Repeated surveys -- a technique for asking the same questions to different samples of people -- allows researchers the opportunity to analyze changes in... society as a whole. This book begins with a discussion of the classic issue of how to separate cohort, period, and age effects. It then covers methods for modeling aggregate trends; two methods for estimating cohort replacement's contribution to aggregate trends, a decomposition model for clarifying how microchange contributes to aggregate change, and simple models that are useful for the assessment of changing individual-level effects.

According to Greek legend, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, secretly buried her brother in defiance of the order of Creon, king of Thebes. Sentenced... to death by Creon, she forestalled him by committing suicide. The theme of the conflict between Antigone and Creon-between the state and the individual, between man and woman, between young and old-has captured the Western imagination for more than 2000 years. George Steiner here examines the far-reaching legacy of this great classical myth. He considers its treatment in Western art, literature, and thought-in drama, poetry, prose, philosophic discourse, political tracts, opera, ballet, film, and even the plastic arts. A study in poetics and in the philosophy of reading, Antigones leads us to look again at the influence the Greek myths exercise on twentieth-century culture.

A synopsis by the author: In this book, I summarize how science works, why it offers hope to educators, how science has been neglected and abused in... education, and what I think science now tells us and doesn t tell us about several issues in education. In describing science, I necessarily describe pseudoscience or rogue science as well. Education and disciplines related to it, especially psychology, have too often, and for far too long, been characterized by rogue science rather than the real thing. It s disheartening to face up to the fact that education and psychology haven t usually been scientific. As educational researcher David Berliner says, a science of education, although possible, may well be the hardest science of all. Those of us who believe that science is the best hope for education mustn t be discouraged or intimidated by the naysayers and the difficulty of the task. We know that the insistence and persistence of many will be required. Consequently, I haven t written a book for educators only, but for a more general audience as well those who care about education and its improvement, which is a lot of us, if not most. Neither have I written a book for educational researchers, reviewing all relevant details of scientific (or nonscientific) studies and their conclusions on particular topics. My intention was to write a book about the general principles of a scientific approach to educational issues and provide readable summaries of what I think research and rational analysis, tell us about a few particular problems. Critiques of particular studies and the details of research design and statistical analysis are better left to purely academic publications.

Businesses, entrepreneurs, individuals, and government agencies alike are looking to social network analysis (SNA) tools for insight into trends,... connections, and fluctuations in social media. Microsoft's NodeXL is a free, open-source SNA plug-in for use with Excel. It provides instant graphical representation of relationships of complex networked data. But it goes further than other SNA tools -- NodeXL was developed by a multidisciplinary team of experts that bring together information studies, computer science, sociology, human-computer interaction, and over 20 years of visual analytic theory and information visualization into a simple tool anyone can use. This makes NodeXL of interest not only to end-users but also to researchers and students studying visual and network analytics and their application in the real world. In Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL, members of the NodeXL development team up to provide readers with a thorough and practical guide for using the tool while also explaining the development behind each feature. Blending the theoretical with the practical, this book applies specific SNA instructions directly to NodeXL, but the theory behind the implementation can be applied to any SNA. To learn more about Analyzing Social Media Networks and NodeXL, visit the companion site at www.mkp.com/nodexl*Walks you through NodeXL, while explaining the theory and development behind each step, providing takeaways that can apply to any SNA *Demonstrates how visual analytics research can be applied to SNA tools for the mass market *Includes case studies from researchers who use NodeXL on popular networks like email, Facebook, Twitter, and wikis

From formulation to implementation, an approach to the analysis of social policy through the lens of researchAnalyzing Social Policy prepares... professionals and students to make better informed decisions related to identifying and understanding the intricacies and potential impact of social policymaking and enactment on their organization as well as their individual responsibilities, goals, and objectives.Authors Mary Katherine O'Connor and F. Ellen Netting thoroughly examine various approaches to the analysis of social policies and how these approaches provide the knowledge, multiple perspectives, and other resources to understand and grasp the nuances of social policy in all its complexity.Comprehensive and based on research, Analyzing Social Policy explores:An overview of the practice of social policy analysisThe role of research in guiding policy analysisThe idea of policy analyses as researchThemes, assumptions, and major theories that undergird rational models of policy analysisNonrational themes, assumptions, and major theories informing nontraditional interpretive and critical approaches to policy analysisStrategies for applying selected models and approaches when engaging in policy analysis as researchProviding practitioners and students with a set of tools that can be used to enhance an understanding of what constitutes policy as well as acceptable standards for critical analysis of policy, this resource enables policy advocates—regardless of their level—to be political, strategic, and critical in their work.

This comprehensive guide takes a 'how-to' approach to qualitative data collection and analysis. Drawing from a wealth of illustrative research examples... and applications, the authors introduce techniques of collecting, focusing, and analyzing data in a step-by-step manner. First published in 1971, this book has become the field manual for any student doing social science fieldwork.

