Ordering lives : family, work and welfare (2nd ed)

Have the social and political institutions of the UK changed drastically in the last 50 years?

Are marriage, jobs for life and the welfare state things of the past?

Is there a new politics to deal with these changes? Taking as its focus three familiar and profoundly influential social institutions - the family, work and welfare - this accessible and exciting text examines their role in maintaining social order and promoting social change in the UK, from the 1950s to the beginning of the twenty-first century, in a style which is both lively and academically rigorous.

It shows how everyday life within these institutions is ordered by the exercise of power and resistance and charts how wider social and political changes have influenced these processes.

These are pressing issues in contemporary life. Ordering Lives: Family, Work and Welfare provides an innovative introduction to the use of theory in the social sciences to address these big issues and to explain social relations and institutional practices and structures.

This is a key text for students starting out in sociology, social policy and social studies.