Introduction to the Taxometric Method is a user-friendly, practical guide to taxometric research. Drawing from both classic and contemporary research, it provides a comprehensive introduction to the method. With helpful tools and guidance, the book is intended to teach those new to the method, as well as those already familiar with it, tips on how to conduct and evaluate taxometric investigations. The book covers a broad range of analytic techniques, describing their logic and implementation as well as what is known about their performance from systematic study. The book opens with the background material essential to understanding the research problems that the taxometric method addresses. The authors then explain the data requirements of taxometric analysis, the logic of each procedure, factors that can influence results and lead to misinterpretations, suggestions for choosing the best procedures, and methodological safeguards to prevent erroneous conclusions. Illustrative examples of each procedure and consistency test demonstrate how to perform analyses and interpret results using a variety of data sets. A checklist of conceptual and methodological issues that should be addressed in any investigation is included. The downloadable resources provide a variety of programs for performing taxometric analyses along with simulations and analyses of data sets. Introduction to the Taxometric Method is ideal for researchers and students conducting or evaluating taxometric studies in the social and behavioral sciences, especially those in clinical and personality psychology, as well as those in the physical sciences, education, biology, and beyond. The book also serves as a text for courses on this method, or as a supplement in psychological assessment, statistics, or research methods courses.Familiarity with taxometrics is not assumed.

This book is a sustained argument for a creative and progressive social science. Modern social theory, despite an optimistic gloss, is profoundly pessimistic about social life and social inquiry. This pessimism is traced to the explanatory failures of social theory: failures that are shared by apparently disparate schools of thought. The book traces these similarities across non-Marxist and Marxist writings and in British, continental European and North American authors. It also shows the persistence of negative features over time, tracing cycles of hope to despair in successive generations.;Specific examples of explanatory problems given unprogressive treatment are chosen from the mainstream of current sociology. How the re-definition of categories and processes can solve these problems progressively is demonstrated. The object is to turn social science towards the real problems of society whose creative solution will expand human competence and practical resources.

Declining incomes and growing income inequality have led to a rise in poverty in the transition economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This study examines poverty and social assistance in six countries--Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Russia, and Kyrgyz Republic--to compare the poverty profiles and the correlates of poverty between the two regions. The study finds that the profile of poverty is more sharply defined in Eastern Europe than in the former Soviet Union, where poverty is more widespread. This holds the potential for better targeting of social assistance in Eastern Europe, and the study proposes a novel two-step approach to identify the poor.

Conventional statistical methods have a very serious flaw. They routinely miss differences among groups or associations among variables that are detected by more modern techniques, even under very small departures from normality. Hundreds of journal articles have described the reasons standard techniques can be unsatisfactory, but simple, intuitive explanations are generally unavailable. Situations arise where even highly nonsignificant results become significant when analyzed with more modern methods.

Without assuming the reader has any prior training in statistics, Part I of this book describes basic statistical principles from a point of view that makes their shortcomings intuitive and easy to understand. The emphasis is on verbal and graphical descriptions of concepts. Part II describes modern methods that address the problems covered in Part I. Using data from actual studies, many examples are included to illustrate the practical problems with conventional procedures and how more modern methods can make a substantial difference in the conclusions reached in many areas of statistical research.

The second edition of this book includes a number of advances and insights that have occurred since the first edition appeared. Included are new results relevant to medians, regression, measures of association, strategies for comparing dependent groups, methods for dealing with heteroscedasticity, and measures of effect size.

This fourth volume in the series discusses such topics as building a sense of history in a first-grade classroom, teaching for understanding in a third-grade geography lesson, and social studies education in an urban fourth-grade classroom.

