Policy Press

Social Theory

Showing 25-36 of 83 items.

How Do You Know If You Are Making a Difference?

A Practical Handbook for Public Service Organisations

This book sets out practical and theoretically robust approaches for understanding and tracking change that any organisation can use to evaluate their contribution to social change and become more efficient and effective.

Policy Press

How To Create Societies for Human Wellbeing

How to Create Societies for Human Wellbeing presents a compelling new perspective on psychological wellbeing informed by evidence on human stress responses. It shows how our mental health is shaped by the social and cultural conditions in which we all live and offers new ways to respond through political and social change.

Policy Press

How to Use Social Work Theory in Practice

An Essential Guide

In this clear and systematic book covering the both general practice concepts and theoretical insights, best-selling author Malcolm Payne shows you how to work with the main social work theories and practice techniques and pinpoint their strengths and limitations.

Policy Press

Imagining Society

The Case for Sociology

Re-examining C.Wright Mills’s legacy as a jumping off point, this original introduction to sociology illuminates global concepts, themes and practices that are fundamental to the discipline and rethinks and re-imagines what a critically committed, politically engaged and publicly relevant sociology should look like in the 21st century.

Bristol Uni Press

The Imposter as Social Theory

Thinking with Gatecrashers, Cheats and Charlatans

Edited by expert scholars, this volume explores the 'imposter' through empirical cases, including click farms, bikers, business leaders and fraudulent scientists, providing insights into the social relations and cultural forms from which they emerge.

Bristol Uni Press

Indigenous Criminology

Indigenous Criminology comprehensively explores Indigenous people’s contact with criminal justice systems in a contemporary and historical context. It addresses both the theoretical underpinnings of the development of a specific Indigenous criminology, and canvasses the broader policy and practice implications for criminal justice.

Policy Press

An intellectual history of British social policy

Idealism versus non-idealism

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.

Policy Press

Interpreting Contentious Memory

Countermemories and Social Conflicts over the Past

This book illustrates how scholars use different interpretive lenses to study profound conflicts rooted in the past. Addressing issues of racism, genocide, war, nationalism, colonialism and more, it highlights how our interpretations of contentious memories are indispensable to our understandings of contemporary conflicts and identities.

Bristol Uni Press

Interpreting Religion

Making Sense of Religious Lives

This collection brings together a diverse range of interpretivist perspectives to find fresh takes on the meanings of religion. Cutting across paradigms and traditions, experts from the UK, US, and India apply different approaches to engagement with beliefs and themes, including identity, ritual, and emotion.

Bristol Uni Press

Interpreting Subcultures

Approaching, Contextualizing, and Embodying Sense-Making Practices in Alternative Cultures

This book makes an unprecedented contribution to the field by explaining the interpretive processes through which subcultural phenomena are studied. Examining dimensions of interpretivism, it reveals how and why people decide to use specific conceptual frames or methodologies and how they shape their interpretations of everyday realities.

Bristol Uni Press

Interpreting the Body

Between Meaning and Matter

Written by leading social scientists, this ambitious volume asks what individuals’ “handling” of bodies reveal about inequality, social order and cultural change in societies.

Bristol Uni Press

Interpretive Sociology and the Semiotic Imagination

Written by experts in interpretive sociology, this volume examines semiotic models in a sociological context. Contributors offer case studies to demonstrate ‘how to do things’ with semiotics. Synthesizing a diverse and fragmented landscape, this is a key reference work for understanding the connection between semiotics and sociology.

Bristol Uni Press