This book makes a forthright case for a shift in policy focus from 'community cohesion' to the broader notion of social cohesion, and is distinctive and innovative in its focus on evaluation. It constitutes an extremely valuable source both for practitioners involved in social cohesion interventions and for researchers and students studying theory-based evaluation and the policy areas highlighted (housing, intergenerational issues, the recession, education, communications, community development).

What rallies or inspires people to champion the different causes surrounding filtering or free expression? How do people vary in their views on what the First Amendment guarantees? This book encourages students to think critically about the pros and cons of censorship. The profiles of individuals who are active in free speech debates show that while there aren't always black and white answers, there are numerous ways to take a firm stand on the issues.

Readers will be introduced to a wide variety of people, from feminists arguing both sides of the debate over pornography, to those who believe no one can clearly define what is harmful and what is not. The book also presents people motivated by religious convictions to censor material they consider negative or detrimental. Fifty individual stories about activists on frontlines, fighting for what they believe, bring the controversies surrounding filtering and freedom of expression into sharp focus, offering a rich platform for consideration and debate.

This study is a portrayal of the political, economic, and cultural history and present of community gardens in a New York City neighborhood, the Lower East Side of Manhattan. An ethnographic study of a particular instance of urban history, it provides a basis for an understanding of urban community gardens in the United States. Beginning with a historical overview of urban community gardening in the United States and other countries, the author concentrates on the last two decades of the 20th century in this portrayal of a social movement that seeks to impact urban environments both in social and economic terms and in terms of ecological dynamics. The last decade in particular has been critical with regard to the development of a broad network of community-based coalitions acting on behalf of urban community gardens.

The author considers internal dynamics and organization of individual gardens within the specific social, political, and economic context of the Lower East Side and analyzes the political struggle on behalf of community gardens in that neighborhood and the entire city. The author also addresses the diverse ways in which community gardens on the Lower East Side have become critical components in the daily life of urban gardeners, predominantly poor and low-income people.

The radio in Africa has shaped culture by allowing listeners to negotiate modern identities and sometimes fast-changing lifestyles. Through the medium of voice and mediated sound, listeners on the station – known as Radio Bantu, then Radio Zulu, and finally Ukhozi FM – shaped new understandings of the self, family and social roles.

Through particular genres such as radio drama, fuelled by the skills of radio actors and listeners, an array of debates, choices and mistakes were unpacked daily for decades. This was the unseen literature of the auditory, the drama of the airwaves, which at its height shaped the lives of millions of listeners in urban and rural places in South Africa. Radio became a conduit for many talents squeezed aside by apartheid repression. Besides Winnie Mahlangu and K.E. Masinga and a host of other talents opened by radio, the exiles Lewis Nkosi and Bloke Modisane made a niche and a network of identities and conversations which stretched from the heart of Harlem to the American South. Nkosi and Modisane were working respectively in BBC Radio drama and a short-lived radio transcription centre based in London which drew together the threads of activism and creativity from both Black America and the African continent at a critical moment of the late empire.

Radio Soundings is a fascinating study that shows how, throughout its history, Zulu radio has made a major impact on community, everyday life and South African popular culture, voicing a range of subjectivities which gave its listeners a place in the modern world.

Although much has been written about how organizations renew themselves, little attention has been given to why they go into decline. Mary Guy's groundbreaking new study looks at both sides of the issue, first analyzing the symptoms of and reasons for organizational decline, and then exploring the requirements for renewal. Drawing upon her own original research and a detailed examination of case studies in both the public and private sector, Guy takes as her conceptual framework the theories that have informed organizational development research. She traces the decline-followed-by-renewal process, proposing an integrated model of organizational decline that includes certain identifiable stages of health and resilience common to all organizations in turmoil.