Multilevel and Longitudinal Modeling with IBM SPSS, Third Edition, demonstrates how to use the multilevel and longitudinal modeling techniques available in IBM SPSS Versions 25-27. Annotated screenshots with all relevant output provide readers with a step-by-step understanding of each technique as they are shown how to navigate the program. Throughout, diagnostic tools, data management issues, and related graphics are introduced. SPSS commands show the flow of the menu structure and how to facilitate model building, while annotated syntax is also available for those who prefer this approach. Extended examples illustrating the logic of model development and evaluation are included throughout the book, demonstrating the context and rationale of the research questions and the steps around which the analyses are structured. The book opens with the conceptual and methodological issues associated with multilevel and longitudinal modeling, followed by a discussion of SPSS data management techniques that facilitate working with multilevel, longitudinal, or cross-classified data sets. The next few chapters introduce the basics of multilevel modeling, developing a multilevel model, extensions of the basic two-level model (e.g., three-level models, models for binary and ordinal outcomes), and troubleshooting techniques for everyday-use programming and modeling problems along with potential solutions. Models for investigating individual and organizational change are next developed, followed by models with multivariate outcomes and, finally, models with cross-classified and multiple membership data structures. The book concludes with thoughts about ways to expand on the various multilevel and longitudinal modeling techniques introduced and issues (e.g., missing data, sample weights) to keep in mind in conducting multilevel analyses. Key features of the third edition: Thoroughly updated throughout to reflect IBM SPSS Versions 26-27. Introduction to fixed-effects regression for examining change over time where random-effects modeling may not be an optimal choice. Additional treatment of key topics specifically aligned with multilevel modeling (e.g., models with binary and ordinal outcomes). Expanded coverage of models with cross-classified and multiple membership data structures. Added discussion on model checking for improvement (e.g., examining residuals, locating outliers). Further discussion of alternatives for dealing with missing data and the use of sample weights within multilevel data structures. Supported by online data sets, the book's practical approach makes it an essential text for graduate-level courses on multilevel, longitudinal, latent variable modeling, multivariate statistics, or advanced quantitative techniques taught in departments of business, education, health, psychology, and sociology. The book will also prove appealing to researchers in these fields. The book is designed to provide an excellent supplement to Heck and Thomas's An Introduction to Multilevel Modeling Techniques, Fourth Edition; however, it can also be used with any multilevel or longitudinal modeling book or as a stand-alone text.

In an age when continued financial and other support for teaching and research in sociology cannot be taken for granted, sociologists have been surprisingly slow to provide a clear statement of the achievements of sociology in the western world since 1950. What Has Sociology Achieved? does this by assembling twelve essays specially commissioned from distinguished authors, to which the editors add an introduction setting out the issues and a concluding chapter which draws together recurrent themes.

This title consists of 19 essays dealing with the medical knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Indian, Egyptian, and Tibetan medicine, the book includes essays on comparing Chinese and western medicine and religion. The essays address the connections between medicine and culture and relate the medical practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay is well illustrated and contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book should fill a gap in both the history of medicine and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.

Predictions about the world have the power to grip whole societies, and shape the actions of many groups whether working in politics, ecology or religion. At the end of epochs and eras humans tend to reflect on the shape of things to come. Most recently, fears about the 'millennium bug' had thousands rushing to stock up on candles and food in the weeks before New Year's Eve.
Concerns about the future have been expressed differently throughout history. This book explores the historical context surrounding various debates, decisions and beliefs about the future in recent centuries. Religious, political, literary and ecological visions of the future in America and Germany are addressed comparatively. In particular, scholars from the United States and Germany explore the meaning of eschatological and utopian thoughts pursued during the last three centuries and tackle subjects ranging from science fiction to religious radicalism, utopian social experiments, and visions of race relations. This book delves into the hopes and fears for the future that have shaped the past and will be of interest to comparative historians as well as to historians of Europe and the United States intrigued by the subject of utopias.

This bibliography is a current source of information for researchers, practitioners, and planners interested in the older volunteer. The authors conducted an extensive search of material on the older volunteer, with emphasis on those works published between 1980 and 1991. After identifying approximately 700 sources, the authors selected nearly 400 for inclusion in this reference. The entries are grouped in seven topical chapters, and each entry includes a succinct annotation. Included are entries for books and articles on particular programs, characteristics of older volunteers, sources of statistical information, empirical research, and special population groups. Author and subject indexes conclude the work.

This handbook for the Methodology of Societal Complexity describes the theoretical development of the field and lays the foundation for the application of the Compram Methodology in the context of addressing complex societal problems. As such, it offers a valuable resource for scientists, practitioners, politicians, master and PhD students in the fields of methodology, the social sciences, operational research, management and political science and for all others who are professionally involved in handling complex societal problems. These problems are the kind that fill the front page of quality newspapers; they have a huge impact on society, involve a variety of phenomena and actors, and are therefore difficult to handle. The structured Compram Methodology provides sound guidelines for handling real-life societal problems democratically, sustainably and transparently. Examples of the use of the Compram Methodology are provided in the domain of global safety with regard to healthcare, economics, climate change, terrorism, large city problems, large technological projects and floods.

Complex societal problems must be treated as multi-disciplinary, multi-actor, multi-level and often as multi-continental issues. As such, they call for a multi-disciplinary and multi-actor approach that takes into account the emotional aspects of the problem and the problem handling process, including the micro, meso and macro level, which can be accomplished using the methods, models and tools from the field of the Methodology of Societal Complexity.

