This book proposes a revolutionary new theory of construct measurement - called C-OAR-SE - for the social sciences. The acronym is derived from the following key elements: construct definition; object representation; attribute classification; rater entity identification; selection of item type; enumeration and scoring. The new theory is applicable to the design of measures of constructs in: * Management * Marketing * Information Systems * Organizational Behavior * Psychology * Sociology C-OAR-SE is a rationally rather than empirically-based theory and procedure. It can be used for designing measures of the most complex and also the most basic constructs that we use in social science research. C-OAR-SE is a radical alternative to the traditional empirically-based psychometric approach, and a considerable amount of the book's content is devoted to demonstrating why the psychometric approach does not produce valid measures. The book argues that the psychometric approach has resulted in many misleading findings in the social sciences and has led to erroneous acceptance - or rejection - of many of our main theories and hypotheses, and that the C-OAR-SE approach to measurement would correct this massive problem. The main purpose of this book is to introduce and explain C-OAR-SE construct measurement theory in a way that will be understood by all social science researchers and that can be applied to designing new, more valid measures. Featuring numerous examples, practical applications, end-of-chapter questions, and appendices, the book will serve as an essential resource for students and professional researcher alike.

Late in a career of more than sixty years, Thomas Burch, an internationally known social demographer, undertook a wide-ranging methodological critique of demography. This open access volume contains a selection of resulting papers, some previously unpublished, some published but not readily accessible. Rejecting the idea that demography is simply a branch of applied statistics, his work views it as an autonomous and complete scientific discipline. When viewed from the perspective of modern philosophy of science, specifically the semantic or model-based school, demography is a balanced discipline, with a rich body of techniques and data, but also with more and better theories than generally recognized. As demonstrated in this book, some demographic techniques can also be seen as theoretical models, and some substantive/behavioral models, commonly rejected as theory because of inconsistent observations, are now seen as valuable theoretical models, for example demographic transition theory. This book shows how demography can build a strong theoretical edifice on its broad and deep empirical foundation by adoption of the model-based approach to science. But the full-fruits of this approach will require demographers to make greater use of computer modeling in the statement and manipulation of theoretical ideas, as well as for numerical computation.

Chavkin tests the theory that there is a relationship between organizational structure and the use of research recommendations in school social work. Part I includes three chapters that explore the complex relationship between applied social science research and practice. Part II is the case example of the use of Costin's recommendation for changes in the goals and methods of school social service delivery. Part III presents the implications of the case for practice, policy, and theory, and provides suggestions for future research. Chavkin's organizational perspective adds to the information social workers have about why research findings are adopted in some organizations and not in others, and how organizational structure factors facilitate or inhibit adoption. Recommended for social work scholars and practitioners, researchers, and agency leaders.

How can human capabilities be articulated and promoted in practice? How can the challenges encountered in its application be addressed? This volume answers these research questions through nine country case studies from the Global North and the Global South.

Leading African American scholars examine the often neglected cultural context in research and policy development in African American higher education in this collection of essays. Past research has most often been conducted by individuals unfamiliar with the historical and cultural considerations of specific ethnic groups. Therefore, the outcomes of research and the development of programs have been based on deficit models, that is, what is wrong with African Americans, or what they cannot achieve. The book examines the questions; what is the relationship between African Americans' culture and experiences, and how should their culture be integrated into research and practice? How do African Americans' intra- and interrelations differ in higher education? How does understanding African American culture as it relates to higher education research enhance policy-making and practice? What role do HBUCs play in African Americans' participation in higher education? What are the policy and practice implications of past and current research? Scholars and practitioners of education, culture, and race relations will find this collection informative and interesting.

The purpose of this book is to break a number of the conventions of research texts by writing an academic text on methodology as a case study of building case studies, one that cites classic works in the field and contains autobiographical considerations throughout its account, one that narrates the conscious process of designing a framework from the range of philosophies that were involved in chronicling this topic.

The personal anecdotes and candid reflections on the lives and work of these important critical scholars, and their predictions on the future of the field, make this book a valuable resource for scholars and students of communication, media studies, political economy, political science, and those interested in critical theoretical approaches.

