The turn to biographical methods in social science is yielding a rich harvest of research outcomes and invigorating the relationship between policy and practice. This book uses a range of interpretive approaches to reveal the dynamics of service users' and professionals' individual experiences and life-worlds. It shows how biographical methods can improve theoretical understanding of professional practice, as well as enrich the learning and development of professionals, and promote more meaningful and creative practitioner-service user relationships. Biographical methods and professional practice: reviews applications of biographical methods in both policy and practice in a range of professional contexts, from health and social care to education and employment; explores the impact on professional practice of social change in three main arenas: transformation from Eastern to Western types of society in Europe, major shifts in social and welfare principles, experiences of immigration and of new cultural diversities; critically evaluates subjective and reflexive processes in interactions between researchers, practitioners and users of services; considers the institutional arrangements and cultural contexts which support effective and sensitive interventions and which support and encourage change in the lives of individuals. With contributions from leading international experts, it provides a valuable comparative perspective. Researchers, policy analysts and practitioners, postgraduate students, teachers and trainers will find this book a stimulating read.

Academics across the globe are being urged by universities and research councils to do research that impacts the world beyond academia. Yet to date there has been very little reflection amongst scholars and practitioners in these fields concerning the relationship between the theoretical and engaged practices that emerge through such forms of scholarship. Theoretical Scholarship and Applied Practice investigates the ways in which theoretical research has been incorporated into recent applied practices across the social sciences and humanities. This collection advances our understanding of the ethics, values, opportunities and challenges that emerge in the making of engaged and interdisciplinary scholarship.

As international development presents enormous moral, political and ethical challenges, so researching and understanding it requires negotiation of its contested contours.
The chapters draw on research conducted around the world using a range of methodologies, perspectives and commitments, rooted in diverse disciplines.
Through their exploration of the interrelationship of qualitative methodologies and development theory, policy and practice, the book demonstrates the importance of placing qualitative methodologies within their conceptual, practical and political contexts. It also highlights the important but contested contribution that qualitative methodology can make to not only understanding development, but engendering it.
Studies in Qualitative Methodology is now available online at ScienceDirect ??? full-text online of volumes 6 onwards.
*Explores qualitative methodology and development in terms of the ways researchers negotiate boundaries and borders
*Asks questions of development research, critiques relationships between researchers and subjects, and challenges connections between research and change
*Demonstrates the importance of placing qualitative methods within their right context

The lifecourse perspective continues to be an important subject in the social sciences. Researching the Lifecourse offers a distinctive approach in that it truly covers the lifecourse (childhood, adulthood and older age), focusing on innovative methods and case study examples from a variety of European and North American contexts. This original approach connects theory and practice from across the social sciences by situating methodology and research design within relevant conceptual frameworks. This diverse collection features methods that are linked to questions of time, space and mobilities while providing practitioners with practical detail in each chapter.

This book presents a challenging and multi-faceted research project that required state-of-the-art methodological approaches. The project involved analyzing data collected from 10,000 research articles published in ten leading journals in the area of educational technology over 20 years, from January 1994 to December 2014; advanced analytic approaches such as latent semantic analysis; and expert insights and interpretations of the subject matter. It captures the trends in a number of research streams within the discipline of educational technology and identifies the point in time when a massive change took place. This is a significant achievement given that, in epistemology and philosophy of science, there have always been discussions of paradigm shifts, but researchers have always identified them qualitatively. This is the first work to identify a paradigm shift using rigorous quantitative methods. The analysis procedure involved big data and sophisticated analysis, which supported the identification of clusters at several breakpoints from which the richest set was selected in order to provide the most detailed analysis. This comprehensive analysis also shows what has been published and by whom in those ten top-tier journals. This work makes a highly significant contribution to the field of learning technologies and provides the groundwork and a significant data source for other scholars, both new and experienced, to build on and expand in their work.