The Compram Methodology improves the problem handling process and increases the quality of interventions and therefore the quality of life. Handling complex societal problems can reduce conflicts, save money and ultimately even save lives.

Dorien J. DeTombe is an internationally recognized expert and founder of the theory of the Methodology of Societal Complexity and the Compram Methodology.

This book examines multilateral interventions in civil conflicts and the evolution of the role of such interventions in world politics. It focuses primarily on the Cold War and post-Cold War eras and the differences between them. It contests the notion that there is an emerging norm of humanitarian intervention in international politics, arguing that political interests remain essential to the practice of intervention.

This volume, from the Policy Studies Organization, examines the role of presidential leadership in the development and implementation of civil rights policy in the United States. Covering a broad time period, the work takes a social scientific approach to the understanding of civil rights, utilizing both quantitative and archival research. The editors attempt to place and analyze civil rights in context--as a policy arena representative of broader presidential leadership concerns--and look at the development of civil rights policy since Brown v. Board of Education from the perspectives of (1) the public, (2) government institutions, and (3) particular policy arenas.

Do you ever feel at a loss on how to proceed with a particular set of data? Your Statistical Consultant can provide the answer. This comprehensive guide introduces, describes, and makes recommendations regarding difficult statistical problems and techniques. The authors discuss common problems by addressing frequently asked questions; provide a conceptual overview of topics and techniques; give accounts of such new-found topics as the debate over statistical significance, effect sizes and meta-analysis; and highlight and explain key terms and points.

What happens after some social group, a tribe, clan, or even a modern nation, agrees-either tacitly or explicitly to govern and be governed according to an idea. The United States is governed by ideas laid down in the Constitution; The former Soviet Union by both Lenin and Stalin's interpretation of Karl Marx's thought. Regardless of social group, when deciding on the form of politics that ought to govern our social world the question of "certainty" is pivotal. How can we know that this way of governing is the best way? What happens when the strength of our certainty supercedes the actual political and social consequences that arise from agreed upon forms of governance? In Knowledge and Social Construction Andrew Koch makes the case that the more hypothetical and theoretical we are towards knowledge claims (our certainty) the more open our society will be. Following from the premise that human nature and subjectivity are social constructions, this book seeks to reorient the reader-away from the ontological tradition in political philosophy and toward an epistemological framework. Through an investigation of four competing epistemological models that are used in classic political and social philosophy texts, Andrew Koch provides us with an alternative framework for understanding social arrangements, conflicts, and institutions. This book, unlike anything written recently, represents a challenge to political science, philosophy, sociology: any discipline concerned with epistemology, society, culture, and politics.

Polls are at their best as indicators of public opinion when they allow comparisons over extended periods of time. Yet all too often changes in question working and in questionnare content make over-time comparisons impossible. This work overcomes this difficulty by bringing together for the first time a compendium of results using identically worded questions on a wide range of social, political, and economic topics of importance to the American people. Chapter introductions summarize trends in the various areas surveyed and discuss problems of interpretation. The chapters on political behavior and attitudes present findings on party identification, political tolerance, voting, civil liberties, international affairs, and related issues. Chapters on work, the family, and sexuality cover such topics as job prestige and satisfaction, the role of women, divorce, family size, sex education, abortion, premarital and extramarital sex, homosexuality, and pornography. Other issues addressed include crime and violence, race, death and dying, life style, and general attitudes toward life. Trend analysis based on General Social Surveys conducted regularly by The National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago since 1972 is supplemented by data from 25 other sources extending as far back as the 1930s. The questions chosen are meaningful and standardized and have been asked in interviews over a significant period. Survey results are displayed in a highly readable format that facilitates comparisons over time. An appropriate choice for the library reference collection, this book is a valuable research tool and source for scholars in political science, psychology, and sociology, as well as journalists, policy makers, and other professionals concerned with public opinion.

It is only just recently that people have the tools to judge how well they are doing when making decisions. These tools were conceptualized in the seventeenth century. Since then many people have worked to sharpen the concepts, and to explore how these can be applied further. The problems of decision-making and the theory developed correspondingly have drawn the interest of mathematicians, psychologists, statisticians, economists, philosophers, organizational experts, sociologists, not only for their general relevance, but also for a more intrinsic fascination. There are quite a few institutionalized activities to disseminate results and stimulate research in decision-making. For about a decade now a European organizational structure, centered mainly around the psy chological interest in decision-making. There have been conferences in Hamburg, Amsterdam, Uxbridge, Rome and Darmstadt. Conference papers have been partly published]. The organization has thus stabilized, and its re latively long history makes it interesting to see what kind of developments occurred, within the area of interest."

