First published in 1999, this much-needed volume powerfully re-evaluates attitudes to the 'deserving and 'undeserving' poor and aims to investigate social workers' attitudes and actions towards poverty issues, social service users who have needed financial help and to question whether learning about poverty is an integrated part of social work students' training and social workers' in-service training. Monica Dowling has experience of being a social work student and social worker, as well as a social work teacher and researcher. In an age when increasing numbers of undergraduate and postgraduate students are unemployed and living on benefits, Dowling reveals the true picture of the people who end up on the poverty line, reconnecting social work theory and practice.

This impressive work, set to become the standard history on the subject, offers a definitive survey of peasant society in Russia, from the consolidation of serfdom and tsarist autocracy in the 17th century through to the destruction of the peasant's traditional world under Stalin. Over three-quarters of Russian society were peasants in these years, and David Moon explores all aspects of their life xxx; including the rural economy, peasant households, village communities xxx; and their political role, including protest against the landowning elites. In the process he presents a fresh perspective on the history of Russia itself. A big book in every way xxx; and compellingly readable.

First published in 1999, this volume examines the 'meanings' specific child protection cases involving the familial sexual abuse of adolescent girls hold for social workers. This is achieved through a qualitative analysis of a series of interviews with social workers regarding current or recent cases. The analysis reveals various influences on social workers' practice: the organisation and administrative structure of child protection, governmental requirements to interagency coordination, the abused girl, her family, and the skills and limitations of the social worker. The findings point to a series of tensions between social workers' perceptions of appropriate intervention practice on the one hand and organisational needs, the demands of the criminal justice system and client choice on the other. This leads to recommendations for improved in-service training, including joint training for social workers and police officers, and a review of the transitional procedures between child protection and adult services.

First published in 1998, this volume contains an edited selection of papers presented at the Fifth International Research Seminar on 'Issues in Social Security', held on 14-17 June 1997 in Sweden by the Foundation for International Studies on Social Security (FISS) in memory of Brian Abel-Smith. The chapters cover a wide range of subjects related to old age pension reform, family policy, employment, privatization of social security and health care. The authors form a body of well-established researchers and scholars of world-wide reputation as well as younger scientists, stemming from various continents, and representing a range of relevant disciplines. This volume is the fourth in a series on international studies of issues in social security. The series is initiated by the Foundation for International Studies on Social Security (FISS). One of its aims is to confront different academic approaches with each other, and with public policy perspectives. Another is to give analytic reports of cross-nationally different approaches to the design and reform of welfare state programs.

First published in 1998, this volume asks: are new social classes in the making in eastern Europe? Are class issues withering away? How do different classes organize their lives, what kind of strategies do they adopt in East and West. Markku Kivinen brings Eastern Europe into the class debate. Recent sociological discussions have touched upon questions of class in Eastern Europe only very provisionally. On the other hand, old analyses of social stratification under conditions of 'actually existed socialism' are no longer relevant in the current situation. This book analyses processes of class relations in Eastern Europe from new theoretical vantage-points, using up-to-date empirical data. Under socialism, power was said to be vested in the working class. However, there was a constant tension between the 'holy proletariat' and the real life of the working class. Today, all political forces in Eastern Europe; leftist and liberal alike, are hankering for the middle class. This book explores the real processes in both East and West. This leads to more concrete political and even moral issues. The new 'sacred middle class' is challenged. The contributors adopt several conceptual approaches and perspectives which enter into a fruitful exchange in this book.

First published in 1997, this study of 9,000 people born in the same week in 1970, who have been followed up since birth, has produced a unique picture of life for those in their mid 20s - a year before the new Labour Government took office. The new survey shows a fractured society with clear evidence of an increasing gulf between those 'getting on' with their careers and blooming and those who are being left behind. The polarisation between those 'getting on' and those 'getting nowhere' was primarily about financial and career achievement but was also reflected in almost every other area of their lives. A theme running throughout the book is what characterises successful integration into adult life, as opposed to marginalisation and social exclusion which is encountered by increasing numbers of young people.

