The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities promotes ability equality, but this is not experienced in national laws. Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK and the US all have one thing in common: regulatory frameworks which treat workers with psychosocial disabilities less favorably than workers with either physical or sensory disabilities. Ableism at Work is a comprehensive and comparative legal, practical and theoretical analysis of workplace inequalities experienced by workers with psychosocial disabilities. Whether it be denying anti-discrimination protection to people with episodic disabilities, addictions or other psychological impairments, failing to make reasonable accommodations/adjustments for workers with psychosocial disabilities, or denying them workers' compensation or occupational health and safety protections, regulatory interventions imbed inequalities. Ableism, sanism and prejudice are expressly stated in laws, reflected in judgments, and perpetuated by workplace practices and this book enables advocates, policy makers and lawmakers to understand the wider context in which systems discriminate workers with psychosocial disabilities.

In a time of great gloom and doom internationally and of major global problems, this book offers an invaluable contribution to our understanding of alternative societies that could be better for humans and the environment. Bringing together a wide range of approaches and new strands of economic and social thinking from across the US, Mexico, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa, Luke Martell critically assesses contemporary alternatives and shows the ways forward with a convincing argument of pluralist socialism. Presenting a much-needed introduction to the debate on alternatives to capitalism, this ambitious book is not about how things are, but how they can be!

'A rich achievement full of glorious anecdotes' Hugo Vickers A Royal Christmas is a Christmas pudding of a book, enticingly full of silver threepenny pieces. Organised thematically, it covers such topics as Christmas and conflict in the 20th century, Christmas pastimes, festive feasts, Christmas and the Commonwealth, and many more, to reveal the many ways in which the Royal Family have celebrated the festive season through the ages. Jeremy Archer has delved into the Royal Archives to uncover the personal thoughts of many members of the Royal Family during the Christmas period. What comes over most strongly from Queen Victoria's journals is the importance of family: the joys they shared, the trials they endured, and the carefully-selected gifts they exchanged. Although there is much happiness, tragedy is a common bed-fellow, particularly in earlier times. And conflict is seldom very far away. But this is a celebration - both of an enduring festive season and an extraordinary family. 'An easy to read treat for royal enthusiasts, skilfully assembled to highlight significant episodes in our history from the comic to the tragic informative and enjoyable' Sarah Bradford 'Jeremy Archer has an eye for an anecdote and a clever way of arranging his material. The result is like an enormous bran tub: dip in, and you're sure to find something to keep you entertained' Kathryn Hughes, The Mail on Sunday

Social class remains a fundamental presence in British life in the twenty-first century. It is woven into the very fabric of social and political discourse, undiminished by the end of mass industry; unaugmented despite the ascendancy of 'ordinary working people' and other substitute phrases. Absent from this landscape, however, is any compelling Marxist expression or analysis of class. In Class Matters, Charles Umney brings Marxist analysis out of the 19th century textiles mill, and into the call centres, office blocks and fast food chains of modern Britain. He shows how core Marxist concepts are vital to understanding increasing pay inequality, decreasing job security, increasing routinisation and managerial control of the labour process. Providing a critical analysis of competing perspectives, Umney argues that class must be understood as a dynamic and exploitative process integral to capitalism - rather than a descriptive categorisation - in order for us to better understand the gains capital has made at the expense of labour over the last four decades.

From 2007 to 2012, almost five percent of American adults-about ten million people-lost their homes because they could not make mortgage payments. The scale of this home mortgage crisis is unprecedented-and it's not over. Foreclosures still displace more American homeowners every year than at any time before the twenty-first century. The dispossession and forced displacement of American families affects their health, educational success, and access to jobs. It continues to block any real recovery in the hardest-hit communities. While we now know a lot about how this crisis affected the global economy, we still know very little about how it affected the people who lost their homes. Foreclosed America offers the first representative portrait of those people-who they are, how and where they live after losing their homes, and what they have to say about their finances, their neighborhoods, and American politics. It is a sobering picture of Americans down on their luck, and of a crisis that is testing American democracy.

Since the 1960s, the West has moved ever-leftwards. 'Equality' and 'feelings' are central to the New Religion that rejects all traditional values. Yet beneath the institutionally dominant 'Left' stews a growing and restless 'Right'. How has this fractured situation come about? What will the future hold? In The Past is a Future Country, the authors trace it back to the Industrial Revolution. Darwinian selection massively weakened, meaning that, for the first time in history, the selfish, sick and stupid could survive and reproduce, undermining our religious, group-oriented culture. Now the West is scourged by an epidemic of narcissists, competing to signal their individuality and moral superiority. But their 'fight for equality' is really a fight for self-promotion. Reflecting this runaway individualism, Westerners increasingly don't have children, save for those who are genetically resistant to this onslaught - the staunchly conservative and religious: the eventual inheritors of the earth. But there is a dark storm brewing in the demographic data that the authors have analysed. There is a burgeoning growth in the population of exceptionally unintelligent and antisocial people that social welfare systems cannot sustain for much longer. The developed world will pass away, and the global population that depends on it will crash, in the greatest Malthusian Collapse of all time. Yet all is not lost. The authors show how a resistant class of intelligent, religious conservatives will band together to preserve enclaves of civilization that may survive most of the coming apocalypse, and from its ashes rebuild a new world: A Neo-Byzantium.

