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.

This book highlights the latest research findings from the 46th International Meeting of the Italian Statistical Society (SIS) in Rome, during which both methodological and applied statistical research was discussed. This selection of fully peer-reviewed papers, originally presented at the meeting, addresses a broad range of topics, including the theory of statistical inference; data mining and multivariate statistical analysis; survey methodologies; analysis of social, demographic and health data; and economic statistics and econometrics.

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.

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.

- 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

Avoiding both over-simplification and jargon-riddled complexity, this book is an invaluable, straightforward guide to participatory research for you and your fellow practitioners working with community groups and organisations. The book offers a route map for co-research projects with groups and communities, taking you through each stage of the participatory research process, from planning a project to sharing the findings. Keeping in mind imperatives such as engagement and voice, the book explores how to carry out research in ways that are meaningful for communities. This book includes valuable resources such as reflection points, tasks and further reading lists, offering support to practitioners to plan and undertake participatory research projects with confidence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Perpetrators of mass violence are commonly regarded as evil. Their violent nature is believed to make them commit heinous crimes as members of state agencies, insurgencies, terrorist organizations, or racist and supremacist groups. Upon close examination, however, perpetrators are contradictory human beings who often lead unsettlingly ordinary and uneventful lives. Drawing on decades of on-the-ground research with perpetrators of genocide, mass violence, and enforced disappearances in Cambodia and Argentina, Antonius Robben and Alex Hinton explore how researchers go about not just interviewing and writing about perpetrators, but also processing their own emotions and considering how the personal and interpersonal impact of this sort of research informs the texts that emerge from them. Through interlinked ethnographic essays, methodological and theoretical reflections, and dialogues between the two authors, this thought-provoking book conveys practical wisdom for the benefit of other researchers who face ruthless perpetrators and experience turbulent emotions when listening to perpetrators and their victims. Perpetrators rarely regard themselves as such, and fieldwork with perpetrators makes for situations freighted with emotion. Research with perpetrators is a difficult but important part of understanding the causes of and creating solutions to mass violence, and Robben and Hinton use their expertise to provide insightful lessons on the epistemological, ethical, and emotional challenges of ethnographic fieldwork in the wake of atrocity.

Understanding and managing risk and uncertainty is a central task in contemporary societies characterised by rapid social, technological and environmental change. This book presents research approaches used by scholars who all share a passion to gain new insights in how individuals, organisations and societies approach uncertain futures and their potential dangers. The contributions illustrate the usefulness of particular methods and methodologies for researching risk in order to advance the understanding and management of social, technological and environmental challenges. With research strategies and approaches from sociology, psychology, history, linguistics, anthropology, and gender studies, Researching Risk and Uncertainty provides guidance and inspiration to students and scholars across a range of disciplines interested in risk, disaster and social crisis.

This single reference volume features every cutting-edge CQ Researcher report published in 2015. CQ Researcher is the most trusted source for in-depth reporting on current, vital issues, and is the top choice of librarians and students seeking original, comprehensive reporting and analysis on the issues shaping the world.

In this open access book, experts on integration processes, integration policies, transnationalism, and the migration and development framework provide an academic assessment of the 2011 European Agenda for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals, which calls for integration policies in the EU to involve not only immigrants and their society of settlement, but also actors in their country of origin. Moreover, a heuristic model is developed for the non-normative, analytical study of integration processes and policies based on conceptual, demographic, and historical accounts. The volume addresses three interconnected issues: What does research have to say on (the study of) integration processes in general and on the relevance of actors in origin countries in particular? What is the state of the art of the study of integration policies in Europe and the use of the concept of integration in policy formulation and practice? Does the proposal to include actors in origin countries as important players in integration policies find legitimation in empirical research? A few general conclusions are drawn. First, integration policies have developed at many levels of government: nationally, locally, regionally, and at the supra-national level of the EU. Second, a multitude of stakeholders has become involved in integration as policy designers and implementers. Finally, a logic of policymaking-and not an evidence-based scientific argument-can be said to underlie the European Commission's redefinition of integration as a three-way process. This book will appeal to academics and policymakers at international, European, national, regional, and local levels. It will also be of interest to graduate and master-level students of political science, sociology, social anthropology, international relations, criminology, geography, and history.

