samer Hamati

Retheorising the relationship between electricity scarcity and social injustice: evidence from Zimbabwe
Ellen Fungisai Chipango

Exploring child poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa: a multidimensional perspective
Kehinde Oluwaseun Omotoso and Steven F. Koch

‘To tell you the truth, no job is legit’: an exploration of justice for Hanoi’s marginalised urban migrants
Jonathan De Luca