Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and engaging with new empirical evidence from around the world, this collection examines how privilege, agency and affect are linked, and where possibilities for social change might lie.

Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and engaging with new empirical evidence from around the world, this collection examines how privilege, agency and affect are linked, and where possibilities for social change might lie.

The concept of agency has long been drawn upon – overtly or implicitly – in contemporary social theory. However, theory shapes how human agency and its determinants are understood and can be built upon. The last few years have seen growing interest in notions of privilege and affect. How might these newer concepts affect our understanding of agency? Does human agency need to make new modes of sociability possible, and how does privilege constrain or facilitate possibilities for social change? Privilege, Agency and Affect seeks to answer some of these questions, showcasing recent work by UK, North American, Australasian and Scandinavian writers at the cutting edge of sociology, social theory and education. Strongly empirical as well as theoretical in the approach taken, it offers a timely extension of foundations laid in early 21st century social theory and debate.

How the attorney-client relationship favors the privileged in criminal court—and denies justice to the poor and to working-class people of color The number of Americans arrested, brought to court, and incarcerated has skyrocketed in recent decades. Criminal defendants come from all races and economic walks of life, but they experience punishment in vastly different ways. Privilege and Punishment examines how racial and class inequalities are embedded in the attorney-client relationship, providing a devastating portrait of inequality and injustice within and beyond the criminal courts. Matthew Clair conducted extensive fieldwork in the Boston court system, attending criminal hearings and interviewing defendants, lawyers, judges, police officers, and probation officers. In this eye-opening book, he uncovers how privilege and inequality play out in criminal court interactions. When disadvantaged defendants try to learn their legal rights and advocate for themselves, lawyers and judges often silence, coerce, and punish them. Privileged defendants, who are more likely to trust their defense attorneys, delegate authority to their lawyers, defer to judges, and are rewarded for their compliance. Clair shows how attempts to exercise legal rights often backfire on the poor and on working-class people of color, and how effective legal representation alone is no guarantee of justice. Superbly written and powerfully argued, Privilege and Punishment draws needed attention to the injustices that are perpetuated by the attorney-client relationship in today’s criminal courts, and describes the reforms needed to correct them.

While there is much agreement about the scope of sexual violence, how to go about preventing it before it occurs is the subject of much debate. This unique interdisciplinary collection investigates the philosophy and practice of primary prevention of sexual violence within education institutions and the broader community.

What is sociology? Why is it important? Sociologists’ Tales is the first book to offer a unique window into the thoughts and experiences of key UK sociologists from different generations, many internationally recognised, asking what sociology means to them. It reveals the changing context of sociology and how this has shaped their practice. Providing a valuable insight into why sociology is so fascinating, it gives advice to those wanting to study or develop a career in sociology reflecting on why the contributors chose their career, how they have managed to do it and what advice they would offer the next generation. This unique volume provides an understanding of sociology and its importance, and will have wide appeal among students, young sociologists thinking about their future and professional sociologists alike.

Mirroring worldwide debates on social class, literacy rates, and social change, this study explores the intersection between reading and social class in Singapore, one of the top scorers on the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) tests, and questions the rhetoric of social change that does not take into account local spaces and practices. This comparative study of reading practices in an elite school and a government school in Singapore draws on practice and spatial perspectives to provide critical insight into how taken-for-granted practices and spaces of reading can be in fact unacknowledged spaces of inequity. Acknowledging the role of social class in shaping reading education is a start to reconfiguring current practices and spaces for more effective and equitable reading practices. This book shows how using localized, contextualized approaches sensitive to the home, school, national and global contexts can lead to more targeted policy and practice transformation in the area of reading instruction and intervention. Chapters in the book include: • Becoming a Reader: Home-School Connections • Singaporean Boys Constructing Global Literate Selves: School-Nation Connections • Levelling the Reading Gap: Socio-Spatial Perspectives The book will be relevant to literacy scholars and educators, library science researchers and sociologists interested in the intersection of class and literacy practices in the 21st century.

What do meaningful connections in learning and teaching look like, and how might we foster these? How might the concept of mattering be helpful for our understanding of higher education? In this book, Karen Gravett examines the role of relationships, and in particular of relational pedagogies, where meaningful relationships are positioned as fundamental to effective learning. She explores concepts of authenticity, vulnerability, and trust within learning and teaching, as well as the potential of working with students in partnership. This book examines the role of relationships between colleagues: how educators can learn from others both within and beyond higher education, as well as considering how teachers can support one another when working within challenging contemporary contexts. Drawing upon a rich theoretical perspective that interweaves posthuman and sociomaterial theory, the book also introduces a broader conception of the relational, where relational pedagogies are understood as encompassing objects, spaces and materialities, as part of an interwoven web of relations. In exploring mattering, Gravett explores both who matters – who should be considered and valued – and the material mattering of learning. In this innovative conception of relational pedagogies, Gravett offers a broad and rich reworking of our understanding of relationality, offering fresh ways in which we might understand and conduct higher education theory and practice.

The physical education classroom can be a site of discomfort for young people who occupy marginalized identities, and a place where the normative beliefs and teaching practices of educators can act as a barrier to their inclusion. This timely edited collection challenges pre-service and in-service teachers to examine the pedagogical practices and assumptions that work to exclude students with intersecting and diverse identities from full participation in physical and health education. The contributors to this volume—who consist of both experienced and emerging scholars from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand—approach their topics from a range of social justice perspectives and interpretations. Covering a variety of areas including (dis)ability, gender, sexuality, race, social class, and religion, Social Justice in Physical Education promotes a broader understanding of the sociocultural, political, and institutional practices and assumptions that underlie current physical education teaching. Each chapter encourages the creation of more culturally relevant and inclusive pedagogy, policy, and practice, and the discussion questions invite readers to engage in critical reflection. Mapping a better way forward for physical and health education, this text will be an invaluable resource for courses on social justice, diversity, inclusive education, and physical education pedagogy.

Understanding what ‘family’ means – and how best to support families – depends on challenging politicized assumptions that frame ‘ordinary’ families in comparison to an imagined problematic ‘other’. Learning from the perspectives of people who were in care in childhood, this innovative book helps redefine the concept of family. Linking two longitudinal studies involving young adults in England, it reveals important new insights into the diverse and dynamic complexity of family lives, identities and practices in time – through childhood and beyond. Paving the way for future policy and practice, this book makes an important contribution to the theorization of family in the 21st century.