In the 1960s historians on both sides of the Atlantic began to challenge the assumptions of their colleagues and push for an understanding of history "from below." In this collection, Staughton Lynd, himself one of the pioneers of this approach, laments the passing of fellow luminaries David Montgomery, E.P. Thompson, Alfred Young, and Howard Zinn, and makes the case that contemporary academics and activists alike should take more seriously the stories and perspectives of Native Americans, slaves, rank-and-file workers, and other still-too-frequently marginalized voices.

Staughton Lynd is an American conscientious objector, Quaker, peace activist and civil rights activist, tax resister, historian, professor, author, and lawyer.

This monograph examines the ways in which discourses on the public sector were articulated in the print media during the 2011 financial crisis in the Irish, UK and European news media. It finds that coverage of the public sector was ideological, portraying public sector workers as overpaid, inefficient, and sheltered from the worst of the crisis. These explanations perpetuated the view that there was a need for austerity through cutbacks to public services and public sector pay. The central thesis is that these representations must be understood as being part of the complex organisational culture of the newsroom. Additional themes explored in the book include but are not limited to: Media ownership concentration and journalistic self-censorship. The marketisation of news and its impact on journalistic practice. The casualisation of the newsroom. The fourth estate function of the media. The discourse of austerity. Neoliberalism as a dominant ideology. Reflexivity in the newsroom The crisis of credibility in journalism Media portrayals of The "Looney" Left versus the "Reasonable" Right

Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo.

In his bestselling work of "comic sociology," David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today's upper class -- those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation.

Series Information:
Critical Concepts in Sociology

We live in ageing societies. Age preoccupies governments as much as individuals. A new affluence has spread across society and across the lifecourse. For many people looking forward to retirement, later life has changed for the better. But with this positive outcome for older people have come policy and social dilemmas for governments and individuals alike.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, this book analyses the social nature of later life in the context of the history of welfare states, the emergence of consumer society and the growth of individualism. The book argues that the third age, its origins, identity and contradictions are central to understanding the future of our society.

"Contexts of Ageing" is certain to stimulate academic debate. It is also appropriate for adoption on a range of courses. The book is written in a lively and accessible way, giving it appeal to upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates taking courses in sociology, social policy and health studies. Students and professionals working in the areas of nursing, health care and social gerontology will also find this book of interest.

This book analyses social change in Russia, in particular the development of a middle class, one of the most important social and political projects of Putin's administration. Using unique survey data collected in 1998, 2007 and 2015, the authors make extensive and theoretically justified analyses of the changing social distinctions in Russia over the past 20 years. Offering a sophisticated analysis of classes and class they acknowledge that in class analysis there are different phases, requiring different concepts. The first phase is the analysis of class positions; the second is the study of the work and reproduction situations of class groups and the final step is the analysis of class interests. While acknowledging that there are a number Russian-specific factors that seriously complicate traditional class analysis, the authors maintain that the basic tenets of class analysis still hold true. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, political science, transition studies, social policy and Russian studies and anyone who wants to understand the internal divisions and organization of the middle class in Russia.

Drawing on the concept of the somatic self, Castro-Vazquez explores how Japanese men think about, express and interpret their experiences concerning bodyweight control. Based on an extensive ethnographic investigation, this book offers a compelling analysis of male obesity and overweight in Japan from a symbolic interactionism perspective to delve into structure, meaning, practice and subjectivity underpinning the experiences of a group of middle-aged, Japanese men grappling with body weight control. Castro-Vazquez frames obesity and overweight within historical and current global and sociological debates that help to highlight the significance of the Japanese case. By drawing on evidence from different locations and contexts, he sustains a comparative perspective to extend and deepen the analysis. A valuable resource for scholars both of contemporary masculinity and of medical sociology, especially those with a particular interest in Japan.

This book examines differing classroom pedagogies in two early childhood programs serving vulnerable populations in Chicago, one program Reggio Emilia-inspired, while the other uses a more didactic pedagogy. The structure of classroom pedagogies is defined using Basil Bernstein's theories of visible and invisible pedagogy.

In the early 1970s many social scientists and critics noted the emergence of a new elite based in the "Knowledge Industry" and pitted against the old business-based middle class both politically and culturally. Because of its close ties to academia and the media, this New Class was conceived by both its critics and its proponents to be in an advantageous position to influence the rest of society. "The Hidden Technocrats "attempts to delineate the features of the New Class phenomenon and map its structural location in contemporary American and Western European societies.

In exploring the major themes of the assumed New Class culture in five coun-tries-the United States, Britain, Holland, West Germany, and Italy-the authors come up with some surprising results. Where earlier discussions had posited protracted opposition between the left-of-center new elite and the right-of-center old elite, much of the evidence and analysis presented here points toward a symbiosis in the making, a new constellation of values and behavior patterns that combine both traits of the old bourgeois culture and social attitudes clearly identified with the New Class.

