The use of ethnographic research - social research based on the observation of individuals or institutions where the researcher becomes part of the group or very close to the group to better understand their actions - is becoming more and more of a prevalent methodology within sociology. As ethnography gains prominence within the discipline its focus, theoretical underpinnings and narrative styles are also expanding to the yet-unexamined worlds and institutions of society. Politics, political institutions, and those working in politics (state officials, politicians and activists) have so far missed the lens of the ethnographer. As a group, politicians and those in politics can be found in every corner of the world. While political systems and politicians are by no means the same in every country, what brings these people together to be part of the political process? Ethnography is uniquely equipped to look microscopically at the foundations of political institutions and their attendant sent of practices, just as it is ideally suited to explain why political actors behave the way they do and to identify the causes, processes and outcomes that are part and parcel of political life. The volume, based on a special issue of Qualitative Sociology has a two-fold purpose: to bring politics into the ethnographic literature and of ethnography in studies of politics. The case studies included are based on the research of ethnographers studying the various level of politics in Brazil, Japan, El Salvador, Bosnia, the Philippines, India and the United States. It will be of interest to those in the sociology of politics, political science and those looking for ethnographic research on aglobal level.

With case studies on such topics as implementing a technology program and modifying a schedule, this book shows why principals must play a leadership role.

In February 2003 the tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica hung in the anteroom to the UN Security Council Chamber was curtained over, at American insistence - not 'an appropriate backdrop', it was explained, for official statements to the world media on the forthcoming invasion of Iraq. The episode became an emblem: of the state's relentless will to control the minutiae of appearance, as part of - essential to - its drive to war. But was the crudity of the attempt at censorship not counterproductive? And did not the whole incident speak above all to the state's anxiety as it tried to micro-manage the means of symbolic production? A manifesto for the new anti-war generation, Afflicted Powers is the first formal Situationist response to 9/11 and its aftermath. In a short, readable intervention the Bay Area Report Collective take an idiosyncratic and highly critical look at US foreign policy and the methods it employs. They perpetuate the legacy of Guy Debord with his hatred of the image-life, upon which so much of 9/11 and after has revolved. Topics explored include 'Islamism and the Crisis of the Secular Nation-State', 'Permanent War', 'Blood for Oil?' quirkily significant book, which will resonate for years to come - long after the current US administration has had its day. Afflicted Powers is an account of world politics since 11 September 2001. It aims above all to confront the perplexing doubleness of the present -- its lethal mixture of atavism and new-fangledness. The world careers backward into forms of ideological and geo-political combat that call to mind now the Scramble for Africa, now the Wars of Religion. But this brute return of the past is accompanied by an equally monstrous political deployment of (and entrapment in) the apparatus of a modern, not to say hypermodern, production of appearances. Capital is on the move again. In the Middle East and elsewhere it is attempting, nakedly, a new round of primitive accumulation and enclosure. Now, however, it is obliged to do so in unprecedented circumstances. for hegemony in the world of images; and never before has the dominant world power been subject to real catastrophe in the realm of the Spectacle, as happened to the US on September 11. The present turn to empire and enclosure - what Afflicted Powers terms military neo-liberalism - is confronted not only by various forms of radical Islam but by a new kind of vanguardism armed with the toolkit of spectacular politics. This book attempts to rethink certain key aspects of the current global struggle within this overall perspective, and to provide some critical support for present and future oppositions. Its main themes are: the Spectacle and September 11; blood for oil; permanent war and illusory peace; the U.S.-Israel relationship; revolutionary Islam; and modernity and terror.

New role changes resulting from school reform agandas such as site based managment, school choice and collaboration present an urgent need for school administrators to develop strategies to help them `find their way'. The authors offer mentoring. Their approach is based on understanding the socialization and mentoring literature and their belief that socialization, and therefore mentoring, should be a career-long experience.

New role changes resulting from school reform agandas such as site based managment, school choice and collaboration present an urgent need for school administrators to develop strategies to help them `find their way'. The authors offer mentoring. Their approach is based on understanding the socialization and mentoring literature and their belief that socialization, and therefore mentoring, should be a career-long experience.