Costa Rica, the spectacularly beautiful Latin American nation, stands out from its neighbors in its political climate, economic stability, and social progressiveness. "Culture and Customs of Costa Rica" is a superlative introduction to the modern Costa Rica, which Costa Ricans compare in many ways to the United States. Helmuth, who spent her formative years in Costa Rica, provides an outstanding overview of this unusual and dynamic nation's place in Latin America. Featured topics include Costa Rica's:

Legacy of social reform

Religion

Social customs

Media

Literature

Art and the performing arts.

Written with the highest scholarly standards, but easily accessible to students and general readers, this well-written source goes far beyond the travel guide fare in providing in-depth information on this fascinating country.

"Culture and Customs of Costa Rica" begins with a discussion of how the country is unique in Latin America, including its incredible biodiversity, ethnic makeup, history, education policies, and women's roles. A chapter on religion covers indigenous faiths and focuses on the predominant Catholicism. Costa Rican social customs such as national traits, cuisine, family roles, and sports are presented engagingly. Chapters on media, literature, and the arts bring to light Costa Rican institutions and cultural figures. Informative appendices and a glossary round out the text.

This book attempts to bring in the perspective of situational variation in analyzing linguistic politeness, and looks at politeness in the larger framework of social context. It outlines the way into the problem of politeness in Chinese culture and the steps taken in the application of politeness strategies in verbal interaction.

Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology presents over 1,400 comprehensive A–Z entries of the myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome. The entries are cross-referenced where appropriate, and an extensive bibliography is provided. Entries include Heracles and Alexander the Great, and geographical features such as the islands of the Blessed and Dardanelles. An unusual feature of this dictionary is the inclusion of astronomical data, linking the myths and legends to the celestial objects named after them. Diverse characters and events from related traditions—Greco-Egyptian, Roman-Celtic, and more—round out the volume. Students of classical Greek and Roman traditions, librarians, and general readers will turn to this volume again and again for authoritative information on the myths and legends of these ancient cultures.

As the Kurdish question becomes more prominent in Middle Eastern politics, it is attracting attention from the media, the academic community, and governmental and non-governmental organizations. Swamped with questions from the press and academic departments, students of Kurdish topics have needed a comprehensive bibliography on the Kurds. This book meets that need. An introductory essay provides users with general background information on the Kurds and Kurdistan. With over 800 entries, the annotated bibliography provides information on the most important works about the Kurds and Kurdistan published from World War II through 1996.

Emphasizing recent titles, the book focuses on English-language scholarly works. Arranged in topical chapters, the book opens with a section on general works, then covers travel works, history and archaeology, politics, minorities and religion in Kurdistan, society, economy, language and education, literature and folklore, and culture and arts.

Things Fall Apart is the most widely read and influential African novel. Published in 1958, it has sold more than eight million copies and been translated into fifty languages. African culture is not familiar to most American readers however, and this casebook provides a wealth of commentary and original materials that place the novel in its historical, social, and cultural contexts. Ogbaa, an Igbo scholar, has selected a wide variety of historical and firsthand accounts of Igbo history and cultural heritage. These accounts illuminate the historical context and issues relating to the colonization of Africa by European powers, in particular Britain's colonization of Nigeria. Fascinating materials bring to light the novel's cultural context--folkways, language and narrative customs, and traditional Igbo religion. Among the documents included are a slave narrative, interviews, journal and magazine articles, and historical essays. Each chapter is followed by questions for class discussion and ideas for student paper topics. A selection of maps and photos of Igbo culture complement the text. Following a literary analysis, historical documents trace the European powers' partition of Africa and the creation and colonization of Nigeria, home of the Igbo people. Several chapters on Igbo cultural harmony feature materials that explain the Igbo view of the world of humans and the world of the spirits, Igbo language, and traditional Igbo religion and material customs. Selections on the African novelists' novel place Things Fall Apart in the context of African literature and emphasize the difference between African and Western elements of fiction. A concluding chapter examines the debate on writingAfrican novels in ex-colonizers' languages. This casebook will greatly enhance the reader's appreciation of the novel and understanding of Igbo history, society, culture, and civilization.

