Antonio López Peláez – författare

This is the first book to show how digitalisation and the better provision of information and communication technologies (ICTs) can improve access to a wide-range of social services, as well as make them more inclusive. Overcoming disparities across social groups using contemporary digitalisation models will have lasting consequences on social well-being and human welfare.

Reflecting on current trends the authors vividly illustrate the collective, global nature of the challenge that digitalisation represents for providers, administrators and users of welfare services. It is important, therefore, to bear in mind the following for research design and practice:

The chapters in this book address these problems and challenges in great depth, analysing the role of ICTs in promoting social inclusion and social welfare, drawing on examples of successful ICT applications around the world. The book contains country case-studies from the United States, Brazil, India, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong (China), Zimbabwe, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Singapore and will be of interest to all scholars and students of social policy, to social work educators, and social care providers.

This is the first book to show how digitalisation and the better provision of information and communication technologies (ICTs) can improve access to a wide-range of social services, as well as make them more inclusive. Overcoming disparities across social groups using contemporary digitalisation models will have lasting consequences on social well-being and human welfare.

Reflecting on current trends the authors vividly illustrate the collective, global nature of the challenge that digitalisation represents for providers, administrators and users of welfare services. It is important, therefore, to bear in mind the following for research design and practice:

The chapters in this book address these problems and challenges in great depth, analysing the role of ICTs in promoting social inclusion and social welfare, drawing on examples of successful ICT applications around the world. The book contains country case-studies from the United States, Brazil, India, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong (China), Zimbabwe, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Singapore and will be of interest to all scholars and students of social policy, to social work educators, and social care providers.

This handbook provides an authoritative and cutting-edge overview of current research and trends related to the emerging field of digital technology and social work.

This book is divided into six sections:

This book, comprised of 40 specially commissioned chapters, explores the main intersections between social work theory and practice in an increasingly digitized world. Bringing a critical focus to how social work as a profession is adapting exponentially to embrace the benefits of technology, it gives specific consideration to the digitalization of the social work profession, including the ways in which social workers are using different forms of technology to provide effective services and innovative practice responses.

With chapters on big data, digital archiving, e-citizenship and inclusion, gerontechnology, children and technology, and data ethics, this book will be of interest to all social work scholars, students and professionals as well as those working in science and technology studies more broadly.

This handbook provides an authoritative and cutting-edge overview of current research and trends related to the emerging field of digital technology and social work.

This book is divided into six sections:

This book, comprised of 40 specially commissioned chapters, explores the main intersections between social work theory and practice in an increasingly digitized world. Bringing a critical focus to how social work as a profession is adapting exponentially to embrace the benefits of technology, it gives specific consideration to the digitalization of the social work profession, including the ways in which social workers are using different forms of technology to provide effective services and innovative practice responses.

With chapters on big data, digital archiving, e-citizenship and inclusion, gerontechnology, children and technology, and data ethics, this book will be of interest to all social work scholars, students and professionals as well as those working in science and technology studies more broadly.

Societies survive in their environment and compete with each other depending on the technology they develop. Economic, military and political power are directly related to the available technology, while access to technology is key to the well-being of our societies at the individual, community and national level.

The Robotics Divide analyzes how robotics will shape our societies in the twenty-first century; a time when industrial and service robotics, particularly for military and aerospace purposes, will become an essential technology. The book, written by experts in the field, focuses on the main technological trends in the field of robotics, and the impact that robotics will have on different facets of social life. By doing so, the authors aim to open the “black box” of a technology which, like any other, is designed, implemented and evaluated according to the economic and cultural patterns of a cosmopolitan society, as well as its relations of power.

The Robotics Divide explores future developments in robotics technology and discusses the model of technological development and the implementation of robotics in this competitive market economy. Then the authors examine to what extent it is possible to determine the characteristic features of the robotic divide, namely in what ways the robotic divide differs from the digital divide, and how a model to integrate this technology can be developed without reproducing patterns of inequality and power that have characterized the advent of previous technologies.

These issues - inequality, robotics and power - are of concern to robotics and advanced automation engineers, social scientists, economists and science policy experts alike.