This is the second volume of papers in the topical area of environmental management. Arising from work done by the International Centre for the Environment at the University of Bath, the papers address interdisciplinary environmental themes particularly from a business and management perspective.

This annual publication is devoted to the advancement of ethics research and education in the profession and practice of accounting. It aims to advance innovative and applied ethics research in all accounting-related disciplines on a global basis; to improve ethics education in and throughout the professional accounting and management curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels; and to provide a source of information for the professional eccounting and auditing community for integrating ethics and good business practices in public firms, business corporations, and governmental organizations. This annual's primary objective is to provide a forum for business leaders and educators to discuss and debate the plethora of ethical issues that affect accounting organizations and the financial community in the USA and abroad. It includes commentary and editorials from accounting practitioners, standard setters and regulators. Papers are empirical or theoretical in nature, and draw upon paradigms in related disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, theology, economics and sociology. Volume 2 includes a section on the public interest considerations of ethical obligations of CPAs in advertising and solicitation. Other subjects covered include: ethics violations in the accountancy profession; applying behavioural models as prescriptions for ethics in accountancy practice and education; auditor's responsibility to the public; and the impact of ethics education in accountancy curricula.

This unique study traces the life cycle of a counterculture commune of the late 1960s as part of a regional network and national movement. Through exhaustive field research in a setting viewed as a virtual social laboratory, it provides fascinating insights into many social concerns involving order and disorder in revolutionary and evolutionary change. It examines such issues as conflict, violence, stratification, and interdependence in the self-proclaimed cooperative, peaceful, classless, and self-sufficient new society. The reasons for the many failures as well as successes of experimental efforts are outlined, along with enduring impacts on participants and the surrounding region.

This book applies cutting-edge methods from cognitive and evolutionary theories to develop models of conflict between hierarchically-structured cognitive entities under circumstances of imprecision, uncertainty and stress. Characterized as friction and the fog-of-war by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, such conditions impair institutional cognition in real-time conflict and pose a real and continuing threat to organizations, such as the US military. In a linked collection of formal essays and a mathematical appendix, the book explores different aspects of cognitive and evolutionary process as conducted under the direction of doctrine that acts as a kind of genome for retention of what is learned through Lamarckian evolutionary selection pressures: armies and corporate entities learn from conflict, and incorporate that learning into their ongoing procedures. The book proposes models and policy solutions for strategic competence. A central feature of the book is a formal description of the famous OODA loop of the US military theorist John Boyd in terms of the Data Rate Theorem that links control and information theories. That description is expanded to cover more fully the impact of stochastic fog-of-war effects on tactical and operational scales of conflict. Subsequent chapters examine in more detail the role of doctrine, and the particular effect of embedding culture on cognitive and Lamarckian evolutionary processes associated with conflict on tactical, operational, and strategic scales and levels of organization. A scientifically sophisticated exercise in applied mathematics, history, evolutionary theory, and ecosystem theory, this book will be appropriate for researchers and students interested in defense, security, and international relations, as well as non-academic career professionals in government and industry.

This volume offers unique perspectives on how to engage in methods of inquiry in Political Science. Applying the debate in the field over the validity of qualitative methods, the authors illustrate how various methodological approaches are both rigorous and empirically rich. Each of the chapters consists of a particular methodological approach that offers useful insight into pressing political problems important for policy and for theory building. Drawing upon both positivist and interpretive approaches, the chapters illustrate how to engage in qualitative research involving case studies, content analysis and ethnography, each outlining the "doing" part of research. The volume is theoretically, thematically and geographically diverse, important for students and scholars across the field.

