This book introduces demographic applications which employ current demographic concepts and theories and cutting-edge methods and findings, all of which have and will continue to have an impact in the broad area of social demography. Through providing an introduction to new and current developments in demography, methodological and statistical issues, data issues, issues of health, aging and mortality, and issues in social demography, this book gives new insights into data, substantive issues, and methodological approaches that will assist readers in their use of demography in their research. At the same time it shows demographers, sociologists, economists, statisticians, methodologists, planners, and marketers how they may learn and improve upon the quality and relevance of their demographic investigations now and in the future.

What and how to teach in the K-16 classroom history has been a perennial and, at times, heated debate. Beginning as early as 1892, the question of what knowledge is of the most worth and what should be the central function of the history curriculum became a focus of many interested in education. It was felt that the teachers needed to move away from "traditional" methods of teaching history, such as rote memorization and the "dry and lifeless system of instruction by textbook," and find new and engaging ways to "broaden and cultivate the mind." Unfortunately, these recommendations faced many critics and did not take hold in K-16 classrooms at this time or, frankly, at any point since then. Even though we tend to have a nostalgic memory of earlier time periods and, in turn, the educational capabilities of the children from various times in our nation's past, the results from multiple studies examining the historical knowledge base of America's youth has remained fairly discouraging. Much of the lack of knowledge present stems from the manner in which history is traditionally taught. Ineffective instructional methods greatly impact the interest levels, or more frequently the distaste, generated for learning about historical content and, thus, the public's corresponding perception of the importance of history within K-16 curricula. This book makes an effort at overcoming the persistent boredom and lack of historical knowledge present in our students, by focusing on ways in which history instruction can be improved.

This book introduces the reader to the concept of functional synchronization and how it operates on very different levels in psychological and social systems - from the emergence of thought to the formation of social relations and the structure of societies. For years, psychologists have investigated phenomena such as self-concept, social judgment, social relations, group dynamics, and cooperation and conflict, but have discussed these phenomena seoarately.This book shows how synchronization provides a foundational approach to these otherwise distinct and diverse psychological processes.This work shows that there is a basic tendency with many processes to become coordinated and progressively integrated into increasingly larger units through well-defined processes. For these larger units, new and largely adaptive functions emerge. Although synchronization affords progressive integration of system elements to enable correspondingly higher-order functions, the trajectory of synchronization is often characterized by periods of assembly and disassembly of system elements. This occurs when a task is completed and synchronization is no longer essential so that the elements once again operate in an independent fashion. It is argued that the disassembly-resynchronization scenario occurs at all levels of psychological and social reality. The implications of this approach for important issues in interpersonal relations and societal processes are discussed.

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. This Advanced Introduction provides a critical review and discussion of research concerning spatial statistics, differentiating between it and spatial econometrics, to answer a set of core questions covering the geographic-tagging-of-data origins of the concept and its theoretical underpinnings, conceptual advances, and challenges for future scholarly work. It offers a vital tool for understanding spatial statistics and surveys how concerns about violating the independent observations assumption of statistical analysis developed into this discipline. Key Features: A concise overview of spatial statistics theory and methods, looking at parallel developments in geostatistics and spatial econometrics, highlighting the eclipsing of centography and point pattern analysis by geostatistics and spatial autoregression, and the emergence of local analysis Contemporary descriptions of popular geospatial random variables, emphasizing one- and two-parameter spatial autoregression specifications, and Moran eigenvector spatial filtering coupled with a broad coverage of statistical estimation techniques A detailed articulation of a spatial statistical workflow conceptualization The helpful insights from empirical applications of spatial statistics in agronomy, criminology, demography, economics, epidemiology, geography, remotely sensed data, urban studies, and zoology/botany, will make this book a useful tool for upper-level students in these disciplines.

"This is an outstanding contribution to both libertarian political philosophy and communication theory. It is far and away the most comprehensive work on communication issues in libertarian theory ever published. The author has integrated successfully the libertarian insights of Mises, Rothbard, Block, Kinsella and others with the philosophy of language as developed by Austin, Searle and Grice. He has done so in a unique and unprecedented way. The book would appeal to students and scholars interested in libertarian theory and more generally, to philosophers and political scientists interested in high-level scholarship." - David Gordon, libertarian philosopher and intellectual historian, Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Mentoring in teacher education has been a key issue in ensuring the healthy development of teacher learning. Variety in the actualization of mentoring can lead to the exposition of new qualities and the evolving roles that mentors might undertake. Mentorship Strategies in Teacher Education provides emerging research on international educational mentoring practices and their implementation in teacher education. While highlighting topics such as e-mentoring, preservice teachers, and teacher program evaluation, this publication explores the implementations and implications that inform the existing practices of teacher education mentoring. This book is a vital resource for researchers, educators, and practitioners seeking current research on the understanding and development of existing mentorship strategies in a variety of fields and disciplines.

