Approaches to Qualitative Research couples theoretical articles with practical research examples in order to help students of varying degrees develop a holistic understanding of the process of qualitative research. The book covers a wide range of traditional and emergent research methods as well as techniques of analysis and writing. Approaches to Qualitative Research also makes the critical link between theory and method explicit through carefully selected articles and in-depth introductory essays.

1. Polling the Public: Purpose and Process
2. Growth of Public Opinion Polling
3. Proper and Improper Uses of Surveys
4. The Organizations That Do the Polling
5. How Information Is Collected
6. How Respondents are Selected
7. Asking the Question: How Wording Affects Response
8. What Do the Answers Mean?
9. Understanding Sources of Error
10. Should Polls Be Banned?
11. Effects of Polls on Elections, Governments, Business, and Media
GlossaryReferencesIndex

This book constitutes a valuable manual for young and seasoned business researchers alike, and provides a comprehensive summary for the whole research journey. It is a must-read for all researchers who need to understand the basics of business research, from identifying research topics, to planning and organizing the research process, and selecting the most appropriate methodology for the topic at hand. This book also provides insights on how to avoid common pitfalls in business research and outlines the research skills needed to write a fine piece of research. In order to capture the innovative element of research, the book also highlights methods for thinking outside the box. It also stresses the importance of respecting ethics while conducting business research. Lastly, it presents important cases and provides hands-on training for preparing survey tools. Readers looking to master business research won't want to miss out on this unique and insightful book.

In this Third Volume of the series, Research on Education in Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East, the volume continues with the previously established overarching purpose of publishing chapters that are based upon research conducted in those regions by scholars, many of whom are indigenous to the regions they write about and are, therefore, able to provide cultural insights about relevant issues, as well as nonindigenous scholars who have conducted their studies in countries within the regions or about those regions. This mixture of indigenous scholarship offering emic perspectives and outside scholarship offering etic perspectives continues to be a relative strength and uniqueness of this book series. In addition, several chapters in the current volume constitute collaborations between the authors etic and emic to the contexts about which they write. This bifocality in the gaze cast upon issues covered in this book series has been well received by readers of earlier volumes of the series.

Organizations of all kinds struggle to understand, adapt, respond and manipulate changing conditions in their internal and external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play an important role, given people's ability to create order. But such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent, dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and new patterns emerge. The rapidly expanding discussion about complex systems offers important contributions to the integration of diverse perspectives and ultimately new insights into organizational effectiveness. There is increasing interest in complexity in mainstream business education, as well as in specialist business disciplines such as knowledge management. Real world systems can't be completely designed, controlled, understood or predicted, even by the so-called sciences of complexity, but they can be more effective when understood as complex systems. While many scientific disciplines explore complexity principally through abstract mathematical models and simulations, Emergence: Complexity & Organization explores the emerging understanding of human systems from both the 'hard' quantitative sciences and the 'soft' qualitative perspectives. This 2009 Annual includes articles from Anet Potgieter, Benyamin Lichtenstein, Kate Crawford, Donald Gilstrap, Liz Varga, Steven Wallis, and many more, that explore a range of complexity-related topics from philosophical concerns through to the practical application of complexity ideas, concepts and frameworks in human organizations. Also included are a series of four reproductions of classical papers in the fields of complexity and systems, each with critical introductions that explore their modern relevance: "Thoughts on Organization Theory" by Anatol Rapoport & William J. Horvath(originally published in 1959)"The Doctrine of Levels" by George P. Conger(originally published in 1925)"The Role of Somatic Change in Evolution" by Gregory Bateson(originally published in 1963)"The Status of Emergence" by Paul Henle(originally published in 1942)

The aim of this set of books is to combine the best of current academic research into the use of Communities of Practice in education with "hands on" practitioner experience in order to provide teachers and academics with a convenient source of guidance and an incentive to work with and develop in their own Communities of Practice. This set of books is divided into two volumes: volume 1 deals principally with the issues found in colocated Communities of Practice, while volume 2 deal principally with distributed Communities of Practice"