This 22-chapter text explores the structure of language and the meaning of words within a given structure. The text/workbook combination gives students... both the theory and practice they need to understand this complex topic.

This primary text provides the backbone for a basic curriculum course at either the senior or graduate level. The book shows how the parts of a... curriculum fit together and helps students identify assumptions underlying curricula. In doing so, students develop the ability to determine why a curriculum proves better for some students than for others; what approaches to teaching are compatible with a particular curriculum; what difficulties a curriculum is likely to encounter during implementation; and what kinds of changes parents, students, and administrators are likely to demand.

This volume provides a basic framework for using visual data - namely still photographs - as a tool for social analysis. The authors determine the... importance of theoretical assumptions in analyzing these data and provide advice on how to use photographs in cognitive, symbolist and structuralist research. The book is richly illustrated with examples ranging from Native American masks to perfume advertisements.

Discover the Celtic Circle of Belonging John O'Donohue, poet, philosopher, and scholar, guides you through the spiritual landscape of the Irish... imagination. In Anam Cara, Gaelic for "soul friend," the ancient teachings, stories, and blessings of Celtic wisdom provide such profound insights on the universal themes of friendship, solitude, love, and death as: Light is generous The human heart is never completely born Love as ancient recognitionThe body is the angel of the soul Solitude is luminous Beauty likes neglected places The passionate heart never ages To benatural is to be holy Silence is the sister of the divine Death as an invitation to freedom

Placing class rather than race or gender at the center of this comparative study of North and South, Daniel Kilbride exposes the close connections... that united privileged southerners and Philadelphians in the years leading to the Civil War. He finds that the bonds between these similarly educated and socialized groups were so durable that they resisted sectional warfare. In An American Aristocracy, Kilbride traces the travels of southern planters throughout the North during the decades prior to 1860, noting that they were drawn particularly to Philadelphia because of its proximity to the South and a perception of the city as being untainted by the larger radicalism of the North. In addition Philadelphia possessed tangible attractions for southerners: well-regarded schools, prestigious intellectual societies, historical landmarks, and fashionable shopping districts. In the city's parlors, ballrooms, and classrooms, privileged Americans from the North and South forged themselves into a republican aristocracy that ignored the Mason-Dixon line. The story Kilbride uncovers is one of the upper echelon's declining influence. He recounts how southern families and their friends and relations in the North fought against the forces of middle-class respectability and sectional animosity that threatened the stability of their world. Their ability to promote sectional peace weakened steadily during the first half of the nineteenth century as the middle class successfully wrested cultural authority from their social "betters". Kilbride suggests that this humiliating loss of power bound northern and southern gentry ever closer. Yet an inability to shape public policy left them helpless to stem the tide of sectional strife that eventually infiltrated their carefully insulated existence.

The fierce battle over identity and patriotism within Cherokee culture that took place in the years surrounding the Trail of TearsThough the tragedy of... the Trail of Tears is widely recognized today, the pervasive effects of the tribe's uprooting have never been examined in detail. Despite the Cherokees' efforts to assimilate with the dominant white culture—running their own newspaper, ratifying a constitution based on that of the United States—they were never able to integrate fully with white men in the New World.In An American Betrayal, Daniel Blake Smith's vivid prose brings to life a host of memorable characters: the veteran Indian-fighter Andrew Jackson, who adopted a young Indian boy into his home; Chief John Ross, only one-eighth Cherokee, who commanded the loyalty of most Cherokees because of his relentless effort to remain on their native soil; most dramatically, the dissenters in Cherokee country—especially Elias Boudinot and John Ridge, gifted young men who were educated in a New England academy but whose marriages to local white girls erupted in racial epithets, effigy burnings, and the closing of the school.Smith, an award-winning historian, offers an eye-opening view of why neither assimilation nor Cherokee independence could succeed in Jacksonian America.

Feroza Ginwalla, a pampered, protected 16-year-old Pakistani girl, is sent to America by her parents, who are alarmed by the fundamentalism overtaking... Pakistan — and their daughter. Hoping that a few months with her uncle, an MIT grad student, will soften the girl’s rigid thinking, they get more than they bargained for: Feroza, enthralled by American culture and her new freedom, insists on staying. A bargain is struck, allowing Feroza to attend college with the understanding that she will return home and marry well. As a student in a small western town, Feroza’s perceptions of America, her homeland, and herself begin to alter. When she falls in love with and wants to marry a Jewish American, her family is aghast. Feroza realizes just how far she has come — and wonders how much further she can go. This delightful coming-of-age novel is both remarkably funny and a remarkably acute portrayal of America as seen through the eyes of a perceptive young immigrant.

A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's... poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s.