Edited by Hartley Dean, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics, and Lucinda Platt, Professor of Social Policy and Sociology, London School of Economics

Hartley Dean is Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. Before his academic career he had been a welfare rights worker in one of London's most deprived multi-cultural neighbourhoods. His principal research interests stem from concerns with poverty and social justice. He is a past editor of the Journal of Social Policy and among his more recently published books are Social Policy (Polity, 2006 and 2012), Understanding Human Need (The Policy Press, 2010) and Social Rights and Human Welfare (Routledge, 2015).

Lucinda Platt is Professor of Social Policy and Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before joining the LSE she worked at Essex University and at UCL Institute of Education, where she was Director of the Millennium Cohort Study. A quantitative sociologist, Lucinda's main research interests are in inequalities and social stratification, in particular child poverty, ethnicity, immigration and disability, and in longitudinal approaches to analysis of these issues. Her most recent book was Understanding Inequalities: Stratification and Difference (Polity, 2011), and she is co-author of Intergenerational Consequences of Migration (forthcoming Palgrave Macmillan).

Tania Burchardt, London School of Economics.
Jack Cunliffe, London School of Economics.
Hartley Dean, London School of Economics.
Sonia Exley, London School of Economics.
Emily Grundy, London School of Economics.
Rod Hick, University of Cardiff.
Sir John Hills, London School of Economics.
Stephen P. Jenkins, London School of Economics.
Neil Lee, London School of Economics.
Margarita León, Universitat Autònoma Barcelona.
Tim Newburn,London School of Economics.
Coretta Phillips, London School of Economics.
Lucinda Platt, London School of Economics.
Isabel Shutes, London School of Economics.
Kitty Stewart, London School of Economics.
Malcolm Torry, Citizen's Income Trust, UK.
Polly Vizard, London School of Economics.

"... this book represents significant progress towards positioning the concept of social advantage and disadvantage as a core concern of social policy scholarship." - Peter Saunders, Journal of Social Policy