Theoretically informed and empirically grounded, Rethinking Obesity invites readers to reconsider the medical and public health framing of population weight (gain) as a massive global problem, epidemic or crisis. Attentive to social values, scientific uncertainty and possible harms, the book furthers critique of the weight-centred health paradigm and world war on obesity. Building upon existing international literature from critical weight studies, fat studies and critical obesity...

Transforming Sport and Physical Cultures through Feminist Knowledges contributes new perspectives on the entanglement of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post and decolonial ways of knowing, and how onto-epistemologies of sport come to matter. These perspectives are explored through a diverse array of topics, including, the embodiment of netball through Feminist Physical Cultural Studies; pregnant embodiment and implications of the postgenomic turn; posthu...

Digital worlds and cultures—social media, web 2.0, youtube, wearable technologies, health and fitness apps—dominate, if not order, our everyday lives. We are no longer ‘just’ consumers or readers of digital culture but active producers through facebook, twitter, Instagram, youtube and other emerging technologies. This book is predicated on the assumption that out understanding of our everyday lives should be informed by what is taking place in and through emerging technologies given these ...

Eating less, exercising more and losing weight seem the obvious solution for the oncoming 'obesity epidemic'. Rarely, however, is thought given to how these messages are interpreted and whether they are in fact inherently healthy.Education, Disordered Eating and Obesity Discourse investigates how 'body centred talk' about weight, fat, food and exercise is recycled in schools, enters educational processes, and impacts on the identities and health of young people. Drawing on...

The entire infrastructure and culture of medicine is being transformed by digital technology, the Internet and mobile devices. Cyberspace is now regularly used to provide medical advice and medication, with great numbers of sufferers immersing themselves within virtual communities. What are the implications of this medicalization of cyberspace for how people make sense of health and identity?The Medicalization of Cyberspace is the first book to explore the relationship bet...

Bringing together a collection of chapters from international experts in the field of early childhood education, Rethinking Play and Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education seeks to explore how play in the Early Years is valued as a means of learning. The book discusses how play is presented, transformed by institutional and pedagogical discourses and ultimately experienced by children. Adopting cultural, conceptual and contextual approaches to play and pedagogy across its chapters,...

**Shortlisted for the BSA Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize 2010**What is good care? In this innovative and compelling book, Annemarie Mol argues that good care has little to do with 'patient choice' and, therefore, creating more opportunities for patient choice will not improve health care.Although it is possible to treat people who seek professional help as customers or citizens, Mol argues that this undermines ways of thinking and acting crucial to health care. ...

Learning is among the most basic of human activities. The study of learning, and research into learning is becoming a central part of educational studies. This is a comprehensive introduction to contemporary theories and modern practices of learning. Updated and expanded, this second edition should be of interest to teachers, facilitators, human resource developers and students of education. The contents cover: lifelong learning; the social background to learning; cognitivist theory; types...

This collection of essays articulates theoretical and philosophical arguments, and advances practical applications, as to why animals ought to matter to social work, in and of themselves. It serves as a persuasive corrective to the current invisibility of animals in contemporary social work practice and thought.

Mediatization has emerged as a key concept to reconsider old, yet fundamental questions about the role and influence of media in culture and society. In particular the theory of mediatization has proved fruitful for the analysis of how media spread to, become intertwined with, and influence other social institutions and cultural phenomena like politics, play and religion.This book presents a major contribution to the theoretical understanding of the mediatization of culture and soc...

Introduction to Education Studies has proven itself to be the key text for students of Education Studies for over a decade, leading readers through the field′s key ideas, concepts and debates.Drawing from the main educational themes of sociology, philosophy, history, psychology and policy, Bartlett and Burton introduce you to different ways of looking at education and the ideologies that shape educational systems. Tightly supported by accessible links to research literatur...

This text successfully bridges the gap between theory and methods in social research, bringing understanding of the dynamics of social relations.