This unique social history spans the last half century, when developments in birth control and the education of women have increased opportunities for women to have successful careers. This book investigates how the first generation of modern women faced the challenge of combining marriage and family with professional responsibilities. Olivia Cox-Fill, an Irish journalist and professional filmmaker, interviewed hundreds of prominent women from 10 different countries on three continents before presenting this group portrait of 30 interviews of women leaders, diplomats, award-winning scientists, government ministers, doctors, and industrialists, to name a few of the professions represented. The interviews are set against the backdrop of the social history of women in each country. Their achievements, especially in light of the tenor of their times, and their desire and ability to have rewarding and fulfilling family lives make them inspiring models for later generations of women who may consider it necessary to choose between home and career. The author's international connections with high-ranking diplomats and politicians allow us valuable glimpses into the real world of outstanding women.

This extensive yet concise introduction to the phenomenon of globalization looks at its economic, environmental, and security dimensions as interpreted from different political points of view. Globalization: A Reference Handbook goes beyond the typical focus on multinational corporations and the wired world to explore the full scope of a process that actually began well before the dawn of the Digital Age. This timely, highly informative resource describes the development of globalization, especially in the era from World War II to the present, covering not only its economic aspects, but crucial, interrelated environmental and security issues as well. Rather than limit itself to one interpretation, the book offers an unbiased review of the definitions and assessments of globalization from various points of view, serving readers as an authoritative introduction to what scholars and activists across the political spectrum think about the central phenomenon of our time.

In response to “these unconventional and uncertain years,” veteran educator Rodger W. Bybee has written a book that’s as thought-provoking as it is constructive. Now more than ever, he writes, America needs reminders of both the themes that made it great in the first place and STEM’s contributions to its citizens.” Science educators must address STEM issues at local, national, and global levels. And teachers should help students tackle today’s problems with new approaches to STEM learning that complement traditional single-discipline programs. STEM Education Now More Than Ever addresses these themes through four wide-ranging sections. Parts of the book are what you might expect from a longtime thought leader in science education. In light of the 2016 election and recent assaults on science’s validity, Bybee strongly asserts the need for a new case for STEM education. Other parts may not seem typical for a book on STEM. He writes about the Enlightenment, the U.S. Constitution, democracy, and citizenship as reminders of the effects of STEM disciplines on America’s foundational ideas and values. In the end, Bybee ties it all together with positive, practical recommendations. A major one involves newer, faster ways to help teachers develop STEM units that address contemporary challenges in their classes. Another involves the importance of strong leadership from teachers and the STEM education community—leadership Bybee believes we need now more than ever.

Armitage taught for one year in a British grammar school from 1971 to 1972 when the school amalgamated with a secondary modern school to form a comprehensive school. He followed the political practices and episodes of the amalgamation in relation to their political and educational significance.

The amalgamation seemed to result in an ineffective and underperforming school and he tried to introduce practical and constructive changes. His narrative describes his political struggle to reform the school in the face of an anti-democratic and authoritarian culture. The causes of failure are analyzed, and the real, complex, and messy functioning of a school system uncovered. The need to understand the politics and culture of schooling is advocated. A model of micropolitical action and responsibility is demonstrated that could help result in improvement of educational institutions.

Combining the research talents of many long-standing members of the Association for the Study of Play, this work provides discussions of the theory and applied value of play, as well as ongoing research from America, Australia, Taiwan, and Korea. The developmental and educational theories of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky are analyzed in several chapters. The world's premiere play scholar, Brian Sutton-Smith, continues his seminal play theory work, following up on previously presented findings and constructing a developmental theory of play based on emotions. Chapters address: • Play as a parody of emotional vulnerability • Learning to observe children at play • Symbolic play through the eyes and words of children • The activities of children at recess in middle school Professors, teachers, scholars, and university students interested in early childhood education, child development, play theory and practice, and preschool and elementary education will find this volume of interest.

