Written in the broad context of heterogeneity in Europe and
continuing fiscal pressures influencing welfare reforms, the
editor has brought together twelve chapters from established
as well as new academic writers from Germany, the Netherlands,
Spain, Denmark and Britain. These innovative chapters comprise
diverse insights that make an important contribution to our
understanding of these complex areas of modern human life.
This is the second volume in the SocNet conference
series drawing together chapter contributions from across Europe
from the annual thematic symposium that is the European
Erasmus International Social Work Week. In April 2013 the
theme of the conference held at Bournemouth University, UK
was diversity and marginalisation – a topic rich in critical
nuance within social work and related interdisciplinary fields.

Introduction and conceptual encapsulation
Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Part I Theoretical Perspectives
Dancing with shadows: Towards an appreciation of the fluidity of anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practices
Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Islamophobia and the Manichean constructions of the “Other”: A contemporary European problematic
Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Diversity and anti-discrimination in the socio-spatial context: Key challenges for social work
Christian Spatscheck

Gender related diversity in social work? A view from the UK
David Galley

Ubuntu: Reflections on research within indigenous cultures
Jill Davey, Sara Ashencaen Crabtree & Jonathan Parker

Diversity and the law: Everybody is equal before the law? Some reflections on the Spanish case
Maria Luisa Gómez Jiménez

Part II Practice Implications
Age poverty in relation to gender issues and social problems: An analysis of the German perspective
Saskia Galfe

The participation of disabled people with mild disabilities in a civil society
Jaap Othof

Normalization at any cost?: A study of the parent education programme Parenting Young Children (PYC) as a model of preventive intervention in Norway
Anne Thronsen

A socio-cultural analysis of homelessness in England within a European social policy
Samineh Richardson

Homelessness in Germany: The gender perspective
Justus Sorgus