Mathematical demography is the centerpiece of quantitative social science. The founding works of this field from Roman times to the late Twentieth Century are collected here, in a new edition of a classic work by David R. Smith and Nathan Keyfitz. Commentaries by Smith and Keyfitz have been brought up to date and extended by Kenneth Wachter and Herve Le Bras, giving a synoptic picture of the leading achievements in formal population studies. Like the original collection, this new edition constitutes an indispensable source for students and scientists alike, and illustrates the deep roots and continuing vitality of mathematical demography.

The potential for research evidence to improve educational policy and practice is immense. Yet internationally, research used by teachers and governments is currently sporadic rather than systematic. In response, this book brings together seven chapters that encompass a range of research projects and ideas in relation to evidence-informed policy and practice (EIPP) in education. These projects and ideas all share a single overarching purpose: providing insight into how EIPP in education can be achieved. Underpinning each chapter is the notion that the world is complex. If we are to introduce change in any meaningful way into it, we therefore have to understand and respond to this complexity. This means then that we cannot simply assume that, because it seems rational or common sense for teachers and policy-makers to use research to help improve their decision making or acts of praxis, that they will do so. Correspondingly, the book represents a holistic journey of discovery and experimentation: of an engagement with the work of thinkers and authors from Eco to Flyvbjerg, via Habermas, Foucault and Aristotle; of ideas ranging from phronesis to trust and social relations; and with diverse research methodologies, including social network analysis and decision tree predictive modelling. The result is both descriptive and prescriptive: as well as outlining the research and its findings, practical suggestions and strategies for achieving evidence use both in educational policy and practice are provided throughout.

This book is a collection of mortality abstracts based on recent follow-up studies on the results of health disorders from the abstracts and articles appearing recently in the Journal of Insurance Medicine. The widely different types of investigators who may have repeated need of outcome data (death or morbid event) in a particular disease or risk factor will find this collection invaluable. Such a collection is valuable not only to users in the insurance industry, but to all physicians and health scientists who are interested in prognosis of chronic diseases, in clinical trials, in cost/benefit questions, in clinical decision-making, and similar fields of inquiry.

Though all research is steeped in methodological and ethical quandaries, it is further complicated when a researcher crosses cultural borders. Given the increasingly multi-cultural nature of research populations and of recent global collaborations, researchers often find themselves working with those unlike themselves. Seventy cross-cultural researchers from multiple disciplines, from mainstream academia and from marginalized groups in six nations and four continents address the overarching question: "How can one do cross-cultural research with integrity?" Author and researcher narratives comprise a substantial portion of the book; stories, many humorous, some heart-wrenching, some heart-warming, contextualize complex concepts and explore the richness that cross-cultural research and collaborations can bring to the researcher, to the knowledge base surrounding real world problems, and to those researched. These contextualized insights, covering all phases of the research process, allow the reader to inductively construct their own research beliefs and plans.

Although poverty is one of the most serious issues facing the world's population, finding statistical information on this subject has, in the past, required a significant amount of time and effort. Now, this volume provides researchers with a single, comprehensive resource that includes detailed information regarding the worldwide and regional impact of poverty in the developing world and on individual countries from authoritative sources including the World Bank and the UN Human Development Report. The "Handbook" includes statistics on economic indicators, demographic patterns, income distribution, and other factors that impact poverty in the world today. Two special sections focus on women and children and on poverty in selected cities worldwide.

This book addresses the question of how to ground research practice in area-specific, yet globally entangled contexts such as 'Global Southeast Asia'. It offers a fruitful debate between various approaches to Southeast Asia Studies, while taking into consideration the area-specific contexts of research practice cross-cutting methodological issues.

