This book explores the development of humanoid robots for helping children with autism develop social skills based on fieldwork in the UK and the USA. Robotic scientists propose that robots can therapeutically help children with autism because there is a “special” affinity between them and mechanical things. This idea is supported by autism experts that claim those with autism have a preference for things over other persons. Autism is also seen as a gendered condition, with men considered less social and therefore more likely to have the condition. The author explores how these experiments in cultivating social skills in children with autism using robots, while focused on a unique subsection, is the model for a new kind of human-thing relationship for wider society across the capitalist world where machines can take on the role of the “you” in the relational encounter. Moreover, underscoring this is a form of consciousness that arises out of specific forms of attachment styles.

Surveys the online social habits of American teens and analyzes the role technology and social media plays in their lives, examining common misconceptions about such topics as identity, privacy, danger, and bullying.

The book draws on the views of leading thinkers in Tourism and considers a broad range of issues from multidisciplinary perspectives facing Tourism industry for the first time in one volume: dwindling energy, new technology, security (like war and terrorism), political economy, sustainability, and human resources. By critically reviewing these social and economic challenges in a global scale, the book helps to create a comprehensive view of future tourism in the unfolding and challenging society of the third millennium.

Social Aspects of Ageing - Selected Challenges, Analyses, and Solutions, focuses on the key challenges underlined by the United Nations during the Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030). The authors introduce studies in areas crucial for older people, their families, and communities, such as combatting ageism, age-friendly environments, and care provision. The volume also examines issues linked to the global, national, regional, and local implementation of age-specific and intergenerational solutions, initiatives, and programs towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The collection contains chapters representing research and practical recommendations from various disciplines, such as critical studies, geographical gerontology, legal studies, public health, and sociology. This volume is an asset to academic and professional communities interested in theories of ageing as well as public services and ageing policies. In addition, the book aims to help students, practitioners, and people working in government, business, and nonprofit organizations.

First published in 1980, Lesbians, Women and Society presents an analysis of lesbianism as a phenomenon that developed from a ‘personal problem’ or ‘individual deviance’ to a social movement with political ambitions. Social lesbianism, an important concept introduced in the text, refers to the emergence of a public expression of lesbianism and is a stage in the process of establishing a lesbian group identity. It thrusts the issue into the public eye, and lends vitality to society’s awareness. Two groups of ‘social lesbians’ are visible: those fearful of change who cling to traditional and social views, ‘sick but not sorry’; and those who wish to challenge such traditional views in favour of a more public approach, ‘sorry, but we’re not sick.’ But regardless of their relationships to the dominant sexual ideology, as a group, ‘social lesbians’ threaten the structure of power in society. This critical analysis thus challenges many people’s views of lesbianism, and points out to the uninformed observer the complexities which are involved in the contemporary lesbian experience. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, gender studies, feminist theory, and sexuality studies.

Are you looking for a psychological therapy textbook with social justice at its centre? Just can′t seem to find a comprehensive textbook that aligns with your attitudes toward positive changes in psychological professions? This three-part book sets out the core principles for social justice in the psychological therapies. In Part 1 you′ll be introduced to Social Justice Theory in the psychological therapies, covering identity and intersectionality and integrating the psychological and socio-political. In Part 2, you can expand on your knowledge with Social Justice informed therapeutic practice, which looks at the ways in which social class, race, disability, and other minoritised identities can inform therapeutic practice. In Part 3, you will look Beyond the therapy room, and explore how to apply your social justice knowledge to clinical supervision, community psychology and other non-traditional therapeutic models. Supported by a wealth of features including reflective and critical thinking questions, case studies, and recommended further reading resources, this book will help equip you with the knowledge, skills and attitude to work as a more socially conscientious practitioner.

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.