Guy's analytical framework can be effectively used to pinpoint the position of any organization--large or small, public or private, old or new. She explains how people behave in organizations under stress and outlines the enduring characteristics of organizations in the decline and renewal stages. Numerous examples illustrate the actual process of decline and renewal in real-world settings--small businesses, large corporations, hospitals, schools, voluntary agencies, and government agencies, including the Johnson White House during the Vietnam War. An entire chapter is devoted to tracing the path of decline within NASA's manned space flight program and looking toward its future. Students of organizational development and management theory will find here important new insights into the dynamics of organizational decline and the period of renewed vigor that often follows.

@lt;P style="MARGIN: 0px"@gt;@lt;B@gt;Using the "Person-In-Environment" (PIE) theoretical framework, this diversity practice text teaches students how to think about their personal reactions and assumptions about diversity and what constitutes cultural competent "assessment" and "intervention" when working with a broad range of diverse populations.@lt;/B@gt;@lt;/P@gt;@lt;P style="MARGIN: 0px"@gt; @lt;/P@gt;@lt;P style="MARGIN: 0px"@gt;The diverse populations presented in the text are described within an ecological, strengths perspective. The authors' thesis is that, in order to work effectively with diverse populations, it is necessary to take into consideration the complex dynamics of social functioning and social oppression. The "Person-In-Environment" theoretical framework provides a basis for analysis of the social, economic, and political reality of these diverse populations. The text presents an affirmative practice approach and builds on the available diversity practice literature.@lt;/P@gt;@lt;P style="MARGIN: 0px"@gt; @lt;/P@gt;@lt;P style="MARGIN: 0px"@gt;This text can be used in diversity practice courses, courses on working with oppressed populations, and other practice courses (such as advanced practice) that focus on diversity issues.@lt;/P@gt;@lt;DIV@gt;@lt;/DIV@gt;

As the Arab Spring continues to work through changes, the Occupy Movement is agitating for change and many are looking for alternatives in the face of global financial and political challenges, community organising offers a realistic way forward for many communities: a tried and tested way of improving people's lives. This book is the first to explore the diverse history of community organising, telling stories of how it developed, its successes and failures, and the lessons that can be applied today. It analyses contemporary examples of practice from the USA, UK, India, South Africa, Cambodia and Australia against both wider theoretical frameworks and their ability to contribute to sustainable social change. It will be useful for a wide range of practitioners, students and researchers engaged in the struggle to develop new ways of doing community.

Social scientists are motivated to understand how various facets of society influence all sorts of behavior. Individual's perceptions about their significance in a given community can have meaningful effects on the way in which we look to communities to develop and foster democratic values and promote civic engagement. The focus of this book is on how community comes to influence political behavior; it takes an interdisciplinary approach blending the fields of community psychology, sociology, and political science. We know from previous research that the context in which an individual interacts influences his/her political behaviors and attitudes. With this in mind, the present research addresses two major questions, 1) how does sense of community influence political behavior and attitudes? and 2) what impact--if any--does involvement in multiple contexts have on political behavior and attitudes?

This book provides a political narrative of the rise and fall of the Tudor monarchy - key to understanding the history of the years 1450 to 1660. The theme is the relationship between the Crown and the aristocracy and how a partnership was created partly by the actions of the Crown and partly by the changing composition and attitudes of the political nation. It begins with the chaos of factional quarrels which was the political life of England under Henry VI in the 1450s and then examines the rebuilding of the strength of royal government under Edward IV, Henry VII and Henry VIII. That government was tested in various ways under Edward VI and Mary, reached its peak under Elizabeth, and declined under James I. The partnership finally broke down in the civil war of the 1640s and the Tudor monarchy collapsed. This is the life cycle of a political system created out of necessity and fashioned by a mixture of vision and circumstance. After its collapse the Republic failed to create a viable alternative, but the resurrection of the old system after 1660 was more apparent than real.

"Examines the linguistic relativity principle in relation to the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk Indians"

Despite centuries of intertribal contact, the American Indian peoples of northwestern California have continued to speak a variety of distinct languages. At the same time, they have come to embrace a common way of life based on salmon fishing and shared religious practices. In this thought-provoking re-examination of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, Sean O'Neill looks closely at the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk peoples to explore the striking juxtaposition between linguistic diversity and relative cultural uniformity among their communities.