Hand them this easy-to-use, comprehensive guide to researching 100 popular research papers, and high school students will get off on the right track on their research papers. Designed by a reference and young adult librarian for use in her library, this guide saves both student and librarian time and is a shortcut to effective research. Each photocopyable guide will help the student to locate print and nonprint information about the topic, narrow the scope of the paper, and find related topics. This will reduce student frustration in the research process and introduce the student to the full scope of materials the library has to offer on the topic. Each guide serves not only as a map to library resources but as an outline of library research procedures. From "abortion" to "youth gangs," the 100 topic guides are organized into sections on science and technology, social issues, social studies, and biography. Each guide contains a capsule description of the topic, call numbers for shelf browsing, subject headings, pamphlet file sources, reference materials, book and CD-ROM periodical indexes, online databases, key words and descriptors to use in searching indexes and databases, a list of videotapes on the topic, fiction relating to the topic, organizations to contact for further information, suggestions for narrowing the topic, and suggestions for related topics. In addition to the guides, an appendix of aids to research will help students with note-taking, bibliographic citations, and electronic database searching. The book is thoroughly indexed for easy access of topic information by students and librarians. Once you use these topic guides you'll wonder how you and your students ever gotalong without them.

How can government stay linked to its citizens? Across the world, governments' basic principles are turned on their heads as global markets, weakened national states, and active citizens emerge. Governments increasingly act not alone, but many governments and private groups make policy jointly - labeled 'governance'. But this raises new concerns for adequate citizen responsiveness. Leaders and parties previously considered left or right make unexpected choices - as leaders explore Third Ways, New Political Cultures, and more. As policy choices grow more complicated, they are harder to present to citizens - which undermines citizen legitimacy of parties and elected officials.

How can government maintain democratic accountability? This volume explores new answers by probing citizen involvement in specific cities and countries the world over. There is no single problem, hence no single remedy. But by contrasting key elements of national and local contexts, this volume offers lessons about how citizens are variously activated; about what works, where, and why. From specific results emerge insights about how citizens may drive policy, or be ignored, in a time of turbulence and rapid cultural change for government policy making.

The conduct of most of social science occurs outside the laboratory. Such studies in field science explore phenomena that cannot for practical, technical, or ethical reasons be explored under controlled conditions. These phenomena cannot be fully isolated from their environment or investigated by manipulation or intervention. Yet measurement, including rigorous or clinical measurement, does provide analysts with a sound basis for discerning what occurs under field conditions, and why. Science Outside the Laboratory explores the state of measurement theory, its reliability, and the role expert judgment plays in field investigations from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Its discussion of the problems of passive observation, the calculus of observation, the two-model problem, and model-based consensus uses illustrations drawn primarily from economics. The treatment clarifies the extent to which measurement provides valid information about objects and events in field sciences, but also has implications for measurement in the laboratory.

This book offers a guide to sociology that explores its theoretical and methodological dimensions. Providing the student with a sense of the reasoned character of the discipline, it traces how different theories and methods relate to one another, exploring the particular problems they spawn and the debates that have arisen in response. The guide is written to be easy to use: individual chapters stand alone as well as fit into the overarching narrative; boxes in the text explain key concepts and feature particular methods, theories or key figures; and annotated further reading lists are provided throughout.

A review of the dissemination of spatial data. Topics addressed include: spatial information infrastructure and innovation; designing information policy research; and evaluating information use, access and dissemination. The work also contains comparative case studies of information dissemination.

The significance that practitioners are placing on the use of multilevel models is undeniable as researchers want to both accurately partition variance stemming from complex sampling designs and understand relations within and between variables describing the hierarchical levels of these nested data structures. Simply scan the applied literature and one can see evidence of this trend by noticing the number of articles adopting multilevel models as their primary modeling framework. Helping to drive the popularity of their use, governmental funding agencies continue to advocate the use of multilevel models as part of a comprehensive analytic strategy for conducting rigorous and relevant research to improve our nation's education system. Advances in Multilevel Modeling for Educational Research: Addressing Practical Issues Found in Real?World Applications is a resource intended for advanced graduate students, faculty and/or researchers interested in multilevel data analysis, especially in education, social and behavioral sciences. The chapters are written by prominent methodological researchers across diverse research domains such as educational statistics, quantitative psychology, and psychometrics. Each chapter exposes the reader to some of the latest methodological innovations, refinements and state?of?the?art developments and perspectives in the analysis of multilevel data including current best practices of standard techniques. We believe this volume will be particularly appealing to researchers in domains including but not limited to: educational policy and administration, educational psychology including school psychology and special education, and clinical psychology. In fact, we believe this volume will be a desirable resource for any research area that uses hierarchically nested data. The book will likely be attractive to applied and methodological researchers in several professional organizations such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Psychological Society (APS), the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), and other related organizations.