Generalizability theory offers an extensive conceptual framework and a powerful set of statistical procedures for characterizing and quantifying the fallibility of measurements. It liberalizes classical test theory, in part through the application of analysis of variance procedures that focus on variance components. As such, generalizability theory is perhaps the most broadly defined measurement model currently in existence. It is applicable to virtually any scientific field that attends to measurements and their errors, and it enables a multifacteted perspective on measurement error and its components. This book provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of generalizability theory. In addition, it provides a synthesis of those parts of the statistical literature that are directly applicable to generalizability theory. The principal intended audience is measurement practitioners and graduate students in the behavioral and social sciences, although a few examples and references are provided from other fields. Readers will benefit from some familiarity with classical test theory and analysis of variance, but the treatment of most topics does not presume specific background. Robert L. Brennan is E.F. Lindquist Professor of Educational Measurement at the University of Iowa. He is an acknowledged expert in generalizability theory, has authored numerous publications on the theory, and has taught many courses and workshops on generalizability. The author has been Vice-President of the American Educational Research Association and President of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). He has received NCME Awards for Outstanding Technical Contributions to Educational Measurement and Career Contributions to Educational Measurement.

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is an emerging research method that is highly suitable for evaluation studies. Clear and concise, this book explains how researchers and evaluators can use QCA effectively for the systematic and thorough analysis of large infrastructure projects, while also acknowledging their complexity. Lasse Gerrits and Stefan Verweij present the key steps of this methodology to identify patterns across real-life cases. From collecting and interpreting data to sharing their knowledge and presenting the results, the authors use examples of megaprojects to emphasize how QCA can be used successfully for both single infrastructure ventures as well as more extensive projects. In addition to discussing the best practices and pitfalls of the methodology, further examples from current research are given in order to illustrate how QCA works effectively in both theory and practice. Being written with researchers and evaluators in mind, this book will be of great benefit for students and scholars of evaluation studies, public administration, transport studies, policy analysis and project management. The book is also highly applicable for those working in public or private organizations involved in infrastructure projects looking for an effective, detailed and systematic method of evaluation.

Thirty-two years after the publication of the legendary 'Rasch book' (Rasch, 1960), the rich literature on the Rasch model and its extensions was scattered in journals and many less accessible sources, including 'grey' literature. When asked by students or junior researchers for references to the Rasch model, it was a typical reaction on the part of the editors to state that it was difficult to name one, or just a few; actually, only a whole list of references differing in notation and level of formal abstraction seemed to meet the request in most cases. Therefore, in 1992 the editors decided to invite a number of outstanding authors in the field of Rasch modeling to contribute to a book presenting the current state of knowledge about Rasch models. The aim was not just to collect a number of papers on the subject, rather to produce a well-organized monograph. To this end, a workshop was held in Vienna from 25 to 27 February 1993 in which, after a process of mutual reviewing, drafts of all chapters were read and discussed by all authors, leading to a more systematic organization of the topics treated in unified notation and terminology. (The workshop was sponsored by the University of Vienna; here, the editors would like to express their thanks, in the name of all contributors, both for the financial support and for the hospitality granted.

By now, most academics have heard something about the new science of complexity. In a manner reminiscent of Einstein and the last hundred years of physics, complexity science has captured the public imagination. (R) One can go to Amazon. com and purchase books on complexification (Casti 1994), emergence (Holland 1998), small worlds (Barabasi 2003), the web of life (Capra 1996), fuzzy thinking (Kosko 1993), global c- plexity (Urry 2003) and the business of long-tails (Anderson 2006). Even television has incorporated the topics of complexity science. Crime shows (R) (R) such as 24 or CSI typically feature investigators using the latest advances in computational modeling to "simulate scenarios" or "data mine" all p- sible suspects-all of which is done before the crime takes place. The (R) World Wide Web is another example. A simple search on Google. Com using the phrase "complexity science" gets close to a million hits! C- plexity science is ubiquitous. What most scholars do not realize, however, is the remarkable role sociologists are playing in this new science. C- sider the following examples. 0. 1 Sociologists in Complexity Science The first example comes from the new science of networks (Barabasi 2003). By now, most readers are familiar with the phenomena known as six-degrees of separation-the idea that, because most large networks are comprised of a significant number of non-random weak-ties, the nodes (e. g. , people, companies, etc.