Using quantitative research, this volume investigates the characteristics, problems and trends of the automobile society in China's mega cities and large cities. It also addresses topics related to cars and cities, traffic safety and cars' consumption. China has experienced more than 30 years of rapid economic development, and people's living conditions have greatly improved. One of the symbols of this is family-car ownership, which has increased year by year. China is rapidly becoming an automobile society like North America. But China has huge population and limited urban space, and most of the cities are deteriorating environmentally. Added to this are the low degree energy self-sufficiency and people's lack of awareness of traffic rules, all of which have brought various social problems, such as traffic congestion, lack of parking spaces, air pollution, energy shortage and frequent accidents. The volume presents a series of studies examining the characteristics and problems of China's automobile society development from the perspective of sustainable development. The reports in the volume are both academic and highly readable, making it an interesting resource for researchers and general readers alike. It offers insights into the trends and problems of private cars in China, as well as observations on China's social change through the unique medium of cars.

Biostatistics deals with making sense of data. While statistical inference is essential in our application of the research findings to clinical decision-making regarding the care of our patients, statistical inference without clinical relevance or importance can be very misleading and even meaningless. This textbook has attempted to deemphasize p value in the interpretation of clinical and biomedical data by stressing the importance of confidence intervals, which allow for the quantification of evidence. For example, a large study due to a large sample size that minimizes variability may show a statistically significant difference while in reality the difference is too insignificant to warrant any clinical relevance. Covers these relevant topics in biostatistics: Design Process, Sampling & Reality in Statistical Modeling Basics of Biostatistical Reasoning & Inference Central Tendency Theorem & Measures of Dispersion Most commonly used & abused parametric test - t test Most commonly used & abused non-parametric test - chi squared statistic Sample size and power estimations Logistic/Binomial Regression Models - Binary Outcomes Time-to-Event Data - Survival Analysis & Count Data - Poisson Regression ANOVA, ANCOVA - Mixed Effects Model (Fixed and Random), RANOVA, GEE Simple & Multiple Linear Regression Models Correlation Analysis (Pearson & Spearman Rank) Clinical & Statistical Significance - p value as a function of sample size Clinical and biomedical researchers often ignore an important aspect of evidence discovery from their funded or unfunded projects. Since the attempt is to illustrate some sets of relationships from the data set, researchers often do not exercise substantial amount of time in assessing the reliability and validity of the data to be utilized in the analysis. However, the expected inference or the conclusion to be drawn is based on the analysis of the un-assessed data. Reality in statistical modeling of biomedical and clinical research data remains the focus of scientific evidence discovery, and this book. This text is written to highlight the importance of appropriate design prior to analysis by placing emphasis on subject selection and probability sample and the randomization process when applicable prior to the selection of the analytic tool. In addition, this book stresses the importance of biologic and clinical significance in the interpretation of study findings. The basis for statistical inference, implying the quantification of random error is random sample, which had been perpetually addressed in this book. When studies are conducted without a random sample, except when disease registries/databases or consecutive subjects are utilized, as often encountered in clinical and biomedical research, it is meaningless to report the findings with p value.

Poverty alleviation is a central aim of economic and social policy, and yet there is no consensus about what poverty means or how it is best measured. Often, the households below an income poverty line are counted as poor, but there may be no firm basis for concentrating on that particular income level. There may also be wide variations among the households below any income poverty line in terms of their actual living standards. This book explores what poverty means in developed countries, and shows that understanding and measuring it requires widening the focus beyond current income. By using broader measures of resources and information on living patterns and concrete indicators of deprivation, it shows how those who are effectively excluded from participation in society due to lack of resources can be more accurately identified, and the processes producing such exclusion better understood. The core issue of this book is how to define and measure poverty in relatively rich countries in a way which is valid, meaningful in the context, and valuable for policy-making. Extensive analysis of data from a specially designed survey of a large representative sample of Irish households is used to illustrate the arguments.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. This prescient book presents the intellectual terrain of shrinking cities while exploring the key research questions in each of the field?s sub-domains and reviewing the range of methodologies within these topics. The book begins with an introduction outlining what shrinking cities are and how they are researched, highlighting both the opportunities and challenges that arise in this field, including the big ideas any researcher must grapple with. The next six chapters are each devoted to a different sub-domain within shrinking cities, offering a quick overview of the topics, relevant problems, paradoxes and key research questions. The book concludes with a review of the major themes and, most importantly, looks toward the future, predicting and anticipating the most significant future research trends related to shrinking cities. This accessible and compelling Research Agenda will be of interest to researchers looking to move into this area, urban studies and planning instructors who are teaching research methods courses, and students studying or independently researching shrinking cities.

