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Degrees of Freedom is the first book to examine The Open University’s pioneering work with people in prison. This unique book gives voice to prisoners and ex-prisoners whose lives have been transformed by education. The first five chapters offer analysis from OU academics on the history and contexts of OU prison education. The other nine chapters are from people with first-hand experience of studying with the OU in prison. These vivid personal testimonies are supplemented by nine shorter reflective vignettes that combine to demonstrate the diversity of interest and experience among OU students in prison. Published in December 2019 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of The Open University, this book is a valuable resource for students, scholars and anyone curious to know more about prisons, education and universities. Widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest educational innovations, The Open University has developed a powerful reputation for delivering education in prisons. In doing so it fulfils an important part of its mission to promote social justice. The Open University’s work in prisons gives form and substance to its founding declaration ‘to be open to people, ideas, methods and places’. The men and women who have built this reputation by undertaking their studies in uniquely challenging circumstances have rarely had the opportunity to tell their story. This book changes that by presenting their accounts of learning inside prisons with The Open University and the effects it has had on their lives beyond prison walls.

In recent years, across Europe, North America and the Antipodes, a significant number of countries, states and regions have devised strategies that aim to end long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough. Long considered an intractable or ‘wicked’ social problem, the notion that homelessness could be ended represents a significant sea change in conceptualising and responding to homelessness. A key driver for states, regions and municipalities to devise plans to end homelessness, and an optimism that this policy objective can be achieved, is that there is an increasing research evidence base on what works to end homelessness. This increasingly sophisticated research evidence covers both the prevention of homelessness in the first instance and the support mechanisms that can ensure sustainable exits and stable, secure accommodation for people who have experienced homelessness. This book explores these issues through a detailed comparison of the experiences of Denmark, Finland and Ireland over the past decade. From 2008 to the end of 2018, the numbers living rough and in temporary and emergency accommodation showed a decline of 72 per cent in Finland, while the number of households in emergency accommodation increased by 300 per cent in Ireland; in Denmark, the number of adults in emergency accommodation increased by 12 per cent over the shorter time period of 2009–17. The purpose of this book is to offer explanations for stark variations in these outcomes despite similar starting points.

This book explores questions of trade union identities and what is termed ‘niche unionism’ in the work. It exposes the inadequacy of the extant industrial relations literature in explaining both contemporary union identities and the significance of niche to union organisation. It explores the contribution of alternative bodies of literature including organisational identity theory, social identity theory and marketing. The work introduces a new approach to understanding unions’ projected identities in the form of a multidimensional framework of analysis developed from more than ten years research designed to isolate the sources of union identity. The projected identities of trade unions certified in Great Britain are examined systematically under broad headings of general, industrial/occupational, organisational and geographical unions. Four drivers to change in union identities are explored, namely, union mergers, union rebranding, new unions and union dissolutions. The work provides a brief comparative analysis of union identities in five other countries, suggesting additional sources of union identity that might be required for a more comprehensive analysis. Finally, the work explores critical questions relating to the future of union identities concerning, the primacy of general unions, the persistence of niche unions, whether general or niche unions are better placed to organise the unorganised and finally whether niche identity a barrier to expanding membership territories.

Focusing on mental health rather than mental illness, this book adopts a life course approach to understanding mental health and wellbeing in later life. Drawing together material from the fields of sociology, psychology, critical social gerontology, the mental health field, and life course studies, it analyses the meaning and determinants of mental health amongst older populations and offers a critical review of existing discourse. The book explores the intersecting influences of lifecourse experiences, social and structural inequalities, socio-political context, history, gender and age-related factors and demands an approach to prevention and resolution that appreciates the embedded, complex and multi-faceted nature of threats to mental health and ways to protect it. It foregrounds engagement with the perspectives and lived experiences of older people, including people living with dementia, and makes the case for a paradigmatic shift in conceptualising, exploring and researching mental health issues and supporting older people with mental health problems. The book is essential reading for policy makers, health and social care professionals and students, third sector agencies, researchers and all of those concerned to more effectively and collaboratively address mental health issues in later life.

This book examines some of the challenges facing older people, given a context of rising life expectancy, cuts to the welfare state, and widening economic and social inequalities. It explores precarity and ageing from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, critical perspectives, and contexts. Although cultural representations and policy discourses depict older people as a group healthier and more prosperous than ever, many older people experience ageing amid insecurities that emerge in later life or are carried forward as a consequence of earlier disadvantage. The collection of chapters develops a distinctive approach to understanding the changing cultural, economic and social circumstances that create precarity for different groups of older people. The aim of the book is to explore what insights the concept of precarity might bring to an understanding of ageing across the life course, especially in the context of the radical socio-political changes affecting the lives of older people. In doing so, it draws attention both to altered forms of ageing, but also to changing social and cultural contexts, and realities that challenge the assumption that older people will be protected by existing social programmes or whatever resources that can be marshalled privately.

“Transforming Glasgow is designed to become an essential book for academics, students, and urban practitioners. The book explores how the city of Glasgow is coming to terms with its post-industrial status and the challenges it still faces to reposition itself as an economically competitive and socially just modern city. The ways in which Glasgow is navigating its transition from a de-industrial to a post-industrial city and beyond will be critically examined through 14 thematic chapters along with an introduction and conclusion. The chapters cover the fundamental elements of urban transformation including health, housing, migration, transport, the built environment, culture, sustainability, community development, governance, and economic development, with attention to the transformation of Glasgow as a place and the impacts on people in the city. In so doing Transforming Glasgow seeks to question what comprises a post-industrial city and the extent to which Glasgow is moving beyond characterisation as a post-industrial city.”

While housework is an often-studied phenomenon, Why Who Cleans Counts frames the performance of housework as a way to understand power dynamics within couples. Using couple-level data from the United States-based National Survey of Families and Households (N = 3,906), we perform Latent Profile Analysis to identify five categories, or classes, of couples: Ultra-traditional, Traditional, Transitional Husbands, Egalitarian, and Egalitarian High Workload. The book describes how the housework classes and the behaviors of the couples within them reveal the power dynamics within the couples, power dynamics that center around gendered norms. Using Latent Trajectory Analysis, we follow the couples over time to examine change and stability in their housework performance; their behavior over time also reveals the use of power in their relationships. Finally, we examine the reported housework time of the adult children of the NSFH couples to determine the extent to which the power dynamics experienced in one’s childhood home shapes one’s own adult gendered performance of housework. The book concludes with suggestions for how practitioners and scholars might use the book’s findings given the changing demographics of the United States.