This book investigates whether, how and where the cultural milieu of European societies has changed as a result of the socio-economics crisis. To do so, it adopts a psycho-cultural approach, which views the cultural milieu as a set of meanings, placing the generalized image social actors have of themselves, the world, events and their relationships in the context of the socio-political and institutional environment, including policies. By analyzing the changes in cultural milieu and social identity, the book develops strategic and methodological guidelines for the design of post-crisis policies, providing a concept of how the cultural dynamics are associated with certain individual characteristics and specific socio-economic phenomena.

This publication provides projections for key education statistics. It includes statistics on enrollment, graduates, teachers, expenditures in elementary and secondary schools, and expenditures of degree-granting institutions. For the nation, the tables, figures, and text contain data on enrollment, teachers, graduates, and expenditures for the past 14 years and projections to the year 2024. For the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the tables, figures, and text contain data on projections of public elementary and secondary enrollment and public high school graduates to the year 2024. In addition, the report includes a methodology section describing models and assumptions used to develop national and state-level projections.

Before today's teachers are ready to instruct the intellectual leaders of tomorrow, they must first be trained themselves. Information and communication technology can greatly increase the effectiveness of this training and also aid teachers as they seek to bring the latest technological advancements into their own classrooms. The Handbook of Research on Enhancing Teacher Education with Advanced Instructional Technologies explains the need to bring technology to the forefront of teacher training. With an emphasis on how information and communication technology can provide richer learning outcomes, this book is an essential reference source for researchers, academics, professionals, students, and technology developers in various disciplines. The many academic areas covered in this publication include, but are not limited to: Curriculum Design and Trends in Higher Education Curriculum Development and Scientific Research Education and Globalization Online and Blended Learning The 21st Century Library and Information Services Use of Communication Technologies in Adult Education Video Use in Teacher Education

This book carries an ethnographic signature in approach and style, and is an examination of a small Brooklyn, New York, African-American, Pentecostal church congregation and is based on ethnographic notes taken over the course of four years. The Pentecostal Church is known to outsiders almost exclusively for its members' "bizarre" habit of speaking in tongues. This ethnography, however, puts those outsiders inside the church pews, as it paints a portrait of piety, compassion, caring, love-all embraced through an embodiment perspective, as the church's members experience these forces in the most personal ways through religious conversion. Central themes include concerns with the notion of "spectacle" because of the grand bodily display that is highlighted by spiritual struggle, social aspiration, punishment and spontaneous explosions of a variety of emotions in the public sphere. The approach to sociology throughout this work incorporates the striking dialectic of history and biography to penetrate and interact with religiously inspired residents of the inner-city in a quest to make sense both empirically and theoretically of this rapidly changing, surprising and highly contradictory late-modern church scene. The focus on the individual process of becoming Pentecostal provides a road map into the church and canvasses an intimate view into the lives of its members, capturing their stories as they proceed in their Pentecostal careers. This book challenges important sociological concepts like crisis to explain religious seekership and conversion, while developing new concepts such as "God Hunting" and "Holy Ghost Capital" to explain the process through which individuals become tongue-speaking Pentecostals. Church members acquire "Holy Ghost Capital" and construct a Pentecostal identity through a relationship narrative to establish personal status and power through conflicting tongue-speaking ideas. Finally, this book examines the futures of the small and large, institutionally affiliated Pentecostal Church and argues that the small Pentecostal Church is better able to resist modern rationalizing forces, retaining the charisma that sparked the initial religious movement. The power of charisma in the small church has far-reaching consequences and implications for the future of Pentecostalism and its followers.

Action research, applied systematically to the issue of poor academic performance, provides a high likelihood of improving student outcomes. The action research processes described in this book are honed by many years of successful application, and provide teachers, educational leaders, families and community members with a set of tools for engaging with significant problems in classrooms and schools. This book is designed to provide the reader with an understanding of the nature of action research and the procedures and applications of action research. In addition, it provides practical resources that add to the fundamentals of knowledge available to action researchers. The text is detailed, providing specific guidance for many of the skills that may be required for the different contexts and problems to which action research can be applied. Conceptual frameworks provide a "compass" or "roadmap" that will enable practitioners to keep track of action research processes applied to their work.