Prove It With Figures displays some of the tools of the social and statistical sciences that have been applied in the courtroom and to the study of questions of legal importance. It explains how researchers can extract the most valuable and reliable data that can conveniently be made available, and how these efforts sometimes go awry. In the tradition of Zeisel's standard work "Say It with Figures," the authors clarify, in non-technical language, some of the basic problems common to all efforts to discern cause-and-effect relationships. Designed as a textbook for law students who seek an appreciation of the power and limits of empirical methods, this is also a useful reference for lawyers, policymakers, and members of the public who would like to improve their critical understanding of the statistics presented to them. The many case histories include analyses of the death penalty, jury selection, employment discrimination, mass torts, and DNA profiling.

This volume clearly demonstrates the diversity of our field. Twenty-two scholars have contributed thirteen unique pieces of research on a wide variety of topics including public management innovation; organizational learning; revenue forecasting; finance; qualitative research and research methods; intergovernmetnal relations; training and management information systems; bureaucratic responsibility; citizen participation; political influence of the bureaucracy; critiques of policy making; public administration research. This collection makes a rich contribution of knowledge to our field.

Read Chapter One.

"Initiate[s] a useful and innovative dialogue. . . . A very important book, especially in its opening up a discussion of methodological issues around current research on racism and racial grouping."
-- "Contemporary Sociology"

"Essential reading for all those whose research explicitly engages racial issues-and for all those who do not realize that their work inevitably engages racial issues."
"-Ruth Frankenberg, author of White Women, Race Matters and editor of Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Cultural Criticism"

"Absolutely critical reading. This volume powerfully explores how scholars' own racial background shapes the analytical lens with which they view whiteness, blackness . . . the exoticism and eroticism of racial 'others' and the domain of white privilege."
"-William Darity, Jr., coauthor of Persistent Disparity and Boshamer Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Research Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics, Sociology and African American Studies at Duke University"

"Timely and challenging, this innovative book engages questions and dilemmas that researchers on race and racism rarely talk about in public. Refreshingly clear and comparative in scope, it is a must reading in all courses about race and ethnic relations, calling for a fundamental rethinking of research agendas in this field."
"-John Solomos, author of Race and Racism in Britain, coeditor of The Blackwell Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, and Professor of Sociology, South Bank University (London)"

"Points to the ethical dilemmas of researchers researching race among communities that are at once 'victims' ofracism and active in the continued process of racialization."
"-Rinaldo Walcott, author of Black Like Who?, and Professor of Humanities, York University (Canada)"

"A remarkable collection of essays interrogating the political, methodological and ethical dilemmas of conducting research in racially stratified societies. These theoretically astute and ethnographically rich case studies compellingly demonstrate how the production of knowledge is framed and mediated by the racialized subject positions held by social scientists. Racing Research, Researching Race will no doubt incite a critical and long overdue discussion of the racial politics of ethnographic fieldwork."
"-Steven Gregory, author of Black Corona, and Professor of Africana and American Studies at New York University"

A white woman studies upper-class eighth grade girls at her alma mater on Long Island and finds a culture founded on misinformation about its own racial and class identity. A black American researcher is repeatedly assumed by many Brazilian subjects to be a domestic servant or sex worker.

Racing Race, Researching Race is the first volume of its kind to explore how ideologies of race and racism intersect with nationality and gender to shape the research experience.

Critical work in race studies has not adequately addressed how racial positions in the field--as inflected by nationality, gender, and age--generate numerous methodological dilemmas. Racing Research, Researching Race begins to fill this gap by infusing critical race studies with more empirical work and suggesting how a critical race perspective might improve research methodologies and outcomes.

The contributors to the volume encompassa wide range of disciplinary backgrounds including anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, women=s studies, political science, and Asian American studies.

This collection of papers investigates the most recent debates about individualism and holism in the philosophy of social science. The debates revolve mainly around two issues: firstly, whether social phenomena exist "sui generis" and how they relate to individuals. This is the focus of discussions between ontological individualists and ontological holists. Secondly, to what extent social scientific explanations may and should, focus on individuals and social phenomena respectively. This issue is debated amongst methodological holists and methodological individualists.

