Torsten Husén has brought together in this volume a collection of his own essays, the topics of which reflect his long and distinguished career both as an academic and as a practical researcher. The essays are grouped under six main themes on which he has worked over the years: research and policy making; educational reforms; equality and meritocracy; the impact of education on career; international and comparative dimensions; and present trends and future perspectives. An underlying message running throughout the volume is the importance of examining educational problems from a wide social perspective, rather than solely from the narrow confines of the classroom.

The welfare state has been under attack for decades, but now more than ever there is a need for strong social protection systems—the best tools we have to combat inequality, support social justice, and even improve economic performance. In this book, José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph E. Stiglitz bring together distinguished contributors to examine the global variations of social programs and make the case for a redesigned twenty-first-century welfare state. The Welfare State Revisited takes on major debates about social well-being, considering the merits of universal versus targeted policies; responses to market failures; integrating welfare and economic development; and how welfare states around the world have changed since the neoliberal turn. Contributors offer prescriptions for how to respond to the demands generated by demographic changes, the changing role of the family, new features of labor markets, the challenges of aging societies, and technological change. They consider how strengthening or weakening social protection programs affects inequality, suggesting ways to facilitate the spread of effective welfare states throughout the world, especially in developing countries. Presenting new insights into the functions the welfare state can fulfill and how to design a more efficient and more equitable system, The Welfare State Revisited is essential reading on the most discussed issues in social welfare today.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Risk is a part of life. How we handle uncertainty and deal with potential threats influence decision making throughout our lives. In The Risk Society Revisited, Eugene A. Rosa, Ortwin Renn, and Aaron M. McCright offer the first book to present an integrated theory of risk and governance. The authors examine our sociological understanding of risk and how we reconcile modern human conditions with our handling of risk in our quest for improved quality of life. They build a new framework for understanding risk—one that provides an innovative connection between social theory and the governance of technological and environmental risks and the sociopolitical challenges they pose for a sustainable future. Showing how our consciousness affects risk in the decisions we make—as individuals and as members of a democratic society—The Risk Society Revisited makes an important contribution to the literature of risk research.

Trevor Kerry draws together contributions from leading academics in the field based in Europe, Canada and Australia to examine key themes in higher education, including: • academic freedom • leadership and management • the nature of learning and teaching • ethical behaviour • curriculum innovation • attitudes to globalization and internationalization The contributors explore what might constitute effective higher education provision, drawing on innovative practice from around the world and encouraging higher education practitioners to become more analytical and critical about their institutions, about their own roles, and about the ways in which they and their work serve their client-base. In so doing the book confronts the contextual conflicts that arise from political, social and fiscal agendas for higher education.

The Active Society, published in 1968, is the most ambitious book in Amitai Etzioni's remarkable career. In this new collection of essays, Wilson Carey McWilliams brings together scholars in a range of disciplines to analyze the significance and shortcomings of this important work.

This book revisits John Kenneth Galbraith's classic text The Affluent Society in the context of the background to, and causes of, the global economic crisis that erupted in 2008. Each chapter takes a major theme of Galbraith's book, distils his arguments, and then discusses to what extent they cast light on current developments, both in developed economies and in the economics discipline. The themes include: inequality, insecurity, inflation, debt, consumer behaviour, financialization, the economic role of government ('social balance'), the power of ideas, the role of power in the economy, and the nature of the good society. It considers the current problems of capitalism and the huge challenges facing democratic governments in tackling them. Written in non-technical language, this book is accessible to students of economics and the social sciences as well as to those who would have read The Affluent Society and the general reader interested in contemporary affairs and public policy.

Risk society and beyond traces the evolution of Ulrich Beck's ideas as expressed in Risk Society (1992) and expands into previously unforeseen risk areas, such as genetics and cyberspace.

Illuminating Social Life has enjoyed increasing popularity with each edition. It is the only book designed for undergraduate teaching that shows today's students how classical and contemporary social theories can be used to shed new light on such topics as the internet, the world of work, fast food restaurants, shopping malls, alcohol use, body building, sales and service, and new religious movements.A perfect complement for the sociological theory course, it offers 13 original essays by leading scholars in the field who are also experienced undergraduate theory teachers. Substantial introductions by the editor link the applied essays to a complete review of the classical and modern social theories used in the book.