From Intervention To Social Change

This book explores the design, communication and implementation of social change programmes aimed at solving various social problems, from reducing health-risk behaviour to ‘green’ consumption or financial literacy. Examining the application of social practice theory as a way of understanding social change, From Intervention to Social Change connects theoretical reflections with empirical research, sample cases and exercises, emphasising the importance of communication and community engagement in the initiation and implementation of social change programmes designed to address social problems and improve quality of life.

This book explores the design, communication and implementation of social change programmes aimed at solving various social problems, from reducing health-risk behaviour to ’green’ consumption or financial literacy. Examining the application of social practice theory as a way of understanding social change, From Intervention to Social Change connects theoretical reflections with empirical research, sample cases and exercises, emphasising the importance of communication and community engagement in the initiation and implementation of social change programmes designed to address social problems and improve quality of life. Adopting a ’communication for social change’ approach and presenting illustrative studies drawn from ’developed’ and rapidly transforming countries, this handbook will appeal to project managers and communication professionals in the public and private sectors, as well as scholars of sociology, anthropology and development studies with interests in social problems and social change.

In an era of dramatic environmental change, social change is desperately needed to curb burgeoning consumption. Many calls to action have focused on individual behaviour or technological innovation, with relative silence from the social sciences on other modes and methods of intervening in social life. This book shows how we can go beyond behaviour change in the pursuit of sustainability. Inspired by the ‘practice turn’ in consumption studies, this interdisciplinary book looks through the lens of social practice theory to explore important and timely questions about how to intervene in social life. It discusses a range of applied sustainability topics including energy consumption, housing provision, water demand, transport, climate change, curbside recycling and smart grids, seeking to redefine what intervention is, how it happens, and who or what can intervene to address the growing list of environmental calamities facing contemporary societies. These issues are explored through a range of specific case studies from Australia, the UK and the US, providing theoretical insights that are of international relevance. The book will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of sociology, consumption studies, environmental studies, geography, and science and technology studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners seeking to intervene in social life for sustainability.

This second edition of a classic text in the field has been revisited by its authors and extensively reworked. It incorporates new case studies based on the authors’ experiences as well as one completely new chapter. The first edition of Clinical Sociology was published in 1996. Its goal was to explore various approaches to problem-solving at the micro, meso, and macro levels of social complexity.

This book, first published in 1983, considers the whole problem of how social research can lead to improvement in practice in social policy and social work. In the first section, individual chapters discuss the political context within which research is commissioned and used, through consideration of the politics of comparative research and of the application of research findings to policy-making in the personal social services. The problems of putting policy into practice and using research in a systematic and predictable way for improving situation is also examined. This title will be of interest to students of the Sociology, Education and Social Policy.

This report summarizes the proceedings of a May 1995 workshop, which reviewed a variety of public and private activities in health-related performance monitoring. An opening presentation focused on the experiences in conducting and using an assessment of health status in New York City's Washington Heights/Inwood neighborhood. The subsequent presentation explored characteristics and limitations of health plan performance indicators and how they might be applied in a broader community context. The final presentation in this portion of the workshop reviewed the development of measures of public health practice for assessing the performance of local health departments and Illinois' application of such assessments in certification of its local health departments.

Cohen offers a new framework for analyzing social projects and local social activism. Rather than look at how single projects are designed and managed to evaluate their impact, the approach calls for analyzing fields of social action: policy and politics, institutional behavior, social networks among policymakers and practitioners, and availability of funding and other resources. Combined, they affect the conceptualization of a social problem and the design and practice of social intervention. More broadly, through circumscribing the range of thinking about social problems, they delimit possibilities to generate social change. Analyzing fields also allows for linking macro-level trends in areas like policy to decision-making within individual organizations and the effectiveness of projects at instigating the desired transformation in individual and collective behavior. Working together, policymakers, individual activists, nonprofit organizations, and staff in public institutions like schools and hospitals can critique and alter fields to challenge more effectively social problems. This collaboration, in turn, affects how social policies are designed and, ultimately, the politics of social change.

Precise shifts in the ways people make sense of themselves, others, and social situations can help people flourish. This compelling handbook synthesizes the growing body of research on wise interventions--brief, nonclinical strategies that are "wise" to the impact of social-psychological processes on behavior. Leading authorities describe how maladaptive or pejorative interpretations can undermine people’s functioning and how they can be altered to produce benefits in such areas as academic motivation and achievement, health, well-being, and personal relationships. Consistently formatted chapters review the development of each intervention, how it can be implemented, its evidence base, and implications for solving personal and societal problems.