In social science and philosophy, both issues have been intensively discussed and new versions of the dispute have appeared just as new arguments have been advanced. At present, the individualism/holism debate is extremely lively and this book reflects the major positions and perspectives within the debate. This volume is also relevant to debates about two closely related issues in social science: the micro-macro debate and the agency-structure debate.

This book presents contributions from key figures in both social science and philosophy, in the first such collection on this topic to be published since the 1970s.

Based on one of the most extensive scientific surveys of race ever conducted, this book investigates the relationship between racial perceptions and policy choices in America. The contributors-leading scholars in the fields of public opinion, race relations, and political behavior-clarify and explore images of African-Americans that white Americans hold and the complex ways that racial stereotypes shape modern political debates about such issues as affirmative action, housing, welfare, and crime. The authors make use of the largest national study of public opinion on racial issues in more than a generation-the Race and Politics Study (RPS) conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of California. The RPS employed methodological improvements made possible by Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing, a technique that enables analysts to combine the internal validity of laboratory experiments with the external validity of probability sampling. Taking full advantage of these research methods, the authors offer highly nuanced analyses of subjects ranging from the sources of racial stereotypes to the racial policy preferences of Democrats and Republicans to the reasons for resistance to affirmative action. Their findings indicate that while crude and explicit forms of racial prejudice may have declined in recent decades, racial stereotypes persist among many whites and exert a powerful influence on the ways they view certain public policies.

This book is the first comprehensive assessment of the mortality crisis which has affected most economies in transition but which has remained so far largely unexplained. It reconciles long-term and short-term explanations of the crisis and makes use of special micro data-sets never used before. By providing a rigorous multidisciplinary analysis of this upsurge in mortality rates, the book hopes to contribute to the launch of vigorous policies to tackle this societal problem.

Alarming news reports point to an almost incomprehensible problem of violence in America. Understanding this problem requires timely and accurate information about the magnitude and scope of violence, the effect of violence on our society, and society's perceptions of violence. "Statistical Handbook on Violence in America" is the authoritative source of data gathered from widely scattered sources, both published and unpublished, and assembled in a single volume for accurate and efficient access. Featuring 377 tables and figures, this volume reveals data on victims and offenders, as well as the association of violence with: the home, health care, individual attitudes, the workplace, the economy, and public policy issues.

Contemporary societal problems are complex, intractable, and costly. Aiming to ameliorate them, social scientists formulate policies and programs, and conduct research testing the efficacy of the interventions. All too often the results are disappointing; partly because the theories guiding these studies are inappropriate, the study designs are flawed, and the empirical databases covering their research questions are sparse. This book confronts these problems of research by following this process: analyze the roots of the social problem both theoretically and empirically; formulate a study design that captures the nuances of the problem; gather appropriate empirical data operationalizing the study design; model these data using multilevel statistical methods to uncover potential causes and any biases to their implied effects; use the results by refining theory and by formulating evidence-based policy recommendations for implementation and testing.

Applying this process, the chapters focus on these social problems: political extremism; global human development; violence against religious minorities; computerization of work; reform of urban schools; and the utilization and costs of health care. Because these chapters exemplify the usefulness of multilevel modeling for the quantification of effects and causal inference, they can serve as vivid exemplars for the teaching of students. This use of examples reverses the usual procedure for introducing statistical methods. Rather than beginning with a new statistical model bearing on statistical theory and searching for illustrative data, each core chapter begins with a pressing social problem. The specific problem motivates theoretical analysis, gathering of relevant data, and application of appropriate statistical procedures. Readers can use the provided data sets and syntaxes to replicate, critique, and advance the analyses, thereby developing their ability to produce future applications of multilevel modeling.

The chapters address the multilevel data structures of these social problems by grouping observations on the micro units (level-1) by more macro-units (level-2) (e.g., school children are grouped by their classroom), and by conducting multilevel statistical modeling in contextual, longitudinal, and meta-analyses. Each core chapter applies a qualitative typology to nest the variance between the macro units, thereby crafting a "mixed-methods" approach that combines qualitative attributes with quantitative measures