Explores the entire range of research methodologies in psychology. This comprehensive text uses a carefully constructed programmatic approach to introduce topics and systematically build on earlier presentations. Research Methods emphasizes research concepts, as well as specific, technical research strategies, to help students develop an understanding of the underlying rational-empirical processes of science and gain specific research skills. The authors provide clearly written explanations of concepts and numerous examples drawn from all areas of psychology to enable students to develop a sophisticated understanding of the research process. The 8th edition includes an extensive integrated Web site (http: //www.mikeraulin.com/graziano8e/) with a variety of resources for students. Learning Goals Upon completing this book readers will be able to: * Understand the concepts of research design * Develop research skills based on a knowledge of appropriate research design * Develop a sensitivity to ethical issues in research and the skills necessary to address these issues * Understand basic statistical concept

This book provides an in-depth view on Bourdieu's empirical work, thereby specially focusing on the construction of the social space and including the concept of the habitus. Themes described in the book include amongst others: * the theory and methodology for the construction of "social spaces", * the relation between various "fields" and "the field of power", * formal construction and empirical observation of habitus, * the formation, accumulation, differentiation of and conversion between different forms of capital, * relations in geometric data analysis. The book also includes contributions regarding particular applications of Bourdieu's methodology to traditional and new areas of research, such as the analysis of institutional, international and transnational fields. It further provides a systematic introduction into the empirical construction of the social space.

This book shows how to decompose high-dimensional microarrays into small subspaces (Small Matryoshkas, SMs), statistically analyze them, and perform cancer gene diagnosis. The information is useful for genetic experts, anyone who analyzes genetic data, and students to use as practical textbooks.Discriminant analysis is the best approach for microarray consisting of normal and cancer classes. Microarrays are linearly separable data (LSD, Fact 3). However, because most linear discriminant function (LDF) cannot discriminate LSD theoretically and error rates are high, no one had discovered Fact 3 until now. Hard-margin SVM (H-SVM) and Revised IP-OLDF (RIP) can find Fact3 easily. LSD has the Matryoshka structure and is easily decomposed into many SMs (Fact 4). Because all SMs are small samples and LSD, statistical methods analyze SMs easily. However, useful results cannot be obtained. On the other hand, H-SVM and RIP can discriminate two classes in SM entirely. RatioSV is the ratio of SV distance and discriminant range. The maximum RatioSVs of six microarrays is over 11.67%. This fact shows that SV separates two classes by window width (11.67%). Such easy discrimination has been unresolved since 1970. The reason is revealed by facts presented here, so this book can be read and enjoyed like a mystery novel. Many studies point out that it is difficult to separate signal and noise in a high-dimensional gene space. However, the definition of the signal is not clear. Convincing evidence is presented that LSD is a signal. Statistical analysis of the genes contained in the SM cannot provide useful information, but it shows that the discriminant score (DS) discriminated by RIP or H-SVM is easily LSD. For example, the Alon microarray has 2,000 genes which can be divided into 66 SMs. If 66 DSs are used as variables, the result is a 66-dimensional data. These signal data can be analyzed to find malignancy indicators by principal component analysis and cluster analysis.

Aimed at those at the forefront of social ecological thinking, this book presents a practice-oriented process to navigate the complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time. The book brings together insights from the social sciences and beyond to introduce readers to 'adaptive doing' - a continuous and iterative process of experiential learning that provides an accessible structure and process for integrating a range of knowledge and practices. As part of the 'adaptive doing' learning cycle, the authors argue for a common platform, symbolically called 'the agora', where multiple ways of understanding can be discussed. In this space, participants can work from practice and narratives, toward meaning, knowledge formation and practice change. The book demonstrates three reframing tools for social ecological practice that provide readers with multiple ways of holistically entering the social ecological domain and expanding their perspectives with a view to changing practice. 'Adaptive doing' is presented as a catalyst for a new generation of social ecological research, in which participants honour their disciplinary foundations while being ready to collaborate within each new system, and each new engagement: being able to act now, for social ecological recognition and change.

Emphasizing meaning and concepts, not just symbols and numbers Statistics for Psychology, 6th edition places definitional formulas center stage to emphasize the logic behind statistics and discourage rote memorization. Each procedure is explained in a direct, concise language and both verbally and numerically. MyStatLab is an integral part of the Statistics course. MyStatLab gives students practice with hundreds of homework problems. Every problem includes tools to help students understand and solve each problem - and grades all of the problems for instructors. MyStatLab also includes tests, quizzes, eText, a Gradebook, a customizable study plan, and much more. Learning Goals Upon completing this book, readers should be able to: * Know both definitional and numerical formulas and how to apply them * Understand the logic behind each formula * Expose students to the latest thinking in statistical theory and application * Prepare students to read research articles * Learn how to use SPSS

