In this unique book, Sten Soederman explores the prospect of China reaching its goal of hosting the 2050 World Cup. Soederman takes into consideration China's size, resources, traditions and political system to ask what needs to be done and how. The book assesses football in China today, discussing the main driving forces behind the development of football in China, and offering an analysis of its organizational structure, strengths, regulations, and weaknesses. Taking a comparative approach, Soederman asks if China should simply adopt the European model of football, including values and skills, through imported players and coaches, or if it is better for China to forge its own path by building on its traditions and limiting the possibility of investing in foreign players, coaches and foreign football clubs. Looking to the future, the book outlines new models and tools to analyse the footballization of China. Soederman concludes with the argument that grassroots activity is the most critical factor in the development of football in China. Examining if a strategic management mix will help China win the 2050 World Cup, this book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of sport management and Asian business studies.

Skill formation in Central and Eastern Europe. A search for patterns and directions of development offers holistic analytical insight into skill formation processes and institutions in Central and Eastern European countries by referring to the timeframe of historical development of skill formation from the fall of communism to the present time and future development trends. Leading researchers of skill formation from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine refer to critical junctures and the findings are compared and discussed in five concluding chapters focused on important cross-cutting topics: development of social dialogue over skill formation, qualifications policy and development of qualifications systems, implications of European integration and EU policies for governance and institutional reform of skill formation, features and implications of policy borrowing and policy learning from the Anglo-Saxon and German speaking countries, respectively.

These lrish tales all are reprinted from nineteenth-century sources, but they date back to a centuries-old oral tradition of storytelling that had yet to be committed to the printed page. They were passed down through the ages virtually unaltered and feature a wide variety of fantastic beings. This edition has an exquisitely designed bonded-leather binding, with distinctive gilt edging and a silk-ribbon bookmark.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Leading mobilities theorist Mimi Sheller offers an up-to-date, comprehensive analysis of the complex mobility disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath in this timely Advanced Introduction. It outlines the formation of the interdisciplinary field of mobility studies, arguing that mobilities theory is crucial to planning post-pandemic recovery, sustainable communities, and low-carbon transitions. From tourism to migration to urban infrastructure, to informal and reproductive mobilities, Sheller reveals how multiple im/mobilities are interconnected, as the novel coronavirus reminds us as it hitchhikes across the globe through its human hosts. Key features: Centres mobility justice as a key topic throughout, revealing the vast inequities in im/mobilities, structured by gender, race and nationality Challenges existing approaches to social science, calling for the extension of critical mobility studies to address complex contemporary challenges Offers up-to-date analysis of key policy programs such as the Green New Deal, and a comparative analysis of differing visions of alternative mobilities futures. This innovative Advanced Introduction will be a beneficial read for students and scholars of mobilities research, tourism studies, migration studies, human geography, urban studies and sustainability.

Sexy Like Us: Disability, Humor, and Sexuality takes a humorous, intimate approach to disability through the stories, jokes, performances, and other creative expressions of people with disabilities. Author Teresa Milbrodt explores why individuals can laugh at their leglessness, find stoma bags sexual, discover intimacy in scars, and flaunt their fragility in ways both hilarious and serious. Their creative and comic acts crash, collide, and collaborate with perceptions of disability in literature and dominant culture, allowing people with disabilities to shape political disability identity and disability pride, call attention to social inequalities, and poke back at ableist cultural norms. This book also discusses how the ambivalent nature of comedy has led to debates within disability communities about when it is acceptable to joke, who has permission to joke, and which jokes should be used inside and outside a community's inner circle. Joking may be difficult when considering aspects of disability that involve physical or emotional pain and struggles to adapt to new forms of embodiment. At the same time, people with disabilities can use humor to expand the definitions of disability and sexuality. They can help others with disabilities assert themselves as sexy and sexual. And they can question social norms and stigmas around bodies in ways that open up journeys of being, not just for individuals who consider themselves disabled, but for all people.

Combining theoretical approaches with practical applications, Rethinking Social Capital delineates the meaning, uses, and problems surrounding the concept of social capital. Carl Bankston, a leading scholar in the field, offers a fresh take on the topic, presenting an original way of understanding social capital as a process. The book provides key definitions of social capital, describing its functionality, the surrounding theoretical issues, and its relationship with social structure. Examining capital in its various forms, Bankston discusses the complications of defining social relationships in a financial resource analogy as investments in future outcomes, and proposes an alternative of an original structural model that approaches social capital as a process. Chapters then explore the major applications of social capital theory: to families, communities and education; to formal organizations and informal networks; to class, race, ethnicity and inequality; and to the nation-state. This cutting-edge book is invaluable in clarifying ambiguities surrounding the concept of social capital to students and scholars of the social sciences. Its practical applications will also prove useful to policy makers and public policy institutes.

The volume "Language and Identity in Migration Contexts", which contains studies from different languages and migration contexts across the world, provides an excellent overview of the topic while highlighting some key elements like multilingualism, societal and educational contexts, as well as forced migration. The volume will therefore be of much interest to researchers working on these topics. (Prof. Dr. Anita Auer, Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland) The contributions to this volume shed a new light on various central topics in the discourses on language, migration and identity. The continued centrality of language on identity formation processes is underlined but it is shown that language is not a defining criterion for identity formation processes of migrants, in the context of migration or for heritage speakers in all cases. However, societal contexts play an important role in identity formation and these societal contexts themselves are strongly influenced by the ideologies that are prevalent in societies and that may be perpetuated in educational contexts. In the discussion of language, identity and migration in this volume, perspectives from the Global North are enriched by perspectives of the Global South, and the impact of media influence in migration discourse is analysed.