This critical ethnography of school libraries contributes to the study of the politics of literacy at the elementary school level as well as provides an interesting case study of "border crossing." The book interrogates two accounts of social reproduction and proposes a third. Students at working-poor Chavez Elementary resisted attempts to get them "hooked" on reading fiction, but while many were socialized to the labor of a piecework economy, many also found ways to use texts as they chose. At professional-managerial Crest Hills, students managed their discourse practices in ways that reproduced those of their office workplace, but their success was achieved at the expense of great anxiety about the future. At working-class Roosevelt, the librarians attended to the rhetoric of librarianship, but students reassembled knowledge on their own terms. A second project theorizes the school library as a geopolitical space, and critiques children's fiction and the social order that its texts help construct through a semiotic analysis of text classification within school libraries. An investigation of the origins of that system and of the ways of reading that it promotes--with particular attention to the history of the popular novel--describes the gender- and class-based politics of leisure reading.

On first consideration, Nobel prize winning African-American author Toni Morrison would seem to have little in common with Virginia Woolf, the British writer who challenged Victorian concepts of womanhood. But Woolf's achievement and influence have been enduring, so much so that Morrison wrote her masters thesis on Woolf and William Faulkner. In that thesis, Morrison gives special attention to issues of isolation, and she notes that for Woolf, isolation brought a sense of freedom that the attached could never comprehend. This book examines the literary relationship between Woolf and Morrison.

In her own novels, Morrison redefined Woolf's concept of isolation in terms of American racism. While Morrison's female characters are clearly outsiders, they can nevertheless experience a sense of community that Woolf's characters cannot. Woolf's female characters, on the other hand, are often alienated because of their repressed erotic longing for women. Both Morrison and Woolf consider the severe obstacles the female artist must encounter and overcome before she can create art. This volume looks at the similarities that link Morrison and Woolf together despite their racial, ethnic, national, and historical differences, and it examines how differing structures of domination define their art.

The final decades of the 20th century have seen an explosion of interest in multiculturalism. But multiculturalism is more than an awareness of the different cultures comprising contemporary societies. For centuries, people from around the world have come in contact with cultures other than their own, and their exposure to multiple cultures has fostered their creativity and ability to make lasting contributions to civilization. The effects of multiculturalism are especially apparent in literature, since writers tend to be particularly aware of their environments and record their experiences.

This reference includes alphabetically arranged entries for more than 100 world writers from antiquity to 1945, who were significantly influenced by cultures other than their own. Included are entries for major canonical Ancient and Modern writers of the Western and Eastern worlds. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a brief biography, a discussion of multicultural themes and contexts, a summary of the writer's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. By illuminating the shaping influence of multiculturalism on these writers, the volume points to the lasting value of multiculturalism in the contemporary world.

We are a nation of plenty, of opportunity, and luxury, but we are also a nation flush with fury. Homicides, assaults, domestic abuse, youth violence, and even road rage are too common, let alone everyday outbursts of temper that harm family members, friends, peers, and co-workers. The market for anti-anger, mood-stabilizing drugs is booming, as is the market for anger management counseling and classes. What is happening? In this book, a team of experts who've been traveling the nation presenting workshops on Rethinking Anger start by telling us this: Anger is normal; nature hardwired into our brains for protection. But here is the paradox. Anger out of control destroys, yet anger understood and controlled is a constructive force, one that can be used for creativity, change, and growth. Authors Baruch, Grotberg, and Stutman show us how to take charge of this powerful emotion, so it can be used in constructive ways, rather than destructive. Using the anger energy constructively can release creative potential and be liberating. We are a nation of plenty, of opportunity, and luxury, but we are also a nation flush with fury. Homicides, assaults, domestic abuse, youth violence, and even road rage are all too common, let alone everyday outbursts of temper that harm family members, friends, peers, and co-workers. The market for anti-anger, mood-stablizing drugs is booming, as is the market for anger management counseling and classes. What is happening? In this book, a team of experts who've been traveling the nation presenting workshops on Rethinking Anger start by telling us this: Anger is normal; nature hardwired into our brains for protection. But here is the paradox. Anger out of control destroys, yet anger understood and controlled is a constructive force, one that can be used for creativity, change, and growth. Authors Baruch, Grotberg, and Stutman show us how to take charge of this powerful emotion, so it can be used in constructive ways, rather than destructive. Using anger energy constructively can release creative potential, and be liberating. Ten years of research and workshops have honed the knowledge and skills of this author team, and here they guide us to taming our anger into a positive force. This book will be useful to all trying to tame their own anger, or that of others close to them. It will also be of interest to teachers, counselors, managers and students of psychology.