This book is a selection of peer-reviewed contributions presented at the third Bayesian Young Statisticians Meeting, BAYSM 2016, Florence, Italy, June 19-21. The meeting provided a unique opportunity for young researchers, M.S. students, Ph.D. students, and postdocs dealing with Bayesian statistics to connect with the Bayesian community at large, to exchange ideas, and to network with others working in the same field. The contributions develop and apply Bayesian methods in a variety of fields, ranging from the traditional (e.g., biostatistics and reliability) to the most innovative ones (e.g., big data and networks).

Produced under the auspices of the "Section on the Sociology of Children and Youth of the American Sociological Association", this volume provides a cohesive, wide-ranging source of information on the life courses of children and youths. Contributions reflect: demographic analyses and projections; dualitative aspects of children's lives; children and youth in historical and cross-cultural perspective; issues of development in social context; children and public policy; and social and psychological dynamics of childhood and adolescence.

A volume in Peace Education Series Editors Ian Harris, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Edward J. Brantmeier, Colorado State University, and Jing Lin, University of Maryland, Spirituality, Religion, and Peace Education attempts to deeply explore the universal and particular dimensions of education for inner and communal peace. This co-edited book contains fifteen chapters on world spiritual traditions, religions, and their connections and relevance to peacebuilding and peacemaking. This book examines the teachings and practices of Confucius, of Judaism, Islamic Sufism, Christianity, Quakerism, Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and of Indigenous spirituality. Secondly, it explores teaching and learning processes rooted in self discovery, skill development, and contemplative practices for peace. Topics in various chapters include: the Buddhist practice of tonglen; an indigenous Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono for forgiveness and conflict resolution; pilgrimage and labyrinth walking for right action; Twelve Step Programs for peace; teaching from a religious/spiritual perspective; narrative inquiry, Daoism, and peace curriculum; Gandhi, deep ecology, and multicultural peace education in teacher education; peacemaking and spirituality in undergraduate courses; and wisdom-based learning in teacher education. Peace education practices stemming from wisdom traditions can promote stillness as well as enliven, awaken, and urge reconciliation, connection, wisdom cultivation, and transformation and change in both teachers and students in diverse educational contexts. In various chapters of this book, a critique of competition, consumerism, and materialism undergird the analysis. More than just a critique, some chapters provide both conceptual and practical clarity for deeper engagement in peaceful action and change in society. Cultural awareness and understanding are fostered through a focus on the positive aspects of wisdom traditions rather than the negative aspects and historical complexities of violence and conflict as result of religious hegemony.

This volume presents for the first time a collection of historically important papers written on the concept of rationality in the social sciences. In 1939-40, the famed Austrian economist Joseph A. Schumpeter and the famous sociologist Talcott Parsons convened a faculty seminar at Harvard University on the topic of rationality. The first part includes their essays as well as papers by the Austrian phenomenologist Alfred Schutz, the sociologist Wilbert Moore, and the economist Rainer Schickele. Several younger economists and sociologists with bright futures also participated, including Alex Gerschenkron, John Dunlop, Paul M. Sweezy, and Wassily W. Leontief, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize for developing input-output analysis. The second part presents essays and commentaries written by today's internationally noted social scientists and addressing the topic of rationality in social action from a broad range of perspectives. The book's third and final part shares the recently discovered correspondence between the seminar principals regarding the original but failed plan to publish its proceedings. It also includes letters, not previously published, between Richard Grathoff, Walter M. Sprondel and Talcott Parsons on the rationality seminar and the exchanges between Parsons and Schutz.

