Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider some possible reasons for the relatively high rate in Wales of children looked after by local authorities. Design/methodology/approach Selected potential explanations for Wales having higher rates were tested against aggregate data from published...

This paper’s main aim is to argue the methodological case for a particular approach to researching the sociology of suicide. By way of illustrating the use of this approach it also offers some brief examples of substantive findings about the gendered character of men’s suicides. The first...

Despite traditionally having low numbers of doctoral students, social work research is currently undergoing expansion at doctoral level. Professional doctorates are starting up, which are highly applied to practice and include modules as well as a thesis, and the Economic and Social Research...

The paper presents the findings of a survey of UK professional doctorate programmes that have a social work element. The aim was to provide an initial description of the extent and nature of current provision. The survey was conducted via academic community e-mail lists and followed up with...

Young men are often considered to be at particular risk of suicide, but such claims are partial and potentially misleading. Drawing on official statistics and an innovative, qualitatively driven, mixed method sociological autopsy of individual suicides, the authors of this paper argue that the...

Though there is a substantial body of literature on youth suicide, relatively few studies provide a detailed analysis of young people's own understandings of suicidal behaviour. The present research pays particular attention to how young people make sense of suicide, in the understanding that...

Across the West, suicide rates in young men have been rising for some time. This trend has attracted considerable media attention and is often cited within media discourse as evidence of a \'crisis of masculinity\'. The field of suicide research (or suicidology) is dominated by quantitative...