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).

This book explores common ethical issues faced by human geographers in their research. It offers practical guidance for research planning and design that incorporates geographic disciplinary knowledge to conceptualise research ethics. The volume brings together international insights from researchers in geography and related fields to provide a comprehensive overview of relevant ethical frameworks and challenges in human geography research. It includes in-depth reflections on a range of ethical dilemmas that arise in certain contextual conditions and spatial constructions that face those researching and teaching on spatial dimensions of social life. With a focus on the increased need for specialist ethics training as part of postgraduate education in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the necessity for fostering sensitivity in cross-cultural comparative research, the book seeks to enable people to engage in ethical decision-making and moral reasoning while conducting research. Chapters examine the implications of geographical research for conceptualising ethics and discuss specific case studies from which more general conclusions, linked to conceptual debates, are drawn. As a research-based reference guide for tackling ethically sensitive projects and international differences in legal and institutional standards and requirements, the book is useful for postgraduate and undergraduate students as well as academics teaching at senior levels.

This Open Access book investigates the methodological and ethical dilemmas involved when working with digital technologies and large-scale datasets in relation to ethnographic studies of digital migration practices and trajectories. Digital technologies reshape not only every phase of the migration process itself (by providing new ways to access, to share and preserve relevant information) but also the activities of other actors, from solidarity networks to border control agencies. In doing so, digital technologies create a whole new set of ethical and methodological challenges for migration studies: from data access to data interpretation, privacy protection, and research ethics more generally. Of specific concern are the aspects of digital migration researchers accessing digital platforms used by migrants, who are subject to precarious and insecure life circumstances, lack recognised papers and are in danger of being rejected and deported. Thus, the authors call for new modes of caring for (big) data when researching migrants' digital practices in the configuration of migration and borders. Besides taking proper care of research participants' privacy, autonomy, and security, this also spans carefully establishing analytically sustainable environments for the respective data sets. In doing so, the book argues that it is essential to carefully reflect on researchers' own positioning as being part of the challenge they seek to address.

Originally published in 1982, this book describes those basic ideas and techniques of statistics which should be known to every social scientist. The explanations are given in careful detail at a level of mathematical sophistication which will be readily attainable by students meeting statistical methods for the first time. All the methods described are applied to, and sometimes are motivated by, genuine problems of interest arising in sociology, social policy, politics or human geography. The authors often provide a meaningful discussion of the substantive problem itself in addition to an analysis of the statistical techniques being used on it. In this way subject matter and statistical techniques are integrated in an original and effective manner. The authors combine considerable experience of shared teaching of social statistics with familiarity with its use in practical fields and in research. Their book therefore focuses on the most directly applicable methods and is carefully sequenced to promote rapid student understanding. The topic of probability - which so often confuses students - is here dealt with simply yet thoroughly. The chapter on the sources of social statistics, whilst being unusual in a text of this kind, is particularly welcome and comprehensively meets the needs of students on a wide range of courses. Introducing Social Statistics will make the vitally important field of statistics accessible to all students of the social sciences.

