Textbooks
Education is at the heart of our mission to make a difference. Our goal is to support students’ learning with materials that foster understanding, confidence and skills.
We have a diverse and growing programme of textbooks and learning resources that are designed for Social Science courses at university and college level. We take pride in publishing quality content at affordable prices, and we cater to a wide range of learning styles in print and digital formats.
All of our textbooks are available on inspection and e-inspection (order here or use the link on the book pages). Lecturers are welcome to request print or digital inspection copies for potential recommendation on their reading lists and for student and library purchase. In return, we just ask for feedback on the books’ suitability for teaching purposes, in order to help us develop our publishing.
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Take a look at our textbooks below or browse by subject.
Modernising social work
Critical considerations
New Labour's modernisation agenda has produced an avalanche of change that has posed formidable challenges for everyone involved in social work, whether as service users, practitioners or managers. "Modernising Social Work" provides a radical appraisal of the far-reaching changes in their theoretical, historical and policy contexts.
How to Use Social Work Theory in Practice
An Essential Guide
In this clear and systematic book covering the both general practice concepts and theoretical insights, best-selling author Malcolm Payne shows you how to work with the main social work theories and practice techniques and pinpoint their strengths and limitations.
Children and Young People's Worlds
This substantially updated new edition sets out the contexts of children's and young people’s lives and encourages students to explore their complexities and contexts. Each chapter challenges students’ assumptions and examines crucial issues in the field, such as participation, race, and transnational childhoods.
Critical Practice with Children and Young People
This new edition for advanced students and practitioners is substantially updated to reflect the changes in the field since the publication of the first edition and contains multiple additional chapters discussing new and emerging topics for those in the fields of social work, education and health care.
Understanding Childhood
A Cross Disciplinary Approach
Understanding childhood is a fresh look at how childhood has changed in recent years and reveals how children's needs and experiences have achieved a new visibility
Childhoods in Context
The book offers insights into childhood by focusing on accounts of home and family, school, public spaces and sites of work in local and global settings.
Local Childhoods, Global Issues
This interdisciplinary textbook examines children's lives across the world, acknowledging the great differences as well as points of comparison, between childhoods in different contexts.
Key Thinkers in Childhood Studies
This book presents the perspectives of 22 leading figures involved in shaping the field of Childhood Studies over the last 30 years. They reflect on the changes that have taken place in the study of children and childhood, discuss ideas underpinning the field, examine current dilemmas and explore challenges for the future.
Foundations for offender management
Theory, law and policy for contemporary practice
'Offender management' for probation means continuing commitment to constructive work with individuals who break the law but in a changing multi-agency context. Providing a comprehensive introduction to criminal justice work, this book negotiates the structures set by law and policy.
Children and Young People’s Cultural Worlds
Children and young people's cultural worlds offers a critical introduction to childhood in the digital age and challenges adult concerns, highlighting instead the diversity of children's experiences and relationships with each other.
An Introduction to Political Crime
An introduction to political crime provides a comprehensive and contemporary analysis of political crime including both violent and nonviolent crimes committed by and against the state in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and other advanced industrialized democracies since the 1960s.
Social Work in Northern Ireland
Conflict and Change
Written in an accessible style, this book highlights the distinctive aspects of social work policy and practice in Northern Ireland.It will be essential reading for academics and students of social work and social policy in Northern Ireland and a valuable resource for practitioners and policy makers.