This book is an authoritative overview and discussion of key themes in contemporary urban policy evaluation. The rapid introduction of new urban policy initiatives looks set to continue in the UK, while there is increasing interest in both North America and Europe in cross-national comparisons, and the possibilities of transferable practice. This volume focuses on current urban policy evaluation practice, placing the UK in an European context. The authors address key issues in the methodology and politics of evaluation: quantitative and qualitative evaluation and the ways in which institutional and political realities can affect this. The authors put forward examples of pluralistic evaluation. A final section considers the role of cross-national comparisons in urban policy evaluation. Analysis of urban and regional change has been a major theme in social science research for more than a decade. As a result there is extensive theory and evidence about the way in which economic, social and political forces shape urban fortunes.
This practical and comprehensive guide will prove invaluable for all those in the helping professions who are working, or wanting to work, with clients taking prescribed drugs. Describing the uses and limitations of psychotropic drugs, their effectiveness and impact on the counselling process, Diane Hammersley lays down guidelines for assessment, drug withdrawal and the appropriate counselling approaches to consider while clients are still taking drugs or are withdrawing from drug use. She also explores more complex problems - such as overdosing, psychotic episodes and antisocial behaviour - and suggests when and how to counsel and when to refer on. Providing a sound theoretical base and factual information, backed up by useful case examples, the author shows how clients' underlying and often deep-seated problems cannot really be solved until they are drug free and have recovered from their drug use. This clear and accessible book will encourage counsellors to work in this area with more confidence, and will help them provide the support their clients need both during the stages of their withdrawal from prescribed drugs and to get the maximum benefit from the counselling process.
A knowledge of the social context in which HIV transmission occurs is useful when trying to understand the AIDS epidemic. This broad-ranging book offers an overview of our current understanding of the social conditions and contexts of the spread of HIV infection. The author examines the social epidemiology of HIV transmission in its different manifestations in the developing world and in the west, looking at heterosexual and homosexual transmission, sex tourism and prostitution, injecting drug users, haemophiliacs and transfusion recipients. He goes on to look at reports of sociological studies of risk behaviour among men who have sex with men, among heterosexual and bisexual men and women, and among those who share syringes. Drawing on his own research, Michael Bloor presents a critical examination of the different theoretical models of risk behaviour and considers their implications for disease prevention. "The Sociology of HIV Transmission" should be useful reading for academics, researchers and students in medical sociology and in health, sexuality and youth studies, as well as for health and social work practitioners working in areas related to AIDS, health promotion and education, and sex education.
This work is an assessment of, and a contribution to, the development of a sociology of medical knowledge - including the construction of medical opinion, the fabric of medical discourse and the medical construction of the body. Extensive research on the work of haematologists is used to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the existing understanding of medical knowledge. Topics covered include: the place of interaction among doctors, rather than between doctors and patients, in defining the construction of medical knowledge; the ways in which clinical opinion is socially produced and the nature of the local settings in which this process occurs; and the relations between medical knowledge, medical language, and the increasingly technological contexts of contemporary medical practice.
This volume provides a thought-provoking and timely alternative to prevailing approaches to stress at work. These invariably present stress as a 'fact of modern life' and assume it is the individual who must take primary responsibility for his or her capacity - or incapacity - to cope. This book, by contrast, sets stress at work in the context of wider debates about emotion, subjectivity and power in organizations, viewing it as an emotional product of the social and political features of work and organizational life. Tim Newton analyzes the historical development of the dominant `stress discourse' in modern psychology and elsewhere. Drawing on a range of perspectives - from labour process theory to the work of Foucault and Elias - he explores other possible ways of understanding stress at work. He offers a cogent critique of the typical stress management interventions in organizations through which employees are supposed to increase their effectiveness and become `stress-fit'. With contributions from two colleagues, he explores various ways of `rewriting' stress at work. Together they emphasize the gendered nature of stress, the collective production and reproduction of stressful work experiences, and the relation of stress to issues of emotion management and control in organizations.
This work focuses on issues of social movements and social class from the perspective of collective action, and discusses topics such as: middle-class radicalism; class; racism; urban politics; citizenship; education; and democracy. It asks questions such as: how integrative and expansive is collective action in the constitution of modern societies?; and how can we articulate issues of collective action, and social movement's practices and class action within this integrative understanding? The first part of this work reviews various analytical models and attempts to explain the modern foundations for collective action. Part two examines the close links between local power structures, spatial issues and the institutionalization of collective action. The final section looks at how social struggles penetrate political life, and reflects on considerations of culture and democracy.
Poised between the commercialism of mass consumption and a questioning of prevailing social norms, youth cultures offer a fascinating insight into the social and cultural state of western societies. This book provides an exploration of such cultures, with all their implicit ironies and contradictions, at the end of the 20th century. The contributors highlight current forms of expression - music, style, fashion, entertainment - and the richness of youth cultures' historical and contemporary variety. Key issues analyzed include: why are young people seen as at risk from popular culture? how does late modernity affect changing shifts in gender relations? how do young people relate to texts, from the literary to the transgressive? how do the young construct alternative social spheres and symbolic forms? At the same time the book outlines the range of approaches to understanding youth culture and subculture and their relations to, or differences from, popular and high culture. This collection should be useful reading for students of cultural studies and communications, and for all those across the humanities and social sciences interested in the nature, formation and dynamics of youth cultures.
Counsellors frequently work with people who are under stress or who are distressed. But counselling them can itself be a highly stressful activity and counsellors are by no means immune to pressure. This book examines the sources of stress for counsellors, and the practical strategies that they can use to overcome it Stress may emerge in the work that counsellors do with specific client groups, in the contexts in which counselling takes place, and in the educational process both for counsellor educators and for counsellors in training. In this book practising counsellors with first-hand experience of dealing with stress examine the nature of the stresses that counsellors face in these different areas, detail the typical responses (both healthy and unhealthy) that counsellors make, and suggest methods for improved coping. An opening chapter sets these personal experiences in context by reviewing the research literature on counsellor stress.
The rapid worldwide phase of democratisation since the 1980s has stimulated a renewed interest in how we define and measure democracy. In this wide-ranging volume, leading political theorists, political scientists and experts in comparative government from across Europe address the following questions: By what criteria is the level of a country's democracy to be assessed? How far is democracy subject to measurement and if so what kind of measurement and with what degree of precision? Can the same criteria or indices be applied to developing democracies and established ones? Are the standards used by Western scholars ethnocentric or universal? From questions of how to define democracy to the issue of cultural diversity, each chapter offers new insights and approaches placed in the context of contemporary debates. Defining and Measuring Democracy is essential reading for students and scholars of comparative politics and democracy.