Collectivities, in brief, is a term describing the intellectual and creative potential of groups. Collectivities then mark a position in the connection between disciplinary fields; a position that is simultaneously productive of new knowledge and new politics. In Collectivities: Politics at the Intersections of Disciplines Robert Carley looks at the classical ideas and theorists that have influenced interdisciplinary work in the humanistic and social-scientific disciplines as well as contemporary cases of interdisciplinary meeting points, specifically cultural studies, Chicana/o studies and radical sociology (e.g. critical, liberation, public, and Marxist approaches). He discusses the intellectual, creative, and political potential of these groupings. Noting that interdisciplinary groups often come together to address political or social problems, Carley provides an analysis of these groupings as well as ways of understanding their work. He suggests that we might understand interdisciplinarity as more than merely a constellation of scholarly fields. By looking at the political contexts that inform our understanding of as well as the approaches of interdisciplinary groups Collectivities suggests some new ways to think about the production of knowledge when it occurs between disciplines.

Research in Community and Mental Health

Gini's mean difference (GMD) was first introduced by Corrado Gini in 1912 as an alternative measure of variability. GMD and the parameters which are derived from it (such as the Gini coefficient or the concentration ratio) have been in use in the area of income distribution for almost a century. In practice, the use of GMD as a measure of variability is justified whenever the investigator is not ready to impose, without questioning, the convenient world of normality. This makes the GMD of critical importance in the complex research of statisticians, economists, econometricians, and policy makers. This book focuses on imitating analyses that are based on variance by replacing variance with the GMD and its variants. In this way, the text showcases how almost everything that can be done with the variance as a measure of variability, can be replicated by using Gini. Beyond this, there are marked benefits to utilizing Gini as opposed to other methods. One of the advantages of using Gini methodology is that it provides a unified system that enables the user to learn about various aspects of the underlying distribution. It also provides a systematic method and a unified terminology. Using Gini methodology can reduce the risk of imposing assumptions that are not supported by the data on the model. With these benefits in mind the text uses the covariance-based approach, though applications to other approaches are mentioned as well.

This book shows the impact of the current economic reform on the income development of peasant households in the People's Republic of China. The research was based on detailed information derived from book-keeping records of the sample households of a few selected regions in central China, the national statistical network, local statistics and chronicles. Moreover, the basic tools of economic analysis were applied to the main problems of Chinese rural economy: marketing and pricing of agricultural input and output goods; structural adjustment; labour productivity and outmigration; income distribution; farmer's decision on investment and consuption. This will lead to a better understanding about current development of China.

This book is based on the papers presented at a conference on "New Issues in Industrial Economics" held at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, June 8-10, 1987. The conference was organized by the Research Program in Industrial Economics (RPIE) in the Department of Economics at CWRU and was sponsored by The Cleveland Foundation, the Eaton Corporation, and The Standard Oil Company (later renamed BP America, Inc.). Their generous support is gratefully acknowledged. All of the papers have been revised, in several cases extensively, since their presentation at the conference. One of the primary reasons for organizing the conference was the concern that Industrial Economics has become too narrowly focused in most academic programs, largely being confined to Industrial Organization, i.e., issues of public policy towards enterprise with emphasis on antitrust and regulatory policy. This subject definition leaves out a number of interesting and important questions about how industries evolve over time, what the role of technological change (and organizational change) is in that process, and the associated structural changes within industries and firms. The object of this book is to derme these issues and suggest a framework within which they can be analyzed. I would like to thank all the conference participants for their contributions, particularly my colleagues at CWRU, Asim Erdilek and William S. Peirce, without whose encouragement and support the conference would not have taken place.

This introductory volume includes worked examples from a variety of data sets about the most frequently used models and computer programs for MDS, as well as techniques for collecting data and assessing MDS results. It covers the design, execution, and analysis of multidimensional scaling experiments and includes detailed descriptions and examples of six major MDS computer programs: MINISSA, POLYCON, KYST, INDSCAL/SINDSCAL, ALSCAL and MULTISCALE. These six approaches are sufficiently fundamental that continuing developments in the field will build on the principles presented in this volume.

The Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor, and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic.

Fiction and Social Research brings together writers from a variety of disciplines to explore and illustrate the possibilities of new narrative forms in social research. At the intersections of fiction, ethnography, and cultural studies, these essays demonstrate narratives that simultaneously enrich fieldwork and enliven research reporting. By arranging this volume into four areas of concern, this volume demonstrates how fiction can express issues of representation, subjectivity, critique and postmodern discourse. This volume is unique in its accessibility and will prove a valuable tool to the veteran scholar and beginning ethnographer alike.