This book develops an approach to both method and the socio-political implications of knowledge production that embraces our embeddedness in the world that we study. It seeks to enact the transformative potentials inherent in this relationship in how it engages readers. It presents a creative survey of some of the newest developments in critical research methods and critical pedagogy that together go beyond the aims of knowledge transfer that often structure our practices. Each contribution takes on a different shape, tone and orientation, and discusses a critical method or approach, teasing out the ways in which it can also work as a transformative practice. While the presentation of different methods is both rigorously practice-based and specific, contributors also offer reflections on the stakes of critical engagement and how it may play an important role in expanding and subverting existing regimes of intelligibility. Contributions variously address the following key questions: What makes your research method important? How can others work with it? How has research through this method and/or the way you ended up deploying it transformed you and/or your practice? How did it matter for thinking about community, (academic) collaboration, and sharing 'knowledge'? This volume makes the case for re-politicizing the importance of research and the transformative potentials of research methods not only in 'accessing' the world as an object of study, but as ways of acting and being in the world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, critical theory, research methods and politics in general.

This is a book on methods, how scholars embody them and how working within, from or against Constructivism has shaped that use and embodiment. A vibrant cross-section of contributors write of interdisciplinary encounters, first interactions with the 'discipline' of International Relations, discuss engagements in different techniques and tactics, and of pursuing different methods ranging from ethnographic to computer simulations, from sociology to philosophy and history. Presenting a range of voices, many constructivist, some outside and even critical of Constructivism, the volume shows methods as useful tools for approaching research and political positions in International Relations, while also containing contingent, inexact, unexpected, and even surprising qualities for opening further research. It gives a rich account of how the discipline was transformed in the 1990s and early 2000s, and how this shaped careers, positions and interactions. It will be of interest to both students and scholars of methods and theory in International Relations and global politics.

As a consequence of the rapid diffusion of online media, the conditions for political communication, and research concerning it have radically changed. Is empirical communication research capable of consistently describing and explaining the changes in political communication in the online world both from a theoretical and methodological perspective? In this book, Gerhard Vowe, Philipp Henn, and a group of leading international experts in the field of communication studies guide the reader through the complexities of political communication, and evaluate whether and to what extent existing theoretical approaches and research designs are relevant to the online world. In the first part of the book, nine chapters offer researchers the opportunity to test the basic assumptions of prominent theories in the field, to specify them in terms of the conditions of political communication in the online world and to modify them in view of the systematically gained experiences. The second methodological section tests the variations of content analysis, surveys, expert interviews and network analyses in an online environment and documents how successful these methods of empirical analysis have proven to be in political communication. Written accessibly and contributing to key debates on political communication, this bookshelf essential presents an indispensable account of the necessary tools needed to allow researchers decide which approach and method is better suited to answer their online problem.

Originally published in 1930, this title brings to its conclusion a work first published, in part, in the earlier volume The Science and Method of Politics. The work was undertaken at first with a view to discovering the forces at work which form the anatomy and determine the physiology of States. However, it became apparent that not States but Society must be the object of study if any progress were to made, and if the inquiry were to be radical enough to disclose, and indicate the means of controlling, the causes which conduce to such social disorders as war. The subject might very well have been treated from a very different point of view. However, the author felt that the approach to politics from the angle of political philosophy and the humanities was less important for the needs of the time than an approach from the angle of psychology and of statistics.

This book seeks to chart and evaluate the impact of social research on the military itself. By "impact", the authors in this volume simply mean that which has a marked effect or influence on changing military policy, practices, knowledge, skills, behaviour, or living conditions. The book comprises a series of reflective contributions from scholars who have conducted research on the military as external scholars with no formal ties to the armed forces, as "native" researchers formally linked to them, as well as various kinds of contracted social scientists enabled by the military to carry out their investigations. The authors were asked to make the question of the impact of social scientific research on the armed forces an object of study in itself and to situate their reflections in terms of wider analytical questions. As a result, the chapters can be divided, broadly speaking, into two types of orientation: some are centered on theoretical and analytical issues, while others focus on the researchers' lived experiences. This book will be of interest to students of military studies, sociology, organisational studies, psychology and political science.

Semantic Network Analysis in Social Sciences introduces the fundamentals of semantic network analysis and its applications in the social sciences. Readers learn how to easily transform any given text into a visual network of words co-occurring together, a process that allows mapping the main themes appearing in the text and revealing its main narratives and biases. Semantic network analysis is particularly useful today with the increasing volumes of text-based information available. It is one of the developing, cutting-edge methods to organize, identify patterns and structures, and understand the meanings of our information society. The first chapters in this book offer step-by-step guidelines for conducting semantic network analysis, including choosing and preparing the text, selecting desired words, constructing the networks, and interpreting their meanings. Free software tools and code are also presented. The rest of the book displays state-of-the-art studies from around the world that apply this method to explore news, political speeches, social media content, and even to organize interview transcripts and literature reviews. Aimed at scholars with no previous knowledge in the field, this book can be used as a main or a supplementary textbook for general courses on research methods or network analysis courses, as well as a starting point to conduct your own content analysis of large texts.

