In this fully revised edition of his groundbreaking book, Fred Powell looks behind -the mirror of power- to discover the real civil society--or Big Society--that lies beneath it. Articulating three forms of civil society--radical, liberal, and conservative--he examines a complex interplay between state and community, arguing that citizens contend for power via civil society. This is both a historic pursuit dating to antiquity and a contemporary democratic struggle between competing visions of modernity, the stakes of which are no less than -real- politics themselves as experienced by everyday...

Continuing professional development has become an important and widespread practice in twenty-first-century social work. This volume traces its emergence and evolution, identifying the characteristics of continuing professional development, the barriers to undertaking it, and the way social workers view it. Drawing on an international survey of practitioners and interviews with social workers and their managers, the authors provide unique insight into the possibilities and challenges of continuing professional development for newly qualified and experienced social workers alike.

Continuing professional development has become an important and widespread practice in twenty-first-century social work. This volume traces its emergence and evolution, identifying the characteristics of continuing professional development, the barriers to undertaking it, and the way social workers view it. Drawing on an international survey of practitioners and interviews with social workers and their managers, the authors provide unique insight into the possibilities and challenges of continuing professional development for newly qualified and experienced social workers alike.

This book explores the development of youth policy and youth work in Ireland from the mid-19th century to the present day. Based on original research, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), it looks at the social construction of youth, the emergence of the early youth movements and the nature and scope of contemporary youth work. Key issues include: the shift from mainstream to targeted provision, the professionalisation of the sector and the increased partnership between the state and voluntary sector. A second major theme is the treatment of...

What is the cost of including stories about child abuse in the media? In this groundbreaking book, Fred Powell and Margaret Scanlon explore the relationship among the media, the presentation of child abuse, and shifting adult-child power relations, examining its effect on the range of laws, policies, and procedures introduced to address the explosion of interest in the issue. Analyzing twenty years of representation of child abuse in Ireland--including abuse by the church and schools--Dark Secrets of Childhood offers significant insight into the media's influence on the issue and...

What is the cost of including stories about child abuse in the media? In this groundbreaking book, Fred Powell and Margaret Scanlon explore the relationship among the media, the presentation of child abuse, and shifting adult-child power relations, examining its effect on the range of laws, policies, and procedures introduced to address the explosion of interest in the issue. Analyzing twenty years of representation of child abuse in Ireland--including abuse by the church and schools--Dark Secrets of Childhood offers significant insight into the media's influence on the issue and...

This book analyzes the changing shape of Irish society over the hundred years since the 1916 rising, arguing that there are distinctive master patterns that characterize its development of a welfare state that triangulates among church, state, and capital. Fred Powell charts the influence of social movements that resisted oppressive power structures, including the labor and feminist movements, organizations working for the rights of tenants and the homeless, survivors of institutional abuse, groups of asylum seekers and refugees, and activists for gay rights and minority and ethnic cultural...