O'Neill examines intertribal contact, multilingualism, storytelling, and historical change among the three tribes, focusing on the traditional culture of the region as it existed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He asks important historical questions at the heart of the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Have the languages in fact grown more similar as a result of contact, multilingualism, and cultural convergence? Or have they instead maintained some of their striking grammatical and semantic differences? Through comparison of the three languages, O'Neill shows that long-term contact among the tribes intensified their linguistic differences, creating unique Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk identities.

If language encapsulates worldview, as the principle of linguistic relativity suggests, then this region's linguistic diversity is puzzling. Analyzing patterns of linguistic accommodation as seen in the semantics of space and time, grammatical classification, and specialized cultural vocabularies, O'Neill resolves the apparent paradox by assessing long-term effects of contact.

Throughout the history of slavery, enslaved people organized resistance, escape, and rebellion. Sustaining them in this struggle was their music, some examples of which are sung to this day. While the existence of slave songs, especially spirituals, is well known, their character is often misunderstood. Slave songs were not only lamentations of suffering or distractions from a life of misery. Some songs openly called for liberty and revolution, celebrating such heroes as Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner, and, especially, celebrating the Haitian Revolution. The fight for freedom also included fugitive slaves, free Black people, and their white allies who brought forth a set of songs that were once widely disseminated but are now largely forgotten, the songs of the abolitionists. Often composed by fugitive slaves and free Black people, and first appearing in the eighteenth century, these songs continued to be written and sung until the Civil War. As the movement expanded, abolitionists even published song books used at public meetings. Mat Callahan presents recently discovered songs composed by enslaved people explicitly calling for resistance to slavery, some originating as early as 1784 and others as late as the Civil War. He also presents long-lost songs of the abolitionist movement, some written by fugitive slaves and free Black people, challenging common misconceptions of abolitionism. Songs of Slavery and Emancipation features the lyrics of fifteen slave songs and fifteen abolitionist songs, placing them in proper historical context and making them available again to the general public. These songs not only express outrage at slavery but call for militant resistance and destruction of the slave system. There can be no doubt as to their purpose: the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of African American people, and a clear and undeniable demand for equality and justice for all humanity.

This collection brings together new research on contemporary media, politics and power. It explores ways and means through which media can and do empower or dis-empower citizens at the margins that is, how they act as vehicles of, or obstacles to, civic agency and social change.

This unique collection of thoughtful and provocative essays brings together the personal retrospectives of seventeen of the most prominent American futurists. Their reflections on how the reality of the 1980s differs from what was anticipated, and what has been learned about social and technological change will provide important reading for futurists and planners who must confront a constantly changing horizon.

Advances in Group Processes publishes theoretical analyses, reviews, and theory based empirical chapters on group phenomena. The series adopts a broad conception of 'group processes.' This includes work on groups ranging from the very small to the very large, and on classic and contemporary topics such as status, power, trust, justice, social influence, identity, decision-making, intergroup relations and social networks. Previous contributors have included scholars from diverse fields including sociology, psychology, political science, economics, business, philosophy, computer science, mathematics and organizational behavior. Volume 37 brings together papers related to a variety of topics in small groups and organizational research. The volume includes papers that address theoretical and empirical issues related to consumer social privilege, group processes and disrupted environments, the use of time as a construct and the affective bases of self. Other contributions examine solving problems of cooperation, the effects of identity non-verification, and a series of papers addressing Stryker's identity theory. Overall, the volume includes papers that reflect a wide range of theoretical approaches from leading scholars who work in the general area of group processes.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2009

Relational Theory for Social Work Practice introduces social workers to the burgeoning feminist scholarship on relational theories and the practical application of these theories with diverse populations. It emphasizes the practical application of the basic relational concepts in a readable and comprehensive way, developing an approach to practice which is useful for both male and female social workers and clients.