Semantic Network Analysis in Social Sciences introduces the fundamentals of semantic network analysis and its applications in the social sciences. Readers learn how to easily transform any given text into a visual network of words co-occurring together, a process that allows mapping the main themes appearing in the text and revealing its main narratives and biases. Semantic network analysis is particularly useful today with the increasing volumes of text-based information available. It is one of the developing, cutting-edge methods to organize, identify patterns and structures, and understand the meanings of our information society. The first chapters in this book offer step-by-step guidelines for conducting semantic network analysis, including choosing and preparing the text, selecting desired words, constructing the networks, and interpreting their meanings. Free software tools and code are also presented. The rest of the book displays state-of-the-art studies from around the world that apply this method to explore news, political speeches, social media content, and even to organize interview transcripts and literature reviews. Aimed at scholars with no previous knowledge in the field, this book can be used as a main or a supplementary textbook for general courses on research methods or network analysis courses, as well as a starting point to conduct your own content analysis of large texts.

In this book Pragati Rawat and John C. Morris identify and evaluate the impact of factors that can help explain the difference in e-participation, public participation using information and communication technology, in different countries. While cross-sectional studies have been covered, few have taken an in-depth look at cross-national studies. This book attempts to fill the gap using quantitative panel data to explore the influence of technology and institutions, and the impact of their complex relationships in a mediation and moderation analysis, on e-participation. The current study reviews the scholarly work in the field of "offline" and "online participation" to identify a set of antecedents that influence e-participation. A conceptual framework is developed, supported by the theories from the public policy and socio-technical premise. The authors utilize secondary data, primarily from the UN and World Economic Forum, for 143 countries from three waves of surveys to measure the dependent and explanatory variables. The panel data is statistically analyzed and findings reveal the role of technology as a mediator as well as a moderator for institutions' impact on e-participation. The Effects of Technology and Institutions on E-Participation provides a groundbreaking country-level analysis that will appeal to academics and students of e-government and Digital Government, Public Policy, Public Administration, Public Sector Innovation, and Public Participation.

Six Steps to Preparing Exemplary Principals and Superintendents is the first book to inspire and guide professors and program administrator's proven ways to prepare exemplary principals and superintendents for schools. The authors review issues surrounding extreme criticism of leadership education and counter with positive new research and practices that clearly highlight successful programs that link preparation to on-the-job successes of graduates. The reader will find a step-by-step guide to selecting the best students, creating a pre- and post-assessment of student learning, a well-designed procedure to pretest and assure that all masters degree students actually acquire a strong knowledge base and score well on state licensure exams. The final step provides proven questionnaires to survey graduates of the masters or doctoral programs to gather valuable feedback for constant program improvement and relevance to the real world of schools.

Reflexivity is vital in social research projects, but there remains relatively little advice on how to execute it in practice. This book provides social science researchers with both a strong rationale for the importance of thinking reflexively and a practical guide to doing reflexivity within their research. The first book on the subject to build primarily on the theoretical and empirical contributions of Pierre Bourdieu's reflexive work, it combines academic analysis with practical examples and case studies, drawing both on recent reflexive research projects and original empirical data from new projects conducted by the author. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the book will be of interest to researchers from all career stages and disciplinary backgrounds, but especially early-career researchers and students who are struggling with subjectivity, positionality, and the realities of being reflexive.

Statistical methods applied to social sciences, made accessible to all through an emphasis on concepts Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences introduces statistical methods to students majoring in social science disciplines. With an emphasis on concepts and applications, this book assumes no previous knowledge of statistics and only a minimal mathematical background. It contains sufficient material for a two-semester course. The 5th Edition uses examples and exercises with a variety of "real data." It includes more illustrations of statistical software for computations and takes advantage of the outstanding applets to explain key concepts, such as sampling distributions and conducting basic data analyses. It continues to downplay mathematics-often a stumbling block for students-while avoiding reliance on an overly simplistic recipe-based approach to statistics.

These essays by no means cover all areas of interest in long-term care programs, but they offer new insights (and intriguing questions for future research) about how differently policies in this important area can be carried out in different countries.