"Few historians have more skillfully integrated economic with social, intellectual and political history to demonstrate both the importance and the limits of economic developments-the material reality and the perception of it.... Pleasurable as well as instructive reading for anyone interested in the most fateful of our national crimes and the most fearful of our national crises.... [A] splendid book." -Eugene D. Genovese, Los Angeles Times Book Review

This book addresses major population and development issues: fertility and reproductive health, migrations, gender, education, poverty and inequalities. To that aim it revisits and considerably enlarges Kingsley Davis' 1963 theory of change and response, using interdisciplinary methodologies. On the basis of four decades of field research (1985-2015), it questions the rationality of the actors, how culture shapes socio-demographic behaviours, in a context of modernity and globalisation. More specifically, it casts new light on the interactions of individuals, families, networks and local communities with the State and its population policy.

This is the second of Momeni's two-volume series on homelessness in the United States. While volume I concentrated on the statewide distribution, variations, trends, and characteristics of the homeless population, the present volume addresses the problem of data collection and specific causes and issues that relate to homelessness. Unique in its attempt to bring systematic data and analysis to bear on the subject, this groundbreaking study focuses upon such critical areas as drug abuse among the homeless, the housing situation that gives rise to homelessness, homeless children, food sources, and problems of employment. Although the contributors approach the topic from a number of different perspectives, they are united in their conclusion that realistic solutions to the problem of homelessness rest not in establishing new and dramatic programs, but rather in forging links between government and private agencies to create a system-wide response to the multiple needs of the homeless population. In addition to exploring the serious and persistent problems homeless people face, the contributors highlight the difficulties inherent in measuring the extent of homelessness accurately, concluding that efforts to do so are likely to produce an undercount. A number of chapters provide a clearer picture of the homeless population in America by examining both the socioeconomic and demographic correlates and the social-psychiatric dimensions of homelessness. Finally, the contributors compare and contrast the characteristics of homelessness and the methods of dealing with the problem in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Two concluding essays provide an overview of homelessness on the national level and propose public policies likely to be most effective in reducing homelessness. Numerous tables and figures illustrate points made in the text. Students of social sciences, social practitioners, and public policymakers will find Homelessness in America provocative reading, and a reliable source of data and analysis.

Consumption in Russia and the former USSR has been lately studied as regards the pre-revolutionary and early Soviet period. The history of Soviet consumption and the Soviet variety of consumerism in the 1950s-1990s has hardly been studied at all. This book concentrates on the late Soviet period but it also considers pre-WWII and even pre-revolutionary times.The book consists of articles, which survey the longue duree of Russian and Soviet consumer attitudes, Soviet ideology of consumption as indicated in texts concerning fashion, the world of Soviet fashion planning and the survival strategies of the Soviet consumer complaining against sub-standard goods and services in a command economy. There's also a case study concerning the uses of concepts with anti-consumerist content. Contributors include: Lena Bogdanova, Olga Gurova, Timo Vihavainen and Larissa Zakharova.

The papers collected in this volume focus on new perspectives on individuals, society, and science, specifically in the field of socio-economic systems. The book is the result of a scientific collaboration among experts from "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi (Romania), "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy), "University of Defence" of Brno (Czech Republic), and "Pablo de Olavide" University of Sevilla (Spain). The heterogeneity of the contributions presented in this volume reflects the variety and complexity of social phenomena. The book is divided in four Sections as follows. The first Section deals with recent trends in social decisions. Specifically, it aims to understand which are the driving forces of social decisions. The second Section focuses on the social and public sphere. Indeed, it is oriented on recent developments in social systems and control. Trends in quantitative theories and models are described in Section 3, where many new formal, mathematical-statistical tools for modelling complex social phenomena are presented. Finally, Section 4 shows integrative theories and models; particularly, it deals with the ethical, cultural and political approaches to social science, the pedagogical methods, and the relationship between literature, politics, religion and society. The book is addressed to sociologists, philosophers, mathematicians, statisticians, people interested in ethics, and specialists in the fields of communication, social, and political sciences.

