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The closing chapter in the opening section on 'The Nature of Poverty' in Poverty in Scotland 2021, the latest in a series providing an essential resource for politicians, policy makers, teachers, community activists, service providers, academics, students and all those working to end poverty. Here, we consider the causes of poverty.

One of the early chapters in Poverty in Scotland 2021, the latest in a series providing an essential resource for politicians, policy makers, teachers, community activists, service providers, academics, students and all those working to end poverty. This chapter reviews how we measure format.

The 2010 Child Poverty Act placed new obligations to address child poverty upon each of the national governments in Britain and all of the local authorities in England and Wales. Local authorities in Scotland do not have the same legal requirement to tackle child poverty, but it is evident that their actions, in conjunction with local partners within the context of Community Planning Partnerships, will be critical to the success of the Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland introduced by the Scottish Government in 2011 . At the present time, local interventions to tackle child poverty must be enacted under particularly challenging conditions, as measures to reduce child poverty are undermined by a prolonged economic recession, fiscal austerity, reductions in UK welfare spending, and welfare reforms introduced by the UK government which appear likely to increase the number of households and children experiencing poverty. This paper examines what measures Scottish local authorities, Community Planning Partnerships and other local bodies could take to address child poverty at the local level and meet the national commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020.

The opening chapter in the section on 'Evidence' in Poverty in Scotland 2021, the latest in a series providing an essential resource for politicians, policy makers, teachers, community activists, service providers, academics, students and all those working to end poverty. This chapter reviews recent trends.

Recent UK government statements and education policies have emphasized the need to instil a 'culture of aspiration' among young people in deprived communities to address social exclusion. Specific proposals include raising the school leaving age to 18 and extending compulsory employment training. These statements and measures express the employment-oriented model of citizenship that underpins New Labour's approach to social justice. This article reflects on this approach by discussing survey evidence that explored the attitudes towards education and employment among young people in a deprived community in Glasgow. These data show that the majority of these young people were ambitious regarding their post-school career paths and optimistic about their employment prospects.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Play on 23 Dec 2015, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2015.1106042. ; This introductory paper sets the context for a collection of 10 papers examining, Best of times to worst of times? Appraising the changing landscape of play in the UK. It is argued that the contemporary geography of play investment in the UK is complex, with dis/investment in much of England being contrasted with much stronger national commitments to play in the devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales. However, even in devolved UK, Austerity pressures on local government budgets have rendered it difficult to sustain, let alone scale up, inherited levels of spending on play services. Through austerity, the national narrative of play that was fostered in the early years of the Millennium is also being challenged by a commitment to localism. The paper ends by introducing the four themes that are addressed in the collection, i.e. 'how did we get here'; 'austerity'; 'austerity as threat'; 'austerity as opportunity'; and 'rethinking play and society'.

There is growing recognition that UK austerity measures impact adversely and more acutely on the most disadvantaged individuals, communities and groups. These changes may be understood as representing a shift of responsibility away from collectives to individuals. This paper explores these issues through the lens of risk analysis. Drawing on case study research from one neighbourhood in one Scottish local authority, it considers how the distinctive polity in Scotland, in the context of austerity, is redistributing social risk to vulnerable communities, groups and individuals. The local community is adapting, with varying degrees of success, to the risk transfers they are experiencing. Formal and informal risk mitigation measures are ameliorating, but not countering, these risks. The penultimate section of the paper is a collaborative endeavour. Drawing from a seminar discussion with key informants from academia, the Third Sector and government in Scotland, some of the implications of this 'risk shift' are discussed; particularly in relation to extending personalisation, stresses on social capital, changing understanding of securities, demographic developments, widening social divisions and alternatives to austerity economics.

There is growing recognition that UK austerity measures impact adversely and more acutely on the most disadvantaged individuals, communities and groups. These changes may be understood as representing a shift of responsibility away from collectives to individuals. This paper explores these issues through the lens of risk analysis. Drawing on case study research from one neighbourhood in one Scottish local authority, it considers how the distinctive polity in Scotland, in the context of austerity, is redistributing social risk to vulnerable communities, groups and individuals. The local community is adapting, with varying degrees of success, to the risk transfers they are experiencing. Formal and informal risk mitigation measures are ameliorating, but not countering, these risks. The penultimate section of the paper is a collaborative endeavour. Drawing from a seminar discussion with key informants from academia, the Third Sector and government in Scotland, some of the implications of this 'risk shift' are discussed; particularly in relation to extending personalisation, stresses on social capital, changing understanding of securities, demographic developments, widening social divisions and alternatives to austerity economics.

Social justice and social policy in Scotland offers a critical engagement with the state of social policy in one of the devolved nations of the UK, a decade after the introduction of devolution. Promoting greater social justice has been held up as a key vision of successive Scottish administrations since devolution began. It is argued throughout this important book that the analysis of Scottish social policy must therefore be located in wider debates around social injustice as well as about how the devolution process affects the making, implementation and impact of social policy. Social justice and social policy in Scotlandfocuses on a diverse range of topics and issues, including income inequalities, work and welfare, criminal justice, housing, education, health and poverty, each reflecting the themes of social inequality and social justice. This book will be essential reading for academics, researchers, policy makers and practitioners as well as students of social policy and of society in Scotland and other devolved nations

Acknowledging the increasing diversity and complexity of families, this innovative book proposes a new conceptual framework for understanding families and other relationships that both challenges and attempts to reconcile traditional and contemporary approaches. Using the notion of 'boundaries', the book shifts thinking from 'families as entities' to 'families as relationship processes'. Emphasising the processes that underlie boundary construction and reconstruction suggests that the key to understanding family life is the process of relationship formation. The ideas of entity, boundary, margins and hybridity provide a framework for understanding the diverse, and often contradictory, ways in which families contribute to society. Families in society makes a significant contribution to the academic literature on families and is essential reading for social science students, social researchers, policy makers and practitioners interested in families and relationships

Changing Scotland uses longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey to improve our knowledge and understanding of the impact of devolution on the lives of people in Scotland. It is the first time that BHPS data has been used in this way. The book provides a detailed examination of social, economic, demographic and political differences, especially those involving dynamic behaviour such as residential mobility, unemployment duration, job mobility, income inequality, poverty, health and deprivation, national identity, family structure and other aspects of individual's lives as they change over time. This data provides a 'baseline' for policy formulation and for analysing the impact of subsequent differential developments arising out of devolution. The book is also an invaluable resource for establishing pre-existing differences between England and Scotland and evaluating the impact of policy initiatives by the Scottish Executive