This book investigates the interaction between complex transformational socio-economic processes, migratory vectors, and the role of ethnic belonging. It outlines the hitherto unexamined determining factors of the mass emigration of the Pontic and Urum Greeks of Georgia. The author addresses the following questions: How, if at all, did ethnic affiliation influence the decision-making process to emigrate? Therefore, should this migration be considered as a "repatriation" process, or should it rather be analyzed in the context of labor migration? The study triangulates qualitative and quantitative analyses of 47 interviews, spatial analysis, as well as materials on Georgia's and the destination countries' socioeconomic realities. This enables a clear understanding of the circumstances that stimulate emigration, the routes, and the experience of living abroad.

1. Very comprehensive and extensive coverage (stresses the relevance of the entire research cycle, from design to data collection to analysis to interpretation). 2. Highlights the multidisciplinary nature of CSS, drawing from research in computer science, statistics, and the social and behavioural sciences. 3. Takes a holistic approach to CSS methods. Instead of focusing on simply harvesting data, the editors emphasise the importance of a carefully crafted research design containing key milestone checks.

- puts forward the most comprehensive assessment of the relationship between mass shootings and background checks to date. -While scholars have carried out both quantitative analyses and case studies of mass shootings on this topic, no books exist on this topic and peer reviewed articles have thus far failed to account for why a historical increase in societal armament arose in the first place, have not fully identified causal mechanisms and pathways that link mass shootings to gun purchases, and have treated the proposed causal relationship as being linear in nature. - takes a multi-methodological approach comprised of case studies, quantitative analysis, and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to offer a transparent, well rounded inquiry on the mass shootings-background check nexus,. -provides readers with several different perspectives through which to consider the prominence of this vastly important empirical trend, and importantly, classifies the pathways, processes, and mechanisms that link mass shootings to post-shooting increases in gun purchases

Mathematics instructors are always looking for ways to engage students in meaningful and authentic tasks that utilize mathematics. At the same time, it is crucial for a democratic society to have a citizenry who can critically discriminate between "fake" and reliable news reports involving numeracy and apply numerical literacy to local and global issues. This book contains examples of topics linking math and social justice and addresses both goals. There is a broad range of mathematics used, including statistical methods, modeling, calculus, and basic algebra. The range of social issues is also diverse, including racial injustice, mass incarceration, income inequality, and environmental justice. There are lesson plans appropriate in many contexts: service-learning courses, quantitative literacy/reasoning courses, introductory courses, and classes for math majors. What makes this book unique and timely is that the most previous curricula linking math and social justice have been treated from a humanist perspective. This book is written by mathematicians, for mathematics students. Admittedly, it can be intimidating for instructors trained in quantitative methods to venture into the arena of social dilemmas. This volume provides encouragement, support, and a treasure trove of ideas to get you started. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, PRIMUS: Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies.

This open access book details tools and procedures for data collections of hard-to-reach, hard-to-survey populations. Inside, readers will discover first-hand insights from experts who share their successes as well as their failures in their attempts to identify and measure human vulnerabilities across the life course. Coverage first provides an introduction on studying vulnerabilities based on the Total Error Survey framework. Next, the authors present concrete examples on how to survey such populations as the elderly, migrants, widows and widowers, couples facing breast cancer, employees and job seekers, displaced workers, and teenagers during their transition to adulthood. In addition, one essay discusses the rationale for the use of life history calendars in studying social and psychological vulnerability while another records the difficulty the authors faced when trying to set-up an online social network to collect relevant data. Overall, this book demonstrates the importance to have, from the very beginning, a dialogue between specialists of survey methods and the researchers working on social dynamics across the life span. It will serve as an indispensable resource for social scientists interested in gathering and analyzing data on vulnerable individuals and populations in order to construct longitudinal data bases and properly target social policies.

This textbook introduces graduate students in education and policy research to data and statistical methods in state-level higher education policy analysis. It also serves as a methodological guide to students, practitioners, and researchers who want a clear approach to conducting higher education policy analysis that involves the use of institutional- and state-level secondary data and quantitative methods ranging from descriptive to advanced statistical techniques. This book is unique in that it introduces readers to various types of data sources and quantitative methods utilized in policy research and in that it demonstrates how results of statistical analyses should be presented to higher education policy makers. It helps to bridge the gap between researchers, policy makers, and practitioners both within education policy and between other fields. Coverage includes identifying pertinent data sources, the creation and management of customized data sets, teaching beginning and advanced statistical methods and analyses, and the presentation of analyses for different audiences (including higher education policy makers).

