As a consequence of globalization, news, ideas and knowledge are moving quickly across national borders and generating international spillovers. So too, however, are economic and financial crises. Combining a variety of methods, concepts and interdisciplinary approaches, this book provides an in-depth examination of these structural changes and their impact. Case studies from a range of countries including Japan, Turkey, Sweden, Germany and the USA offer insight into different national contexts and are used to explore a variety of theoretical and empirical issues relating to the geography of growth. Assessing the implications of globalization for businesses and sectors, the chapters focus on the interdependencies between different economic and political layers, and explore topics such as human capital, creativity, innovation, networks and collaboration. Researchers and policy makers who are interested in regional growth at different spatial scales will find that this work addresses a number of existing knowledge gaps. Students of economics, economic geography, regional science and international industrial management will also find it to be a valuable interdisciplinary resource to help deepen their knowledge of the myriad processes induced by globalization. Contributors include: G.M. Artz, T. Arvemo, G. Cook, A.P. Cornett, U. Grasjo, Z. Guo, M. Hirano, O. Hovardaoglu, N. Javakhishvili-Larsen, C. Karlsson, M. Klatt, M. Kurashige, H. Loof, A. Naveed, M. Olsson, O. Olsson, P.F. Orazem, O. Pesamaa, K. Sakakibara, Y. Shevtsova, T.-A. Stone, M. Svensson, T. Wallin

Ageing is a part of life that all Singaporeans must face and, in fact, all families will have their next of kins undergoing that life stage. Singapore Ageing assembles a team of researchers, administrators, practitioners, advocates and academics from varied social service and care sectors, to share their thoughts, concerns and future challenges faced by an ageing Singapore in different arenas.With the Singapore demography showing a greying trend, it is increasingly vital for the government and the social, health and economic sectors to meet the needs of an ageing nation. The appropriate services and support have to be in place to respond to the issues faced by seniors. This edited volume serves as a useful resource for those who are working or researching in the field of ageing.

Read Out Loud to Your Child!"This book is a must for anyone who is ever around children! Imagine how different the world would be if all parents, teachers, grandparents, and aunties read this book!" -Amazon review Reading aloud is the essential tool for preparing your child for kindergarten and beyond The single most important thing you can do for your child. Longtime elementary school teacher Kim Jocelyn Dickson believes every child begins kindergarten with a lunchbox in one hand and an "invisible toolbox" in the other. In The Invisible Toolbox, Kim shares with parents the single most important thing they can do to foster their child's future learning potential and nurture the parent-child bond that is the foundation for a child's motivation to learn. She is convinced that the simple act of reading aloud has a far-reaching impact that few of us fully understand and that our recent, nearly universal saturation in technology has further clouded its importance. Essential book for parents. In The Invisible Toolbox, Kim weaves her practical anecdotal experience as an educator and parent into the hard research of recent findings in neuroscience. She reminds us that the first years of life are critical in the formation and receptivity of the primary predictor of success in school language skills and that infants begin learning immediately at birth. She also teaches and inspires us to build our own toolboxes so that we can help our children build theirs. Inside discover: Ten priceless tools for your child's toolbox Practical tips for how and what to read aloud to children through their developmental stages Dos and don'ts and recommended resources that round out all the practical tools a parent needs to prepare their child for kindergarten and beyond If you enjoyed books like Honey for a Child's Heart, The Read-Aloud Handbook, Screenwise, or The Enchanted Hour; you will love The Invisible Toolbox from a 21st century Charlotte Mason.

Culture maverick Jim Goad presents a thoroughly reasoned, darkly funny, and rampagingly angry defense of America's most maligned social group -- the cultural clan variously referred to as rednecks, hillbillies, white trash, crackers, and trailer trash. As The Redneck Manifesto boldly points out and brilliantly demonstrates, America's dirty little secret isn't racism but classism. While pouncing incessantly on racial themes, most major media are silent about America's widening class rifts, a problem that negatively affects more people of all colors than does racism. With an unmatched ability for rubbing salt in cultural wounds, Jim Goad deftly dismantles most popular American notions about race and culture and takes a sledgehammer to our delicate glass-blown popular conceptions of government, religion, media, and history.

This book investigates and uncover paradoxes and ambivalences that are actualised when seeking to make the right choices in the best interests of the child. The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child established a milestone for the 20th century. Many of these ideas still stand, but time calls for new reflections, empirical descriptions and knowledge as provided in this book. Special attention is directed to the conceptualisation of children and childhood cultures, the missing voices of infants and fragile children, as well as transformations during times of globalisation and change. All chapters contribute to understand and discuss aspects of societal demands and cultural conditions for modern-day children age 0-18, accompanied by pointers to their future. Contributors are: Eli Kristin Aadland, Wenche Bjorbaekmo, Jorunn Spord Borgen, Gunn Helene Engelsrud, Kristin Vindhol Evensen, Eldbjorg Fossgard, Liv Torunn Grindheim, Asle Holthe, Liisa Karlsson, Stinne Gunder Strom Krogager, Jonatan Leer, Ida Marie Lysa, Elin Eriksen Odegaard, Czarecah Tuppil Oropilla, Susanne Hojlund Pedersen, Anja Maria Pesch, Karen Klitgaard Povlsen, Gro Rugseth, Pauline von Bonsdorff, Hege Wergedahl and Susanne C. Yloenen.

Focusing on a decade in Irish history which has been largely overlooked, Youth and Popular Culture in 1950s Ireland provides the most complete account of the 1950s in Ireland, through the eyes of the young people who contributed, slowly but steadily, to the social and cultural transformation of Irish society. Eleanor O'Leary presents a picture of a generation with an international outlook, who played basketball, read comic books and romance magazines, listened to rock'n'roll music and skiffle, made their own clothes to mimic international styles and even danced in the street when the major stars and bands of the day rocked into town. She argues that this engagement with imported popular culture was a contributing factor to emigration and the growing dissatisfaction with standards of living and conservative social structures in Ireland. As well as outlining teenagers' resistance to outmoded forms of employment and unfair work practices, she maps their vulnerability as a group who existed in a limbo between childhood and adulthood. Issues of unemployment, emigration and education are examined alongside popular entertainments and social spaces in order to provide a full account of growing up in the decade which preceded the social upheaval of the 1960s. Examining the 1950s through the unique prism of youth culture and reconnecting the decade to the process of social and cultural transition in the second half of the 20th century, this book is a valuable contribution to the literature on 20th-century Irish history.

Although Turkey is a secular state, it is often characterised as a Muslim country. In her latest book, Lejla Voloder provides an engaging and revealing study of a Bosniak community in Turkey, one of the Muslim minorities actually recognised by the state in Turkey. Under what circumstances have they resettled to Turkey? How do they embrace Islam? How does one live as a Bosniak, a Turkish citizen, a mother, a father, a member of a household, and as one guided by Islam? The first book based on fieldwork to detail the lives of members of the Bosnian and Bosniak diaspora in Turkey, A Muslim Minority in Turkey makes a unique contribution to the study of Muslim minority groups in Turkey and the Middle East.