Exemplary Middle Grades Research: Evidence-Based Studies Linking Theory to Practice features research published throughout 2009 in MGRJ that has been identified by our review board as the most useful in terms of assisting educators with making practical applications from evidence-based studies to classroom and school settings. The editorial team is pleased to present these studies under one cover, trusting each will contribute to the existing body of knowledge on middle grades education in ways that will enable readers to develop theories more fully and apply findings and implications to a variety of settings. Studies are presented in chronological order as they appeared in each of the four issues published during the fourth volume year (2009). Our first three issues 4(1), 4(2), and 4(3) were special themes wherein guest editors provided the oversight for selection and substantive editorial revisions. Any guest editors' introductory comments regarding previously published manuscripts appear in italics, followed by the editor-in-chief 's comments.

The main purpose of this book is not only to present recent studies and advances in the field of social science research, but also to stimulate discussion on related practical issues concerning statistics, mathematics, and economics. Accordingly, a broad range of tools and techniques that can be used to solve problems on these topics are presented in detail in this book, which offers an ideal reference work for all researchers interested in effective quantitative and qualitative tools. The content is divided into three major sections. The first, which is titled "Social work", collects papers on problems related to the social sciences, e.g. social cohesion, health, and digital technologies. Papers in the second part, "Education and teaching issues," address qualitative aspects, education, learning, violence, diversity, disability, and ageing, while the book's final part, "Recent trends in qualitative and quantitative models for socio-economic systems and social work", features contributions on both qualitative and quantitative issues. The book is based on a scientific collaboration, in the social sciences, mathematics, statistics, and economics, among experts from the "Pablo de Olavide" University of Seville (Spain), the "University of Defence" of Brno (Czech Republic), the "G. D'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy) and "Alexandru Ioan Cuza University" of Iasi (Romania). The contributions, which have been selected using a peer-review process, examine a wide variety of topics related to the social sciences in general, while also highlighting new and intriguing empirical research conducted in various countries. Given its scope, the book will appeal, in equal measure, to sociologists, mathematicians, statisticians and philosophers, and more generally to scholars and specialists in related fields.

Based on a reassessment of primary documents from the beginning of Judaism through to the Reformation, author A. J. Deus evaluates the Judaic scriptures of the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims for their potential to stir hatred, violence, and terrorism. He searches for messages in the scriptures that may alter the economic behavior of societies. In this, the second volume of "The Great Leap-Fraud, " Deus exposes the frauds that overrun the Islamic faith. He focuses on the scriptural foundation of the Muslims and explains the status of terrorism, Jihad, and human rights in the historical context. Tying history to contemporary issues, Deus puts the evidence together that shows how the Jews used the doctrinal difference of the time to heave themselves into power and redeem Israel. He demonstrates how societies and economies have changed because of religion and shows the consequences of those who preach hatred against humanity. In "The Great Leap-Fraud, " Deus argues that religious freedom poses the biggest threat to humanity, and he calls for the regulation of religion as an industry. He encourages citizens to look at religious history through unbiased eyes. See http: //www.ajdeus.org for more information, previews and articles.

While many facets of our lives are rapidly becoming more digital, educational institutions are now faced with the task of finding new and innovative ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. Examining the latest trends in digital tools provides a more effective learning environment for future generations. The Handbook of Research on Digital Content, Mobile Learning, and Technology Integration Models in Teacher Education is a pivotal scholarly reference source that outlines the most efficient ways for educators to employ technology-enhanced lesson plans in their classroom. Featuring pertinent topics that include blended learning environments, student engagement, artificial intelligence, and learner-centered pedagogy, this is an ideal resource for educators, aspiring teachers, and researchers that are interested in discovering recent trends and techniques related to digital learning environments and technology-enhanced classrooms.

Citizens are asked to buy, and asked to consider to buy, goods of all sizes and all prices, nearly all of the time. Appeals to political decision-making are less common. In The Consumer Citizen, Ethan Porter investigates how the techniques of everyday consumer experiences can shape political behavior. Drawing on more than a dozen original studies, he shows that the casual conflation of consumer and political decisions has profound implications for how Americans think about politics. Indeed, Porter explains that consumer habits can affect citizens' attitudes about their government, their taxes, their politicians, and even whether they purchase government-sponsored health insurance. The consumer citizen approaches government as if it were just an ordinary firm. Of course, government is not an ordinary firm--far from it--and the disjunction between what government is, and the consumer apparatus that citizens bring to bear on their evaluations of it, offers insight into several long-unanswered questions in political behavior and public opinion. How do many Americans make sense of the political world? The Consumer Citizen offers a novel answer: By relying on the habits and tools that they learn as consumers.