In mapping out a strategically important change in the political ideology and s'ocial psychology of contemporary capitalism in America and Europe, the authors raise essential questions about whether such a "new capitalism" will favor or diminish the international competitiveness of the economies in which it has come to the fore. This stimulating and wide-ranging volume at the cutting edge of analysis will be of interest to sociologists, economists, and organizational analysts.

Is there a typical European class structure? Have power patterns left any imprint in the European societies of today? Has the experience of socialist revolution in Eastern Europe created a distinctive social-structural pattern in that part of the continent? These are only a few of the questions taken up by the contributors to this collection of case studies and comparative research.

Peasant rebellions are uncommon. "Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance" explores peasants' foot dragging, feigned ingorance, false compliance, manipulation, flight, slander, theft, arson, sabotage, and similar prosaic forms of struggle. These kinds of resistance stop well short of collective defiance, a strategy usually suicidal for the subordinate. The central argument about peasant resistance is presented in the opening chapter by James Scott in which he summarizes and extends the thesis of his book on Malaysia's peasantry, "Weapons of the Weak". Scott's ideas are employed and refined in the ensuing seven country studies of peasant resistance: Poland, India, Egypt, Colombia, China, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe.

About 1.5 million households filed bankruptcy in the last year, making bankruptcy as common as college graduation and divorce. The recession has pushed more and more families into financial collapse--with unemployment, declines in retirement wealth, and falling house values destabilizing the American middle class. "Broke" explores the consequences of this unprecedented growth in consumer debt and shows how excessive borrowing undermines the prosperity of middle class America.
While the recession that began in mid-2007 has widened the scope of the financial pain caused by overindebtedness, the problem predated that large-scale economic meltdown. And by all indicators, consumer debt will be a defining feature of middle-class families for years to come. The staples of middle-class life--going to college, buying a house, starting a small business--carry with them more financial risk than ever before, requiring more borrowing and new riskier forms of borrowing. This book reveals the people behind the statistics, looking closely at how people get to the point of serious financial distress, the hardships of dealing with overwhelming debt, and the difficulty of righting one's financial life. In telling the stories of financial failures, this book exposes an all-too-real part of middle-class life that is often lost in the success stories that dominate the American economic narrative.
Authored by experts in several disciplines, including economics, law, political science, psychology, and sociology, "Broke" presents analyses from an original, proprietary data set of unprecedented scope and detail, the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project. Topics include class status, home ownership, educational attainment, impacts of self-employment, gender differences, economic security, and the emotional costs of bankruptcy. The book makes judicious use of illustrations to present key findings and concludes with a discussion of the implications of the data for contemporary policy debates.

In most accounts of the origins of money we are offered pleasant tales in which it arises to the mutual benefit of all parties as a result of barter. In this groundbreaking study David McNally reveals the true story of money's origins and development as one of violence and human bondage. Money's emergence and its transformation are shown to be intimately connected to the buying and selling of slaves and the waging of war. Blood and Money demonstrates the ways that money has "internalized" its violent origins, making clear that it has become a concentrated force of social power and domination. Where Adam Smith observed that monetary wealth represents "command over labor," this paradigm shifting book amends his view to define money as comprising the command over persons and their bodies.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Black Sociology provides the most up to date exploration and analysis of research focused on Blacks in America. Beginning with an examination of the project of Black Sociology, it offers studies of recent events, including the 'Stand Your Ground' killing of Trayvon Martin, the impact of Hurricane Katrina on emerging adults, and efforts to change voting requirements that overwhelmingly affect Blacks, whilst engaging with questions of sexuality and family life, incarceration, health, educational outcomes and racial wage disparities. Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois's charge of engaging in objective research that has a positive impact on society, and organised around the themes of Social Inequities, Blacks and Education, Blacks and Health and Future Directions, this timely volume brings together the latest interdisciplinary research to offer a broad overview of the issues currently faced by Blacks in United States. A timely, significant research guide that informs readers on the social, economic and physical condition of Blacks in America, and proposes directions for important future research. The Ashgate Research Companion will appeal to policy makers and scholars of Africana Studies, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology and Politics, with interests in questions of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, social inequalities, health and education.

At the heart of modern Japan there remains an intractable and divisive social problem with its roots in pre-history, namely the ongoing social discrimination against the D?wa communities, otherwise known as Buraku. Their marginalization and isolation within society as a whole remains a veiled yet contested issue. Buraku studies, once largely ignored within Japan's academia and by scholarly publishers, have developed considerably in the first decades of the twenty-first century, as the extensive bibliographies of both Japanese and English sources provided here clearly demonstrates. The authors of the present study published in Japanese in 2016 and translated here by the Oxford scholar Ian Neary, have been able to incorporate this most recent data. Because of its importance as the first Buraku history based on this new research, a wider readership was always the authors' principal focus. Yet, it also provides a valuable source book for further study by those wishing to develop their knowledge about the subject from an informed base. This history of the Buraku communities and their antecedents is the first such study to be published in English.