In this era of rapid and unsettling change boys now more than ever face difficulties in establishing their self-image and status. In this original and challenging study Mike O'Donnell and Sue Sharpe explore how teenage boys from white, African-Caribbean and Asian backgrounds negotiate contemporary uncertainties to construct their gender identities.
Drawing theoretical insights about how class, race and ethnicity critically affect the formulation of masculinities throughout, the authors examine:
* the discrepancies between boys and girls' attitudes and expectations
*the split between boys' formal acceptance of politically correct ideas and their informal behaviour amongst the peer group
*boys' leisure pursuits including involvement in illegal activities and their selective identification with global youth culture.
Uncertain Masculinities is a fascinating account of the complexity of contemporary boys' identities and will be of use to students of the sociology of youth and of gender studies.

Age and Generation introduces students to the main sociological and anthropological issues surrounding this topic, from childhood to old age, and focuses, in particular, on youth culture.

"Age and Generation" introduces students to the main sociological and anthropological issues surrounding this topic, from childhood to old age, and focuses, in particular, on youth culture.

The first two decades of the new millennium brought with it a chain of crises and reaction headlined by the plane-bombing of New York's Trade Center twin towers, the financial crash of 2007-8 and subsequent austerity, and latterly Brexit, the rise and fall (for now) of Donald Trump, including the Capitol attack, and Covid-19. The health and political aspects of the virus are discussed in the context of planetary well-being and climate change. Crises and Popular Dissent brings these apparently disparate issues into focus by addressing five thematic questions: Why from being the hegemonic global ideology did liberalism go into crisis? What do populists want that liberalism is not providing? Why is nationalism so important to right populists? What part might social movements play in a progressive revival? What might a participatory democratic and progressive future mean for the planet and the species? The concluding chapter is interactive asking readers to consider issues raised in the text as individuals and members of groups. O'Donnell's main focus is on liberalism and populism in the United States, Europe and Britain, arguing for an internationalist rather than nationalist perspective and response to the turmoil of the period. A pattern emerges of right populism primarily as a reactive phenomenon to immigration mediated by nationalism, partly obscuring causes of structural inequality exacerbated by neoliberalism. Particular attention is given to left social movement movements such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter in building a left radical response. O'Donnell provides an informed, integrated and distinctive approach to the recent evolution of popular dissent.

In this collection, innovative and eminent social and policy analysts, including Colin Crouch, Anna Coote, Grahame Thompson and Ted Benton, challenge the failing but still dominant ideology and policies of neo-liberalism. The editors synthesise contributors' ideas into a revised framework for social democracy; rooted in feminism, environmentalism, democratic equality and market accountability to civil society. This constructive and stimulating collection will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for transformative political, economic and social policies.

'Sixties Radicalism and Social Movement Activism' explores and re-analyses major events, debates and themes from the radical developments of the 1960s and relates them to contemporary social movements and issues.

Unlike many partisan accounts of the nineteen sixties this book aims to give a considered explanation of the context in which the sixties radical movements arose and, also, their significance from the standpoint of various nations' actors, often ignored by North American and West European standpoints. Secondly, it examines how the radical decade sowed the seeds of various liberation or 'rights movements' - initially in the West but also globally as movements became increasingly diffused. Contributors' varied international backgrounds and specialities provide expertise in examining the international context. Thirdly, many nineteen sixties' radicals' values and strategies recur in contemporary social movements; albeit in different technological and, post 9/11, political and cultural environments. Unravelling similarities and differences is a key theme. Fourthly, many participants in sixties radicalism saw it as 'cultural' as well as 'political' and in some historical treatments as primarily or 'only' cultural. Detailed examinations of this perspective involve critical discussion - particularly in the light of the allegedly 'mere' (i.e. apolitical) cultural hedonism and escapism of youth in the nineteen eighties and nineties. Contrarily, the contributions here assess resonances between the radical/libertarian emphasis on civil society 'freedoms' in sixties' cultural radicalism and, arguably, today's more self-consciously political global human rights movement. The conclusion suggests that, in some senses, the sixties live on today in discursive and political themes.

The relationship of social structure to individual and collective agency has been central to sociology from the outset. It remains so in period in which poststructuralists have challenged the idea of stable social structures and even the usefulness in social science of the concept of structure itself. The historical trajectory of the debate about the respective importance of structure and agency and the relationship between the two provides the narrative context of this collection of articles. The point of arranging this collection of articles predominantly in historical sequence is not simply a matter of convenience. Historical context has a major impact on forming the concerns of sociologists and, equally significantly, on the way they perceive and theorise the social world. Volume One: Modernity, Sociology and the Structure/Agency Debate Volume Two: Postmodernity - An End to the Structure /Agency Dichotomy? Volume Three: Structure/Agency Theories Applied Volume Four: Network Theory - Transcending the Traditional Limits of Structure/Agency