This book explores how, why and when hermeneutic phenomenology can be used as a methodology in health and social research.Providing actual examples of doing robust hermeneutic phenomenology and a focus on praxis, the book demonstrates how philosophical or theoretical notions can inform, enrich and enhance our research projects. The chapters offer examples of many different research designs and interpretive decisions in order to illustrate the unbounded and creative nature of this t...

Bringing together experts in the field, this important book considers the underlying risk factors that create situations of psychosocial vulnerability and marginalisation for mothers, from their baby’s conception up to a year after birth. Adopting a strengths-based approach, the book looks not only at the incidence and impact of disadvantageous circumstances on women but also explores protective factors at an individual, family, community and service level. It identifies promising evidence...

'This is a timely, accessible and engaging book of considerable intellectual stature, bold imagination and practical wisdom. Not only does it develop penetrating, elegant analyses of what is wrong with current state controlled and alternative approaches to contemporary education, it also offers imaginative, practical suggestions for a more fulfilling, human centred alternative.'Professor Michael Fielding, Institute of Education, University of London, UK.'With great sensitiv...

Ethical education should help students become more sensitive to the perspectives and experiences of others. However, the field is dominated by the teaching of moral values as a subject-matter, or by the fostering of character traits in students, or by moral reasoning. This book proposes an alternative to these limited moralistic approaches. It places human relationships at the core of ethical education, in its understanding of both ethics and education. With contributions from renowned int...

Understanding Peace Holistically: From the Spiritual to the Political argues that spiritually rooted and morally oriented peacefulness is relevant to the socio-economic–political structures that provide the conditions for a culture of peace. As the authors build up a theory of peace from the spiritual to the relational and communal towards the socio-political, this book also identifies key principles that characterise international and institutional processes that nurture peace. T...

Global support for improving child welfare and upholding the rights of children is strong, but in practice often fails to recognise the emerging gap between traditional child welfare practices and the evolving nature of child vulnerability.This book takes an international perspective on child welfare, examining how global and national frameworks can be adapted to address the rights and best interests of children. Synthesising the latest international research, experts redefine the ...

Well-being studies is an exciting and relatively new multi-disciplinary field, with data being gathered from different domains in order to improve social policies. In its reliance on a truncated account of well-being based implicitly on neoclassical economic assumptions, however, the field is deeply flawed. Departing from reductive accounts of well-being that exclude the normative or evaluative aspect of the concept and so impoverish the attendant conception of human life, this book offers...

This edited volume brings together a range of perspectives on Educational Leadership, Management and Administration (ELMA) and various theories of resistance or compliance along with how policy and politics play out in school communities.The book makes a significant contribution to debates around theorising educational leadership and the implications of discourses on schooling and the politics of education. It brings together a broad array of international scholars to examine theor...

Daily Bread is the Bible reading guide that aims to help you hear from God as you read the Bible. If you've ever asked the question, 'What possible relevance can this verse have for me today?' or 'What difference does this passage make to my life?' then read on...

Why is psychiatry such big business? Why are so many psychiatric drugs prescribed – 47 million antidepressant prescriptions in the UK alone last year – and why, without solid scientific justification, has the number of mental disorders risen from 106 in 1952 to 374 today?The everyday sufferings and setbacks of life are now 'medicalised' into illnesses that require treatment – usually with highly profitable drugs. Psychological therapist James Davies uses his insider knowledge to il...

In November 2008, John Hattie’s ground-breaking book Visible Learning synthesised the results of more than fifteen years research involving millions of students and represented the biggest ever collection of evidence-based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning.Visible Learning for Teachers takes the next step and brings those ground breaking concepts to a completely new audience. Written for students, pre-service and in-service teachers,...

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license.There has been an enormous increase in interest in the use of evidence for public policymaking, but the vast majority of work on the subject has failed to engage with the political nature of decision making and how this influences the ways in which evidence will be used (or misused) within political ar...