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Following a decade of radical change in policy and funding in children’s early intervention services and with the role of the third sector under increased scrutiny, this timely book assesses the shifting interplay between state provision and voluntary organisations delivering interventions for children, young people and their families. Using one-hundred voices from charities and their partners on the frontline, this book provides vivid accounts of the lived experiences of charitable groups, offering key insights into the impact of recent social policy decisions on their work. Telling the story of how the landscape of children’s early intervention services has changed over the last decade, it provides crucial lessons for future policy whilst demonstrating the immeasurable value of voluntary organisations working in this challenging terrain.

Digital social media afford unprecedented opportunities for groups of citizens to collaborate locally and internationally in innovative ways in countless domains. This book seeks to evaluate this potential, drawing upon a broad conceptual analysis and a series of co-creative case studies undertaken by a multi-disciplinary research team with community partners in different parts of the UK. Creative citizenship is shown to be a widespread, even global phenomenon, though the term itself is recent in origin. Creative citizens are active across the whole of society, making distinctive contributions in politics, education, media, environment, urban development, journalism, planning, business and many other dimensions. In its closing chapter, the book draws together the insights from case studies and a wider reflection upon policy options open to government and others to ‘unbind’ creative citizenship. The authors argue for re-consideration of official statistics to reflect the significant but largely uncounted contribution to the creative economy made by creative citizens. The book then identifies other ways in which the potential of creative citizens can be ‘unbound’, in fields such as community journalism, planning and education.

There is an assumption in criminal justice that boxing will immediately work to reduce offending among young men. Many practitioners cite discipline and respect as the desisting elements inherent in a boxing gym. Undoubtedly, these discourses do exist, yet, what if the discipline and the respect garnered in the gym are used for other purposes that are not always conducive to the desistance process? This book will unpick how effective boxing actually is in reducing violent attitudes, and how to ensure that the messages in the gym environment do not support negative attitudes often found outside the ring. Using classic desistance literature (Giordano 2002; Maruna 2001), I make suggestions that are grounded in evidence and theory. Using case studies, and life history interviewing drawn from a psychosocial perspective (Jefferson and Hollway 2000; Gadd 2007; Maruna 2001), this book builds on techniques that uncover the more clandestine reasons for choosing boxing. Working within this psychosocial framework, the desire and the appealing nature of boxing, more often than not, comes from a place of anxiety rather than strength. I will present arguments that suggest boxing’s appeal lies in its capacity to develop ‘physical capital’ (Wacquant 2004), and prevent repeat victimisation. Using case studies, I will reveal stories of men’s victimhood, either via gang violence, domestic violence, or structural disadvantage. I will tell the story of how boxing reshaped their identities and self-concepts, and how the gym came to represent a fraternity and a ‘island of stability and order’ (Wacquant 2004). Additionally, I will present arguments that suggest that boxing is not a panacea for all social ills, and while it has its benefits, it also has a darker side that is coterminous with hyper- masculine discourses of violence, respect, and avoidance of shame.

This book addresses key aspects of the post- and decolonial analysis of childhood, such as the scope and limitations of Eurocentric concepts of childhood and the impact of social inequality aggravated by capitalist globalization on children's life prospects. In this context, it discusses the specific modes of agency emerging in children of the Global South. It reconstructs the way in which the colonialization process and the ideologies that supported it have used the metaphor of childhood, and investigates the extent to which they are reproduced in processes of colonizing childhoods. The book presents some colonial and postcolonial policy approaches to modelling childhood in different regions of the world, and asks how, within the postcolonial constellation, children's rights are to be understood and how to deal with them to overcome postcolonial paternalism. Particularly, it discusses various forms of paternalism and asks how they can be overcome in the field of rights-based children’s protection and participation and how child-led movements in the Global South can be understood as a form of citizenship from below. The book explains theoretical and conceptional reflections by case studies from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Finally, the book portrays efforts directed against the invisibilization, marginalization and social exclusion of childhoods and the recuperation of a dignified life of children.

The book develops a novel theory of children’s place in liberal theory. It argues that justice requires promoting children’s wellbeing, not merely their fair access to resources. I argue that one important driver of children’s wellbeing is the ethical doctrines held by others in their society, as such a just society requires a culture that is conducive to children’s current and later flourishing. I outline a conception of children’s interests rooted in their ability to develop their talents, and in their current and future relationships with their family and wider community. I then apply this theory to the morality of parenting, and to two important distributive questions, school funding and parental subsidies. I argue that parents have important moral rights over their children, but that these rights are considerably more circumscribed than is often believed. I suggest that children’s deepest interests are furthered by equality of opportunity, and that the importance of parenting implies that states should transfer resources to families.

Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, the book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today. The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.

Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are elected representatives whose role is to bring a public voice to policing and hold the police to account; the holders of this controversial role also control police budgets and strategic planning. Bryn Caless and Jane Owens obtained unprecedented access to the PCCs and their chief police officer teams and undertook confidential interviews with both sides. The results reveal the innermost workings of the PCCs’ relationships with the police, media, partners and public. The authors analyse the election process (in which PCCs polled the lowest local mandate ever) and consider the future of this politically-contested role.