Across Europe concern is rising over the disintegration of social relations and the growing number of people who are being socially excluded. social Exclustoin in European Cities, the first major study of this topic, provides a definition of social exclusion and looks at both the processes which cause it and the dimensions of the problem throughout Europe. The experiences of people living in areas or neighbourhoods with low rates of social integration are considered, illuminating the human impact of exclusion where it is most visible. Finally the contributors evaluate the various policy and community initiatives which are currently confronting the problem in a wide sample of European Cities on a variety of levels, from inform individual actions to supra-national European Union policy, and suggest new ways in which social exclusion could be tackled. With most large cities experiencing some degree of social exclusion, this is an important volume for all those working in the areas of regional policy, town planning, housing management, social work, community development, sociology, political science and urban studies.

Contents:
1. Japanese Working Class Lives 2. Getting There and Getting In 3. Shintani Metals 4. Shintani Metals 5. Paths to Shintanir 6. Paths to Shintani 7. Paths from Shintani 8. After Hours 9. After Hours 10. Private Time 11. Conclusion

In this valuable study, conducted within the theoretical context associated with the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Derek Wynne looks at how the 'new middle class' of the late twentieth century goes about constructing and defending its social identity.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203031334

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Television and film not only entertain and reflect social change, they may also participate and influence these changes -- the recent success of The Full Monty and Billy Elliot show popular British comedy based on such painful social transformations.

Looking at Class brings together film and television practitioners with academic students of cultural and economic change to examine the media representation of the British working class in the twentieth century -- a time of decline for the manual working class when a complex service-based economy emerged. The book covers a large range of genres from documentaries to soaps and shows that complex cultural transitions can be communicated clearly in prose as well as in screen drama.

The author analyzes the nature of child-rearing in eighteenth-century Poland and its linkage to the reform movements that swept the country after the first partition in 1772. She finds that family behavior cannot be separated from politics in Polish society: in fact, education and child-rearing were major issues in the reform movement of the 1770s. Lorence-Kot shows where Poland lagged behind Western Europe, and how various reformers proposed to advance Polish society through new methods of raising children in the upper classes. The resistant attitudes of Polish parents are examined in detail, as are their attitudes toward their children, corporal punishment, schooling, and other child-related issues. The author explores the push for a wholesale adoption of French models of child-care and education, as well as the later reforms which met with the modern demands of European society.

Successfully bringing together accessible readings that cover the broad range of issues of importance to those studying politics and society, this new edition of Power and Inequality provides a unique mix of theoretical and empirical pieces, such as state and electoral politics, that address both classic issues in political sociology and more recent developments, such as globalization. With strong integration of race and gender throughout, this collection offers a coherent analysis of power that reflects the contributions of a variety of critical perspectives, including Marxism, feminism, critical race theory, postmodernism, and power structure theory.

This collection of readings has been complied on the assumption that for an adequate explanation of the success and failure, the strengths and weaknesses, of democracy, it is necessary to resort to both class and elite theories and to strive for the future development of the extant beginnings of a synthesis between them. For this purpose, it presents the most central and intellectually outstanding readings that illustrate the manner in which the two theories have analyzed democracy, as well as democratization, in various parts of the world.

After an introduction to the major issues confronting intellectuals, this book explores the various aspects of the intellectual's role including:
* philosophers and academics who have tried to define the function of the intellectual
* how intellectuals have assumed the status of the conscience of the nation and the voice of the oppressed
* the interaction of intellectuals with Marxism
* the place of the intellectual in American society
Covering regions as diverse as Israel, Algeria, Britain, Ireland, central Europe and America, this collection considers the question of whether the intellectual can still lay claim to the language of truth. In answering, this study tells us much about the modern world in which we live.
Coverage includes the following thinkers: Gramsci, Weber, Yeats, Auden, Levy, Mailer, Walzer, Marx and many more.