Daily observation of classroom teaching can significantly impact the quality of teaching and learning. Organized into 21 chapters designed to be read over a period of 21 school days, Now We're Talking! presents a results-driven approach that far surpasses traditional walkthrough models of feedback for teachers. School leaders will complete two cycles of classroom visits while reading the book and establish the necessary foundation for subsequent visits. This plan will help you incorporate daily classroom walkthroughs to improve teaching and learning: - Understand how daily classroom observation can help you make informed decisions that foster rich relationships with teachers, improve professional practices, reduce stress, and increase student learning. - Discover how to conduct teacher evaluations and classroom walkthroughs to improve teaching and learning, fostering high-performance results and high-quality instructional leadership. - Take part in 21 days of action challenges toward making teacher observations and giving feedback to teachers after observation a daily practice. - Learn supervision and instructional leadership skills that establish effective communication in schools. - Gain time-management tips for streamlining your inboxes, staying organized, and prioritizing work so you have time for daily classroom visits and lesson observation feedback. Contents: Week 1: High-Performance Instructional Leadership Fundamentals Chapter 1: Understanding Why Instructional Leaders Belong in Classrooms Chapter 2: Following the High-Performance Instructional Leadership Model Chapter 3: Acknowledging Related Instructional Leadership, Supervision, and Walkthrough Models Chapter 4: Conducting Your First Two Cycles of Visits Chapter 5: Thinking Ahead to Your Third Cycle of Visits Week 2: High-Performance Habits Chapter 6: Making Time to Visit Classrooms Chapter 7: Keeping Your Communication Channels Under Control Chapter 8: Managing the Work You're Not Doing Yet Chapter 9: Organizing Your To-Do List Chapter 10: Maximizing Your Mental Energy With Habits Week 3: High-Impact Instructional Conversations Chapter 11: Going Beyond Data Collection and the Feedback Sandwich Chapter 12: Facilitating Evidence-Based Conversations Chapter 13: Bringing a Shared Instructional Framework Into the Conversation Chapter 14: Developing Skills for High-Impact Conversations Chapter 15: Handling the Toughest Conversations Week 4: High-Performance Instructional Leadership Enhancement Chapter 16: Building Your Feedback Repertoire Chapter 17: Balancing Your Formal Evaluation Responsibilities Chapter 18: Identifying Improvements From Classroom Visits Chapter 19: Opening the Door to New Models of Professional Learning Chapter 20: Choosing an Instructional Focus for an Observation Cycle Chapter 21: Scaling Classroom Visits Across Your School and District

The European Population 1850-1945 is the first volume of two on demographics. The second volume will appear as part of the Societies of Europe series in 2003 and will cover changes until the year 2000.The European Population 1850-1945 is a comparative and historical data handbook and accompanying CD-ROM presenting series data on demographic developments, population and household structures for the countries of Western and Central Europe. All major fields of demographic change are covered: fertility, mortality, marriage, and divorce. Population figures are given for each population census by sex, civil status and age. Major demographic developments within the family are described providing a commentary on the main population structures and trends in Europe since the 19th century.

This Open Access book analyses the interplay between governing, evaluation and knowledge with an empirical focus on Swedish higher education. It investigates the origins, logics, and mechanisms of evaluation and quality assurance reforms and their dynamic interactions with institutional, national and European policy contexts. The chapters report findings from extensive empirical studies that offer detailed insight into the work of governing in higher education, by giving voice to actors at various levels and positions including the ministry, national agency and University employees. Central themes include the influence of European policy, changing system designs, media relations and quality assurance enactments in University institutions. The book also explores the ways in which an emerging professional cadre, labelled qualocrats, enacts and mediates evaluation and quality assurance policy and practice. Taken together, the expanding evaluation machinery in Swedish higher education highlights the pivotal role of knowledge as a governing resource, and points to special features of evaluation as a particular form of practice that makes knowledge work for governing.

The first book of its kind, this volume brings together a range of experts to review key methodological issues in the study of voluntary action, charitable behaviour and participation in voluntary organisations. Using case studies from around the world - from ethnography to media analysis and surveys to peer research - chapters illustrate the challenges of researching altruistic actions and our conceptualisations of them. Across different fields and methods, authors unpick the methodological innovations and challenges in their own research to help guide future study. Demystifying research and deepening our ability to understand the role of the third sector, this accessible book is suitable for social researchers at all levels.