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Social and Public Policy
National ratings
Research Assessment Exercise 2008: social work, social policy and administration ranked 4th nationally for research quality, with 70% of the research rated “world-leading” or “internationally excellent”.
Taught programmes
Research programmes
The School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) has a long and distinguished history and is one of the largest and most successful social science research communities in Europe. It has received top ratings in Research Assessment Exercises, and most recently had 70% of its work judged as either “world-leading” or “internationally excellent” in terms of its “originality, significance and rigour”.
The School supports a large and thriving postgraduate community and in 2010 distributed to new students in excess of £100,000 in Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) quota awards, and in University and SSPSSR bursaries and scholarships.
Colleagues specialise in research of international, comparative and theoretical significance, and we have collective strengths in the following areas: civil society, NGOs and the third sector; cross-national and European social policy; health, social care and health studies; work, employment and economic life; risk, ‘risk society' and risk management; race, ethnicity and religion; social and public policy, sociology and the body; crime, culture and control; sociological theory and the culture of modernity.
Social Policy at Kent
The design and delivery of effective, equitable and efficient social policy lies at the heart of the pursuit of societal well-being. The public services and civic activities it seeks to promote are now seen as core concerns not only for national public bodies, but for international agencies too.
The School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research provides a remarkably stimulating and challenging environment for the study of this field.
Social Policy scholarship has a long and distinguished history at Kent, and this legacy is continuously renewed and deepened. SSPSSR is one of the largest social science research communities in the UK. Significantly, in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, under the category ‘social work, social policy and administration', SSPSSR was ranked 4th nationally for research quality, with 70% of the research rated “world-leading” or “internationally excellent”.
The Social Policy academics in SSPSSR lead and take part in international symposia and research projects, and act as advisers to a wide variety of public authorities (including local and national health authorities, the Home Office, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Government Chief Social Scientist), professional organisations, research funding bodies and learned journals.
Our faculty staff are world authorities in their fields.
Members attract large research funds (in excess of £10 million over the last five years) from bodies such as the ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, Home Office, the British Academy, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), MRC, European Commission, Anglo-German Foundation, NATO, Equal Opportunities Commission, National Probation Service and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Dynamic Publishing Culture
The School's publications shape and set the terms of academic debate, as well as informing social policies and media debates. Recent books include: Reframing Social Citizenship (Peter Taylor-Gooby); The New Sociology of the Health Service (co-author Mike Calnan); Handbook on Third Sector Policy in Europe (Jeremy Kendall); Drugs, Crime and Public Health (Alex Stevens); The Body in Health and Social Care (Julia Twigg); Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating (Frank Furedi); Social Welfare and Religion in the Middle East (Rana Jawad); Developing Research-Based Social Work Practice (co-author David Shemmings); Environmental Movements and Waste Infrastructure (co-editor Chris Rootes); Poverty, Philanthropy and the State (Kate Bradley); Child Social Work Policy and Practice (Derek Kirton); Drugs and the World (Axel Klein); Globalization and Everyday Life (Larry Ray); Feminism and Criminal Justice: A Historical Perspective (Anne Logan); Global Marriage (Lucy Williams); Risk, Vulnerability and Everyday Life (Iain Wilkinson); Work and Society (co-author Tim Strangleman).
Staff also edit and publish in a wide range of top-ranked international academic journals including: Journal of Social Policy; Social Policy and Administration; American Journal of Sociology; Journal of Mental Health, Policy and Politics; Research in Urban Policy; Sociology; The Sociological Review; British Journal of Sociology; British Medical Journal; Religion; British Journal of Criminology; International Journal of Drug Policy; Culture, Health & Sexuality; Environmental Politics; Ethnicity & Health; European Journal of Social Theory; European Sociological Review; European Journal of Industrial Relations; Journal for Cultural Research; Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies; Journal of Marriage and Family; Social and Cultural Geography; Sociology of Health and Illness; Space and Culture; Symbolism: Journal of Critical Aesthetics; Time and Society.
The depth and breadth of our publishing culture is enormously beneficial for postgraduate students, many of whom begin their publishing careers while completing their degrees with us.
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