This book provides new ways of thinking about educational processes, using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Concrete examples of research techniques are provided for those conducting research with marginalized populations or about marginalized ideas. This volume asserts theoretical models related to research methods and the study of underrepresented groups. Ultimately, it aims at expanding knowledge itself - altering the center by allowing the margins to inform it - allowing it to be created and extended to include those ways of knowing that have historically been unexplored or ignored.

This volume introduces a series of different data-driven computational methods for analyzing group processes through didactic and tutorial-based examples. Group processes are of central importance to many sectors of society, including government, the military, health care, and corporations. Computational methods are better suited to handle (potentially huge) group process data than traditional methodologies because of their more flexible assumptions and capability to handle real-time trace data. Indeed, the use of methods under the name of computational social science have exploded over the years. However, attention has been focused on original research rather than pedagogy, leaving those interested in obtaining computational skills lacking a much needed resource. Although the methods here can be applied to wider areas of social science, they are specifically tailored to group process research. A number of data-driven methods adapted to group process research are demonstrated in this current volume. These include text mining, relational event modeling, social simulation, machine learning, social sequence analysis, and response surface analysis. In order to take advantage of these new opportunities, this book provides clear examples (e.g., providing code) of group processes in various contexts, setting guidelines and best practices for future work to build upon. This volume will be of great benefit to those willing to learn computational methods. These include academics like graduate students and faculty, multidisciplinary professionals and researchers working on organization and management science, and consultants for various types of organizations and groups.

This volume systematically details both the basic principles and new developments in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), offering a solid understanding of the methodology, its uses, and its potential. New material in this edition includes coverage of recent developments that have greatly extended the power and scope of DEA and have lead to new directions for research and DEA uses. Each chapter accompanies its developments with simple numerical examples and discussions of actual applications. The first nine chapters cover the basic principles of DEA, while the final seven chapters provide a more advanced treatment.

This book presents a perspective on the role of modeling that has relevance to both practice and theory. The authors provide an empirical assessment of the role of computer models in urban policy decisions, presenting a survey and four detailed case studies focusing on the use of a specific class of computer-based fiscal impact models in American logical governments. The findings are interpreted in light of this perspeectiv on the social and political dynamics of models in the policy process. From this perspective, called "consensus modeling," a model is viewed as a tool for facilitating negotiation, and, thereby, consensus in the policymaking process.

Offering a variety of innovative methods and tools, The Oxford Handbook of Multi- and Mixed-Methods Research Inquiry provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date presentation on multi- and mixed-methods research available. Written in clear and concise language by leading scholars in the field, it enhances and disrupts traditional ways of asking and addressing complex research questions. Topics include an overview of theory, paradigms, and scientific inquiry; a guide to conducting a multi- and mixed-methods research study from start to finish; current uses of multi- and mixed-methods research across academic disciplines and research fields; the latest technologies and how they can be incorporated into study design; and a presentation of multiple perspectives on the key remaining debates. Each chapter in the volume is structured to include state-of-the-art research examples that cross a range of disciplines and interdisciplinary research settings. In addition, the Handbook offers multiple quantitative and qualitative theoretical and interdisciplinary visions and praxis. Researchers, faculty, graduate students, and policy makers will appreciate the exceptional, timely, and critical coverage in this Handbook, which deftly addresses the interdisciplinary and complex questions that a diverse set of research communities are facing today.

The first comprehensive statistical analysis of human rights attainments and improvements over time, this book seeks to answer the question, Why do some countries better observe human rights than others, and what can be done to advance the cause of human rights around the world? Haas's data support his argument that economic sanctions against countries that violate human rights are likely to be counterproductive. When information flows more freely and economies are more pluralistic, competing political parties emerge, and basic human rights are increasingly respected. When liberal democracies have sufficient prosperity to adopt welfare state policies, women's rights are most likely to advance.