Community Studies

"This book is both insightful and engaging, enriched with diverse and up-to-date readings. Tony Blackshaw lays bare debates surrounding the uses and abuses of key concepts of community studies and breathes new life into community as theory and community studies as method." - Peter Bramham, Leeds Metropolitan University "I would highly recommend this book to any student who is studying communities and groups in society. The book and chapters are structured in a way that students will find it easy to move from one theme to another; to dip into relevant chapters when needed; to gain a good understanding of concepts and how and why they are applied to individuals and communities. The book encompasses both breadth and depth of key concepts and issues. This book will be compulsory reading on our Community Studies degree." - Lesley Groom, University of Bolton This book defines the current identity of community studies, provides a critical but reliable introduction to its key concepts and is an engaging guide to the key social research methods used by community researchers and practitioners. Concise but clear, it caters for the needs of those interested in community studies by offering cross-referenced, accessible overviews of the key theoretical issues that have the most influence on community studies today. It incorporates all of the important frames of reference including those which are: theoretical research focused practice and policy oriented political concerned about the place of community in everyday life. The extensive bibliographies and up-to-date guides to further reading reinforce the aim of the book to provide an invaluable learning resource. Interdisciplinary in approach and inventive in its range of applications this book will be of value to students studying sociology, social policy, politics and community development.

In one of the few studies of the early immigrant Orthodox rabbinate in North America, author Ira Robinson has delved into the Jewish community in Montreal in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rabbis and their Community introduces several rabbis who, in various ways, impacted their immediate congregations as well as the wider Montreal Jewish community.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. In the age of globalization and the changing welfare state, community relations are now more important than ever. What are Community Studies? gives an overview of the community studies field, with particular focus on the research methods used, and how they have evolved in recent years. Defining the key terms in the field, it outlines the history of the methods used in community studies and uses examples and case studies to illuminate the theory. This book captures the organization of modern community life and shows how current researchers are working with broader and more imaginative definitions of community. Responding to criticisms of the field, What are Community Studies? challenges our traditional notions of communities and how they are analysed. Graham Crow's text will be a vital resource to researchers in the field.

First published Open Access under a Creative Commons license as What are Community Studies?, this title is now also available as part of the Bloomsbury Research Methods series. In the age of globalization and the changing welfare state, community relations are now more important than ever. This book gives an overview of the community studies field, with particular focus on the research methods used, and how they have evolved in recent years. Defining the key terms in the field, it outlines the history of the methods used in community studies and uses examples and case studies to illuminate the theory. This book captures the organization of modern community life and shows how current researchers are working with broader and more imaginative definitions of community. Responding to criticisms of the field, Graham Crow challenges our traditional notions of communities and how they are analysed. Graham Crow's text will be a vital resource to researchers in the field.

Originally published in 1971, this was the first text on community studies which analysed the major empirical work in this field in a comparative perspective. It is concerned both with the sociology of community and the sociology of community studies. It takes both the findings of individual studies and the research process itself as significant sociological data in their own right, and it asks continually: how do we know what we know about communities? Community Studies is, then, not only a contribution to that particular field but also to our understanding of the interaction between theory and method in sociology. Studies are analysed from North and Latin America, Britain and Western Europe, and India. Two central problems, stratification and power, are considered at greater length. This book would prove to be an invaluable introduction not only for students of sociology but also for architects, planners and all those who had an interest in the community at the time. Its authors were, and had been, actively engaged in field research in this area.

"This book is both insightful and engaging, enriched with diverse and up-to-date readings. Tony Blackshaw lays bare debates surrounding the uses and abuses of key concepts of community studies and breathes new life into community as theory and community studies as method." - Peter Bramham, Leeds Metropolitan University "I would highly recommend this book to any student who is studying communities and groups in society. The book and chapters are structured in a way that students will find it easy to move from one theme to another; to dip into relevant chapters when needed; to gain a good understanding of concepts and how and why they are applied to individuals and communities. The book encompasses both breadth and depth of key concepts and issues. This book will be compulsory reading on our Community Studies degree." - Lesley Groom, University of Bolton This book defines the current identity of community studies, provides a critical but reliable introduction to its key concepts and is an engaging guide to the key social research methods used by community researchers and practitioners. Concise but clear, it caters for the needs of those interested in community studies by offering cross-referenced, accessible overviews of the key theoretical issues that have the most influence on community studies today. It incorporates all of the important frames of reference including those which are: theoretical research focused practice and policy oriented political concerned about the place of community in everyday life. The extensive bibliographies and up-to-date guides to further reading reinforce the aim of the book to provide an invaluable learning resource. Interdisciplinary in approach and inventive in its range of applications this book will be of value to students studying sociology, social policy, politics and community development.

Rural Community Studies in Europe presents a study of village societies of the different regions of Europe and their importance to the economic and social life of nations. The book seeks to describe and analyze the local economic and social systems, traditions, power structures, and other aspects of European rural communities, specifically in the countries of Great Britain, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, Romania, France, and Spain. The book is divided into four parts: a historical review of the main trends and developments of rural community studies; an annotated bibliography; analytical summaries; and a location map. Sociologists, economists, ethnologists, political scientists, and students in allied fields will find the book a good reference material.