Italy is one of the EU countries that was hardest hit by the 2008 financial crisis and is also slowest in recovering, even compared to other Mediterranean countries that share some of its societal features. Poverty has steadily increased throughout the period following 2008, and no clear indication of a trend reversal is yet visible. Working poor, the young, children and migrant foreign households are the main victims of the situation. Also the territorial divide has deepened, with the Southern regions bearing the brunt of the crisis much more, and for a longer time, than the Centre-North ones. According to the authors, the duration and depth of the crisis in Italy, and its impact on poverty, were largely a consequence of long-term structural features of the Italian economy, of its weak and fragmented social safety net, with its high expectations concerning family solidarity and the gender division of labour on the one hand, of its sluggish growth since the 1990s on the other. Governments’ austerity choices in reaction to the crisis (and under pressure from the EU) have further strengthened these features, although the recent introduction of a minimum income provision has marked an important change in the policy approach to poverty.

Race Policy and Multiracial Americans is the first book to look at the impact of multiracial people on race policies, where race policies lag behind the growing numbers of multiracial people in our society, and how race policies can be used to promote racial justice for multiracial Americans. Using a critical mixed race perspective that challenges the prevailing color-blind ideology, this text covers such questions as: What policies aimed at combating racial discrimination should cover multiracial Americans? Should all (or some) multiracial Americans benefit from affirmative action programs? How are educators responding to the growing multiracial population? How can we better understand the health needs of multiracial Americans? In an institution organized by race, such as a prison, is it possible to maintain a multiracial identity? Should there be a multiracial category on the US Census? What is the present and potential influence of multiracial Americans on the racial hierarchy in the United States?

The volume explores the everyday security practices of various people in Kyrgyzstan that feel threatened on the grounds of their ethnic belonging, gender or sexual orientation. In doing so, it provides a bottom-up perspective of security and insecurity in Kyrgyzstan, which differs from more state-centric and elitist accounts on this subject. Case studies include the Uzbek and the Lyuli minorities in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, young women in the capital city of Bishkek, ethnically mixed couples and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Each case applies ethnographic methods to follow individuals in their everyday lives and asks how they deal with the various insecurities they face. The volume studies security in cafes and restaurants, in kindergartens and schools, public transport, bazaars, taxis, virtual chat rooms and nightclubs. It argues that seemingly trivial aspects of everyday life, such as food and music, children's education or romantic first love, are important to gaining a more comprehensive picture of what security in Kyrgyzstan is all about. All contributions apply the analytical concept of securityscapes. The volume should be of relevance to scholars and students from social anthropology, security studies, gender studies and queer studies with an interest in Central Asia.

This book defines the use of rape and sexual violence as deliberate tactics used by state and non-state actors in both intra- and inter-state conflicts. It argues tactical rape is a serious human rights issue, a security threat to women, men, states and the international community. It analyses and tracks progress from tacit acceptance of rape and sexual violence in conflict as inevitable to normative rejection of them as recognised violations of international law. It acknowledges persistent practice of these tactics, ongoing involvement of state actors and serious criticisms of gendered legal and judicial contexts but argues a degree of significant positive change at international criminal tribunals and the United Nations Security Council. It considers the constructed vulnerability of women pre-conflict which increases their vulnerability during and post-conflict and their rights to participate in determining appropriate support, in reconciliation and in peace making. It introduces the main historical facts, theoretical terms and legal developments behind international policies and practices. It identifies negative implications of failing to bring perpetrators to account and proposes responses to ongoing challenges. Powerful testimonies of victims are included, bringing the issue alive and ensuring the human faces of victims and survivors are not lost in theoretical analysis.

Young and Lonely The Social Conditions of Loneliness gathers evidence of young people’s experience of loneliness and connection from a youth co-produced research project and locates these within longstanding cultural and historical discussions of loneliness and solitude, friendship and belonging. The study explores loneliness and the experiences of connection/disconnection and inclusion/exclusion with a particular focus on the experience of loneliness in young lives and on how it is navigated when it is first encountered. It proposes that loneliness should not be considered only or even primarily as another psychological disorder or contagion, whilst recognising that severe loneliness may be an aspect of and connected to severe forms of psychological and emotional distress. The ways that young people encounter loneliness have resonance across the age spectrum and for questions of social organisation more generally. In three subsections, The social conditions of loneliness, The experience of loneliness, and Building friendship and connection, which focuses on the innovative critical and creative co-research used methods (which built on youth work practice) which enabled the conditions in which from the transient to the more enduring loneliness is experienced to be explored are explored. An accompanying attention to the range of methods of finding friendship and connection allows the complexity of young people’s experience to be foregrounded. The creative research methods used in the ‘Loneliness Connects Us’ collaborative research give a sense of some of the ways this sensitive topic might be approached and enhance understanding of friendship and solidarity.