Intellectuals have played a vital part in shaping this century and, since their original intervention in the Dreyfus affair to the case of Salmon Rushdie, intellectuals have caused controversy.
Jeremy Jennings and Tony Kemp-Welch introduce a collection of essays from leading academics in the field of political theory. After an introduction on the major issues confronting intellectuals the book explores the various different aspects of the intellectual's role, including:
* philosophers and academics who have tried to define the function of the intellectual
* how intellectuals have assumed the status of the conscience of the nation and the voice of the oppressed
* the interaction of intellectuals with Marxism
* the place of the intellectual in American society
Covering countries as diverse as Israel, Algeria, Britain, Ireland, central Europe and America, this collection considers the question of whether the intellectual can still lay claim to the language of truth. In answering, this study tells us much about the modern world in which we live.

Series Information:
Nissan Institute/RoutledgeCurzon Japanese Studies

This text focuses on the theory of class as it relates to women. It debates questions such as: how do women define themselves in terms of social class and why?; is definition important or not?; what part does education play in our understanding of class?; and how does class affect relationships?

This text focuses on the theory of class as it relates to women. It debates questions such as: how do women define themselves in terms of social class and why?; is definition important or not?; what part does education play in our understanding of class?; and how does class affect relationships?

Based on in-depth analysis, extensive interviews, and a journalist's keen insight, An Empire of Schools provides a new framework to explore the misunderstandings that have arisen between Japan and the United States. The vital determining issue that complicates U.S.-Sino communications, Cutts says, is not the cultural incompatibilities of the people or economies but the fact that all Japanese leaders emerge from the same educational treadmill or "cartels of the mind". This revered system, crowned by five national and private universities, and from which almost all Japanese leaders emerge, teaches its students that they are inherently incapable of sharing their values, civic or personal, with those of any other civilization. Describing an educational system that has been left fundamentally unchanged since the Meiji Empire, Cutts depicts the elites who graduate from the system, describes what ethical philosophy is imparted to those graduates, and warns of the dangers of nationalist elitism that arise from the system. Filled with personal anecdotes as well as critical interviews, An Empire of Schools traces the potential consequences to Japan and the Pacific Rim of an educational system that begins imparting an elitist doctrine in kindergarten that extends to the highest levels of Japanese government.

Poor or marginal whites occupy an uncharted space in recent identity studies, particularly because they do not easily fit the model of whiteness-as-power proposed by many multiculturalist or minority discourses. Associated in mainstream culture with "trashy" kitsch or dangerous pathologies rather than with the material realities of economic life, poor whites are treated as degraded caricatures rather than as real people living in conditions of poverty and disempowerment. White Trash situates the study of poor whites within the context of several academic disciplines, public-policy analysis, and popular or mass-media representations. Arguing that white racism is directed not only against people of color but also against certain groups of whites, the contributors to this volume explore the ways in which race and class in America are often talked about and represented in hidden, coded, or half-realized ways. In so doing, they demonstrate why the term white trash itself embodies yet another way in which some whites generate a debased "other" through pejorative naming practices.

This collection is devoted to exploring stereotypes about the social conditions of poor whites in the United States and comparing these stereotypes with the social reality, unmasking the racial and class assumptions behind the term 'white trash'.

Around 5.6 million British nationals live outside the United Kingdom: the equivalent of one in every ten Britons. However, social science research, as well as public interest, has tended to focus more on the numbers of migrants entering the UK, rather than those leaving. This book provides an important counterbalance, drawing on the latest empirical research and theoretical developments to offer a fascinating account of the lives, experiences and identities of British migrants living in a wide range of geographic locations across Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia. This collection asks: What is the shape and significance of contemporary British migration? Who are today's British migrants and how might we understand their everyday lives? Contributions uncover important questions in the context of global and national debates about the nature of citizenships, the 'Brexit' vote, deliberations surrounding mobility and freedom of movement, as well as national, racial and ethnic boundaries. This book challenges conventional wisdoms about migration and enables new understandings about British migrants, their relations to historical privileges, international relations and sense of national identity. It will be valuable core reading to researchers and students across disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, Politics and International Relations.

Chris Given-Wilson provides an authoritative and vivid reconstruction of the true nature of political society in late medieval England. He looks at the social structure of the time, discussing what contemporaries meant when they talked of the nobility, always emphasizing the close relationship between social status and political influence. He describes the noble household and council, and examines the territorial and familial policies of local and national affairs.