With an emphasis on social science applications, Event History Analysis with R, Second Edition, presents an introduction to survival and event history analysis using real-life examples. Since publication of the first edition, focus in the field has gradually shifted towards the analysis of large and complex datasets. This has led to new ways of tabulating and analysing tabulated data with the same precision and power as that of an analysis of the full data set. Tabulation also makes it possible to share sensitive data with others without violating integrity. The new edition extends on the content of the first by both improving on already given methods and introducing new methods. There are two new chapters, Explanatory Variables and Regression, and Register- Based Survival Data Models. The book has been restructured to improve the flow, and there are significant updates to the computing in the supporting R package. Features * Introduction to survival and event history analysis and how to solve problems with incomplete data using Cox regression. * Parametric proportional hazards models, including the Weibull, Exponential, Extreme Value, and Gompertz distributions. * Parametric accelerated failure time models with the Lognormal, Loglogistic, Gompertz, Exponential, Extreme Value, and Weibull distributions. * Proportional hazards models for occurrence/exposure data, useful with tabular and register based data, often with a huge amount of observed events. * Special treatments of external communal covariates, selections from the Lexis diagram, and creating period as well as cohort statistics. * "Weird bootstrap" sampling suitable for Cox regression with small to medium-sized data sets. * Supported by an R package (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=eha), including code and data for most examples in the book. * A dedicated home page for the book at http://ehar.se/r/ehar2 This substantial update to this popular book remains an excellent resource for researchers and practitioners of applied event history analysis and survival analysis. It can be used as a text for a course for graduate students or for self-study.

Showcases practical approaches to doing oral history work in qualitative educational research Considers how to best do both methodology and output of oral history research Written in the editors' typical accessible style with a range of contributing voices, making it particularly suitable for early career researchers

This book is an introduction into stochastic processes for physicists, biologists and financial analysts. Using an informal approach, all the necessary mathematical tools and techniques are covered, including the stochastic differential equations, mean values, probability distribution functions, stochastic integration and numerical modeling. Numerous examples of practical applications of the stochastic mathematics are considered in detail, ranging from physics to the financial theory. A reader with basic knowledge of the probability theory should have no difficulty in accessing the book content.

1. Very comprehensive and extensive coverage (stresses the relevance of the entire research cycle, from design to data collection to analysis to interpretation). 2. Highlights the multidisciplinary nature of CSS, drawing from research in computer science, statistics, and the social and behavioural sciences. 3. Takes a holistic approach to CSS methods. Instead of focusing on simply harvesting data, the editors emphasise the importance of a carefully crafted research design containing key milestone checks. 4. Covers important and emergent topics in the field like the relationship between CSS, AI and machine learning.

In this comprehensive review of urban ethnography, Steven Lubet encountered a field that relies heavily on anonymous sources, often as reported by a single investigator whose underlying data remain unseen. Upon digging into the details, he discovered too many ethnographic assertions that were dubious, exaggerated, tendentious, or just plain wrong. Employing the tools and techniques of a trial lawyer, Lubet uses original sources and contemporaneous documentation to explore the stories behind ethnographic narratives. Many turn out to be accurate, but others are revealed to be based on rumors, folklore, and unreliable hearsay. Interrogating Ethnography explains how qualitative social science would benefit from greater attention to the quality of evidence, and provides recommendations for bringing the field more closely in line with other fact-based disciplines such as law and journalism.

This study investigates in detail the interaction between interviewers and respondents in standardised social survey interviews. Applying the techniques of conversation analysis, Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra reveals how certain rules of normal conversation fail to apply in interviews based on a standard questionnaire, and offers original empirical evidence to show what really happens. Her book demonstrates that interview results can only be understood as products of the contingencies of the interview situation, and not, as is usually assumed, the unmediated expressions of respondents' real opinions. Her conclusions have important implications for anyone interested in effective survey compilation and interpretation. The book is highly accessible, setting out the basic tools of conversation analysis simply and clearly, and suggesting ways of improving questionnaire design wherever possible. Its approach will be of great interest to students and researchers of survey methodology.

Because statistical confidentiality embraces the responsibility for both protecting data and ensuring its beneficial use for statistical purposes, those working with personal and proprietary data can benefit from the principles and practices this book presents. Researchers can understand why an agency holding statistical data does not respond well to the demand, "Just give me the data; I'm only going to do good things with it." Statisticians can incorporate the requirements of statistical confidentiality into their methodologies for data collection and analysis. Data stewards, caught between those eager for data and those who worry about confidentiality, can use the tools of statistical confidentiality toward satisfying both groups.
The eight chapters lay out the dilemma of data stewardship organizations (such as statistical agencies) in resolving the tension between protecting data from snoopers while providing data to legitimate users, explain disclosure risk and explore the types of attack that a data snooper might mount, present the methods of disclosure risk assessment, give techniques for statistical disclosure limitation of both tabular data and microdata, identify measures of the impact of disclosure limitation on data utility, provide restricted access methods as administrative procedures for disclosure control, and finally explore the future of statistical confidentiality.