Governments are constructing social policy based on misrepresentations and stereotypes about poor people and welfare claimants, rather than by reference to the structural inequalities that affect everyone, argues Kate Donald
The idea of making offenders face their victims and acknowledge the harm they have done has wide public support. The British Government says it is in favour. So why were restorative solutions ignored following last summer’s riots, asks Stephen Moffat
A drug user is either a celebrity or a criminal, or that’s how much of the media see it. But such stereotypes make it harder for those recovering from addiction to seek help. The fear of being discovered as a past user excludes former addicts from work, housing and even friendship, says Leo Barasi
The Tate Britain exhibition, ‘Migrations: Journeys into British Art’ highlights migrants’ central role in the development of British art, as well as exploring tensions that arise from such mobility. Our cultural heritage owes much to the circulation of ideas and people, argues Jenny Allsopp
Unemployment in Britain could reach 3 million this year, an entire new welfare-to-work industry has sprung up, and the Government still thinks its main task is to get the 'work shy' stacking shelves. Barbara Gunnell asks how, in this Government's vision, has a lack of jobs become the fault of the
The various social contracts that are emerging between the State and the dominant religious right minority leaderships in the UK trade on nothing less than the human rights of minority women, says Pragna Patel
"We know it’s not easy to confront the tabloid press. We know we’ve taken on a huge challenge; we may make it; we may not. But as migrants, we must deal with it". This is why 100,000 copies of a free newspaper written by migrants will be distributed across the UK next week, says the paper's editor
With so many families in Britain struggling in the face of the Coalition's austerity measures, wage inequalities between men and women seem low down on almost everyone's agenda. But as increasing numbers of households depend on women’s wages, equal pay for equal work is a more pertinent demand tha
In breach of the government's pledge to make the asylum system sensitive to the needs of women, officials are asking women to disclose information about sex work and abuse in the earshot of queuing strangers, and in front of their own children. This lack of privacy can have disastrous consequences
Sylvia Walby’s ‘The Future of Feminism’ makes the case for gender mainstreaming as a successful mechanism for integrating feminist principles into institutions. But doing so runs the risk of subordinating feminist goals to other agendas, a contradiction that Walby never entirely resolves.
As arguments over nationhood and independence once again grab the political agenda, Sunder Katwala, director of a new think tank probing attitudes to identity and integration, finds cause for optimism
'There is no opposite to belonging’: Nira Yuval-Davis in conversation with Jenny Allsopp on religion, migration and the politics of belonging. So is it time to open up the debate and ask what it means to belong 'in' - rather than 'to' - contemporary Britain?