In many disciplines of science it is vital to know the effect of a 'treatment' on a response variable of interest; the effect being known as the 'treatment effect'. Here, the treatment can be a drug, an education program or an economic policy, and the response variable can be an illness, academic achievement or GDP. Once the effect is found, it is possible to intervene to adjust the treatment and attain a desired level of the response variable. A basic way to measure the treatment effect is to compare two groups, one of which received the treatment and the other did not. If the two groups are homogenous in all aspects other than their treatment status, then the difference between their response outcomes is the desired treatment effect. But if they differ in some aspects in addition to the treatment status, the difference in the response outcomes may be due to the combined influence of more than one factor. In non-experimental data where the treatment is not randomly assigned but self-selected, the subjects tend to differ in observed or unobserved characteristics. It is therefore imperative that the comparison be carried out with subjects similar in their characteristics. This book explains how this problem can be overcome so the attributable effect of the treatment can be found. This book brings to the fore recent advances in econometrics for treatment effects. The purpose of this book is to put together various economic treatments effect models in a coherent fashion, make it clear which can be parameters of interest, and show how they can be identified and estimated under weak assumptions. The emphasis throughout the book is on semi- and non-parametric estimation methods, but traditional parametric approaches are also discussed. This book is ideally suited to researchers and graduate students with a basic knowledge of econometrics.

The field of network exchange has grown over the last 20 years from a few scattered studies to substantial publications in leading journals. Today network exchange is as advanced as any area of sociology. Willer and his contributors present its most advanced theory, Network Exchange Theory, and, by assembling and supplementing formulations now spread across leading journals, provide scholars with a unique collection. Contributors examine basic issues in theory as well as research. The end product is a well-tested theory which relates social structure to social action under a wide range of conditions, and is proven to be a useful tool for structural analysis at both the micro and macro levels. An important text and guide for researchers and students of social theory, structure, and social psychology.

Current developments in air pollution modeling are explored as a series of contributions from researchers at the forefront of their field. This newest contribution on air pollution modeling and its application is focused on local, urban, regional and intercontinental modeling; emission modeling and processing; data assimilation and air quality forecasting; model assessment and evaluation; atmospheric aerosols. Additionally, this work also examines the relationship between air quality and human health and the effects of climate change on air quality. This work is a collection of selected papers presented at the 36th International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modeling and its Application, held in Ottawa, Canada, May 14-18, 2018. The book is intended as reference material for students and professors interested in air pollution modeling at the graduate level as well as researchers and professionals involved in developing and utilizing air pollution models.

The third volume on theoretical driven methodology in the social sciences, again edited by Hakon Leiulfsrud and Peter Sohlberg, explains how to identify sociological research objects, and the art of living theory. Theoretical concepts such as social structure, the Global South, social bonds, organisations and management are explore and developed by a broad range of authors. The methodological chapters, including critical notes on sociology and uses of statistics, the value of thought experiments in sociology, researching subjects in time and space, and an academic 'star war' between Pierre Bourdieu and Dorothy E. Smith are indispensible for researchers and students interested in theoretical construction work in the social sciences. Contributors are: Goeran Ahrne, Michela Betta, Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen, Michael Burawoy, Raju Das, David Fasenfest, Raimund Hasse, Johs Hjellbrekke, Hakon Leiulfsrud, Emil A. Royrvik, John Scott, Peter Sohlberg, Karin Widerberg and Richard Swedberg.

The 16th volume in a series on advances in stratification research. Topics addressed include: the changing international context of social stratification; race, immigration and life chances; and the distinctiveness of independent business as a locus of social stratification.

This book provides a state-of-the-art overview on the dynamics and coevolution in multi-level strategic interaction games. As such it summarizes the results of the European CONGAS project, which developed new mathematical models and tools for the analysis, prediction and control of dynamical processes in systems possessing a rich multi-level structure and a web of interwoven interactions among elements with autonomous decision-making capabilities. The framework is built around game theoretical concepts, in particular evolutionary and multi-resolution games, and includes also techniques drawn from graph theory, statistical mechanics, control and optimization theory. Specific attention is devoted to systems that are prone to intermittency and catastrophic events due to the effect of collective dynamics.