In the minds of today's audiences, George Burns was a solo act. But in the history of show business, he will long be remembered for his work with Gracie Allen. Few performers have enjoyed so much popular and critical acclaim. Together they enjoyed phenomenal success in vaudeville, radio, television, and film. Although they were celebrities, the two performers enjoyed a life remarkably free of scandal. After the death of Allen in 1964, Burns made commercials, a music video, and an exercise video. He wrote books and won numerous awards, and his nightclub and convention appearances did not stop until shortly before his death.

Through a thoughtful biography and detailed entries, this book serves as a comprehensive reference to the careers of Burns and Allen together and individually. The biography summarizes their rise as vaudeville performers, their work in a range of media, and Burns' continued achievements after Allen's death. Sections of the book cover their work on the stage, on radio, on television, and in films. Each section provides detailed entries for their performances, including cast and credit information, plot synoposes, and review excerpts. Appendices list their awards, personal appearances, and archives; and an extensive annotated bibliography cites and discusses sources of additional information.

Relegated to the Crypt of the Capitol building for 76 years, the Portrait Monument has stood in the Rotunda since 1997. Often referred to as the Suffrage Statue, it memorializes pioneering feminists Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and is the sole sculptural representation of women in the Rotunda. From its conception by sculptor Adelaide Johnson as three separate busts to its laborious execution and celebrated placement in the Rotunda, the seven ton sculpture has provoked frustration, jubilation and hullabaloo. Drawing on diaries, letters, newspapers and historic photos, this first-ever history of the monument explores the controversy, myths and artistry behind this neoclassical yet unconventional work of art.

As 'method' takes centre stage in educational and social scientific research, and self-study becomes a key tool for research, training and practice and professional development in education, Just Who Do We Think We Are? provides an invaluable resource for anyone undertaking this form of practitioner research. Drawing upon diverse and specific examples of self-study, described here by the practitioners themselves, the book formulates a methodological framework for self-study in education. This collection brings together a diverse and international range of self studies carried out in teacher education, each of which has a different perspective to offer on issues of method and methodology, including memory work, fictional practice, life histories, collaborative autobiography, auto-ethnography, phenomenology and image-based approaches. Such ethical issues likely to arise from self study as informed consent, self-disclosure and crises of representation are also explored with depth and clarity. Ruth Prescesky, Acadia University Will Penny, McGill University Faith Butler, College of the Bahamas Anna Rumin, Bishop's University Jo Visser, McGill University Kathleen O'Reilly Scanl

As method takes center stage in educational and social scientific research, and self-study becomes a key tool for research, training and practice, and professional development in education, "Just Who Do We Think Are?" provides an invaluable resource for anyone undertaking this form of practitioner research. Drawing on diverse and specific examples of self-study, described here by the practitioners themselves, the book formulates a methodological framework for self-study in education.
This collection brings together a diverse and international range of self-studies carried out in teacher education, each of which has a different perspective to offer on issues of method and methodology, including memory work, fictional practice, life histories, collaborative autobiography, auto-ethnography, phenomenology, and image-based approaches. Such ethical issues likely to arise from self-study as informed consent, self-disclosure, and crises of representation are also explored with depth and clarity.

Designed for use by teachers and teacher educators, this text should help both novice and experienced teachers reinterpret their working lives. The reader is led on a path of personal exploration that goes beyond standard approaches and leads from the personal to the critical. Illustrative material is drawn from all levels, from kindergarten to high school, to illuminate issues and questions fundamental to teachers' lives. Film and literary narratives supply further case studies and contribute to the fusion of critical reflection and everyday realities that typically inform teachers' experiences of work.

If dresses could talk, what stories might they tell? This compelling collection of short stories, essays, and poems features dress as the structural grounding for autobiographical accounts from women's lives in Western society. Often personal in nature, these « dress stories point unfailingly to matters of social and cultural import. Some of the dresses described inhabit the popular imagination: the little girl dress, the communion dress, the school uniform, the prom dress, the wedding dress, the little black dress, and the burial dress. Beyond the semiotic, tactile, and visual aspects of the dresses themselves, the narratives delve into what dresses reveal about fundamental aspects of human experience: identity, embodiment, relationship, and mortality. Bought or made, then worn, forgotten, remembered, re-constructed, and re-interpreted, each dress offers a new glimpse into how we construct meaning in our daily lives, and how dresses serve to reinforce or resist social structures and cultural expectations.

As young people today grow up in a world saturated with digital media, how does it affect their sense of self and others? As they define and redefine their identities through engagements with technology, what are the implications for their experiences as learners, citizens, consumers, and family and community members? This addresses the consequences of digital media use for young people's individual and social identities. The contributors explore how young people use digital media to share ideas and creativity and to participate in networks that are small and large, local and global, intimate and anonymous. They look at the emergence of new genres and forms, from SMS and instant messaging to home pages, blogs, and social networking sites. They discuss such topics as "girl power" online, the generational digital divide, young people and mobile communication, and the appeal of the "digital publics" of MySpace, considering whether these media offer young people genuinely new forms of engagement, interaction, and communication.ContributorsAngela Booker, danah boyd, Kirsten Drotner, Shelley Goldman, Susan C. Herring, Meghan McDermott, Claudia Mitchell, Gitte Stald, Susannah Stern, Sandra Weber, Rebekah Willett David Buckingham is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, London University, and Founder and Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media.