Relational theory argues that the fundamental feature of healthy human development is the ability to form connections through relationships. Within this perspective, growth is seen as occurring within relationships rather than apart from them. Full case studies viewed through a feminist lens are integrated throughout the book. This work builds explicitly on the professional foundation of social work: mission, theory, practice skills, ethics, and values.

Helpful pedagogical features include a list of best practices for the social worker and a relational questionnaire. It will be of interest to students, researchers and professionals of social work.

provides an important and timely contribution to an emergent body of work, reflecting increasing interest in the internationalisation of education and the transnational mobility of students worldwide. The last two decades have seen the dramatic expansion and consolidation of what has astutely been called an international education industry, involving the increased marketisation and branding of education at the national and institutional levels, the development of educational courses geared towards attracting international students, the establishment of offshore schools and university campuses by Western institutions in Asia, and, most conspicuously, the mobility of nearly 3 million international students as they seek out valuable and internationally recognised academic credentials outside their home countries. These students are cognisant of an emergent global map of cultural capital, and the means by which this cultural capital can be converted into economic capital in an international, knowledge-based labour market. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and other more recent contributors to the geography and sociology of education, this innovative book sets out an agenda for examining and understanding the transnational mobility of international students and the important national and institutional contexts within which they move. Its striking conclusions are based on substantive empirical research in Canada and Hong Kong, involving in-depth interviews with transnational students and a number of institutional actors directly involved in the internationalization of education. Education, Migration, and Cultural Capital in the Chinese Diaspora would be of significant interest to academics working in the fields of human geography, sociology, social anthropology, migration studies, and education, and is also a valuable text for any educational practitioners involved in the process of internationalisation .

Through in-depth interviews with 22 New Agers and Neo-Pagans, this study proposes a new model of religious identity from a sociological standpoint. The analysis demonstrates that in spite of their great diversity of beliefs and lack of strong organizational ties, a discernible community of alternative spiritualists does exist. This volume will appeal not only to scholars of the sociology of religion, but also to sociologists interested in community building, social movements, and self-identity.

Across the world, Governments in mature industrial and post-industrial economies are concerned about the ageing population. Dealing directly and exclusively with the issue of older workers, this book brings together up-to-the minute research findings by many of the leading researchers and writers in the field. The authors address key issues that will influence public policy in the UK and beyond, including: What do workers over 50 want: the opportunity to retire early, to retire gradually or to carry on working past state pension ages? What impact will an ageing workforce have on employer policies towards recruitment, training, career management and retirement? How will the government promote the benefits of extending working lives, and what supports will older workers and their employers need from the government's pension, taxation and benefits regimes? The duration and quality of working lives, and the timing and circumstances of retirement is of growing concern, especially in those cases where employers' demands and imperatives clash with employees' wishes. The contributions in this volume focus upon various measures taken by the state and employers to foster the employment of older workers in Britain, mainland Europe, the USA and Japan. The book is aimed at academics, students, policy-makers and other professionals (e.g. training managers, HR professionals and trade unionists) interested in contemporary issues within social policy, sociology of ageing, human resource and diversity management. It will also be of interest to older workers themselves.

"Disadvantaged by where you live?" distils lessons from work on neighbourhoods carried out within the Cities Research Centre of the University of the West of England over the past seven years. It offers a major contribution to academic debates on the neighbourhood both as a sphere of governance and as a point of public service delivery under New Labour since 1997. The book explores how 'the neighbourhood' has been used in policy in the UK; what the 'appropriate contribution' of neighbourhood governance is and how this relates to concepts of multi-level governance; the tensions that are visible at the neighbourhood level and what this tells us about wider governance issues. The book explores and reflects on the notion of neighbourhood governance from a variety of perspectives that reflect the unique depth and breadth of the Centre's research programme. Neighbourhood governance is examined in relation to: multi-level governance and city-regions; local government; mainstreaming; cross-national differences in neighbourhood policy; community and civil society; diversity; different conceptions of democracy; and, evaluation and learning. In doing so, the book identifies useful conceptual tools for analysing the present and future contribution of policy to neighbourhoods.