Some towns in Nevada have legal brothels where sex can be bought lawfully, yet in Las Vegas, prostitutes and their patrons are regularly prosecuted for exchanging sex for money, just as they are elsewhere in the United States. While sex work has long been controversial, it has become even more contested over the past decade as laws, policies, and enforcement practices have become more repressive in many nations, partly as a result of the ascendancy of interest groups committed to the total abolition of the sex industry. Legalizing Prostitution maps out the current terrain. Using America as a backdrop, Weitzer draws on extensive field research in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany to illustrate alternatives to American-style criminalization and marginalization of sex workers. These cases are then used to develop a roster of "best practices" that can serve as a model for other nations considering legalization. Legalizing Prostitution provides a theoretically grounded comparative analysis of political dynamics, policy outcomes, and red-light landscapes in nations where prostitution has been legalized and regulated by the government, presenting a rich and novel portrait of the multifaceted world of legal sex for sale.

While studies have been done on the politics, personalities, and television empires of Protestant evangelicals, little has been said about the power of evangelical publishing and the recent upsurge in evangelical fiction. In the last 20 years, evangelical publishing has grown into a multimillion dollar business, and evangelical fiction offers valuable information about the Protestant evangelical experience. This book argues that the authors and publishers of evangelical fiction are purposeful gatekeepers who create specific images of an evangelical universe. Characters and plots of evangelical literature not only embody a religious perspective but also advocate appropriate behaviors and solutions to problems. This study brings together research in the history of Protestant evangelicalism, the sociology of religion, and literary studies to explore how evangelical novels can serve as cultural artifacts of the evangelical community in contemporary American society. The volume consists of two distinct but interrelated parts. The first part of the book overviews the history of evangelical religion and the publishing of fiction. The chapters in this section trace the ways in which religious publishing has influenced the publishing industry in general and the importance of publishing to evangelicalism. The second part in based on the review and analysis of 60 inspirational novels published between 1972 and 1994 by 13 evangelical publishers. Two chapters examine the development of specific genre and plot adaptations. To identify the range of attitudes and images expressed in this fiction, each of the 60 novels is examined for its handling of theology, practical religion, and social issues. Appendices list the novels within particular genres and trace the chronological development of evangelical publishing, and a bibliography concludes the volume.

This book presents research that identifies the most salient issues related to communication about sex in relationships and explores these issues in a format that will improve the understanding and practice of sexual communication. What is missing in sex education? An understanding of relationship issues, an understanding of how to communicate with partners, and an understanding of gender differences that affect communication between the sexes. Sex Talk: The Role of Communication in Intimate Relationships was written to inform, influence, and expand individuals' understanding of sexual communication and the dynamics of sexual relationships. It explains why sex talk is important and details how to successfully talk about sex in various types of relationships and stages of relationship development. The book presents research about sex talk in short- and long-term relationships and in marriage. It offers information bearing on casual sexual relationships, friends-with-benefits, and new sexual relationships, as well as on how to discuss sex with adolescents and with health care providers. Each chapter opens with a vignette that explores a communication problem related to sex talk and ends with practical advice on how to improve or start conversations about sex.