"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.

The turn to biographical methods in social science is invigorating the relationship between policy and practice. This book shows how biographical methods can improve theoretical understanding of professional practice, as well as enrich the development of professionals, and promote more meaningful practitioner - service user relationships.

This volume focuses on the place of biographical research in social futures and its creative applications in the new unprecedented societal circumstances, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

What does mothering mean in different cultures and societies? This book extensively applies biographical and narrative research methods to mothering from international perspectives. Considering self-care, rapport, trust and self-reflection, the collection advances methodological practice in the study of mothers, carers and childless women’s lives.

Throughout Europe, standardised approaches to social policy and practice are being radically questioned and modified. Beginning from the narrative detail of individual lives, this book re-thinks welfare predicaments, emphasising gender, generation, ethnic and class implications of economic and social deregulation.

This sociological collection advances the argument that the concept of a "turning point" expands our understanding of life experiences from a descriptive to a deeper and more abstract level of analysis.

Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book analyses the clashes between evidence-based medicine and the dynamics of an increasingly privatised fertility care industry. With a unique focus on "add-on" treatments, it reveals how these controversial treatments are now widespread and can border on hopemongering.

Human population growth is a serious biospheric problem, yet is largely overlooked. This book fills this gap with a concise review of world population growth, including the impact of over-population on the biosphere and government interventions addressing the frequency of childbearing and immigration.

This book builds upon popular texts addressing anti-discriminatory frameworks but focuses specifically upon black perspectives in social work. It addresses new developments and charts the impact of social changes and new literature shaping social work theory and practice with black and minority individuals, families and communities.

This outstanding work examines black mothers’ engagements with attachment parenting and shows how it both undermines and reflects neoliberalism. Unique in its intersectional analysis, it fills a gap in the literature, drawing on black feminist theorizing to examine intensive mothering practices and policies.

Drawing on students’ experiences of structural racism in the UK higher education institutions, this book offers an informed analysis on the barriers to Black student progression. It documents success stories and provides key recommendations for the sector on how to eliminate discrimination and achieve positive results for Black students.

This is the first detailed criminological account of the role of blame in which the authors present a novel study of the legal process of blame attribution, set in the context of criminalisation as a social and political process. It will also be of wider interest to anyone wishing to discover the role of blame in modern society.