Sociology - Textbooks

Demonstrating the relevance of theory to political and policy debates and practice, this dynamic and fully updated second edition helps students to grasp the real-life implications of social policy theory. It includes a new chapter featuring debates around disability, sexuality and the environment.

This book shapes a new language of social theory that allows people to embody their differences with a sense of dignity and self-worth, enabling them to come to terms with the complexities of their lived identities in a post-modern globalised world.

"Understanding social welfare movements" is the first text to bring together social policy and social movement studies. The book provides a timely and much needed overview of the changing nature of social welfare as it has been shaped by the demands of social movements.

This lively textbook, part of the successful Understanding Welfare series, helps us to understand policy, politics and practice. It combines an in-depth exploration of selected theoretical perspectives and concepts with a student-friendly format.

Using two key visual pedagogical tools, this book shows you how to produce vibrant and stimulating in-depth qualitative research that draws on data readily available via the internet. Concise, practical and jam-packed with valuable tips, this book will enable you to complete a successful desk-based research project you can be proud of.

This book investigates masculinity/ies in relation to world politics. Explaining the gender is both an asymmetrical binary and a hierarchy, the book shows how masculinization works via ‘nested hierarchies’ of domination and subordination and explores the imbrication of masculinities with the nation-state and great power politics.

This book brings together perspectives from social science, health-care and pastoral theology, looking at the way death is handled in contemporary society and the sensitive ethical and practical dilemmas facing nurses, social workers, doctors and chaplains.

This is the first book to make the link between popular culture and social problems. Drawing on historical and topical examples, the authors apply an innovative theoretical framework to examine how facets of popular culture shape how we think about, and respond to, social issues.

This myth-busting and question-focused textbook tackles the important social and policy issues posed by ageing. A unique pedagogical approach recognises the gap between the lives of students and older people, and equips students with the conceptual, analytical and critical tools to understand what it means to grow old and live in an ageing society.

Aimed at first-year undergraduates studying sociology and related disciplines, this introductory-level textbook presents key ideas and concepts in social theory and an account of their intellectual background.

This timely and accessible textbook analyses the male breadwinner model in terms of care, work, time, income and power, providing a framework which asks about policies and practices for gender equality in each of these. This new approach contextualises national policies and debates within comparative theoretical analysis and data.

An important contribution to topical debates about social work education and the identity of the profession, drawing lessons from the recent history of social work to identify how and why it has lost its privilege and influence.