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Books in Social sciences

The Social Sciences collection forms a definitive resource for those entering, researching, or teaching in any of the many disciplines making up this interdisciplinary area of study. Written by experts and researchers from both Academic and Commercial domains, titles offer global scope and perspectives.

Key subject areas include: Library and Information Science; Transportation; Urban Studies; Geography, Planning, and Development; Security; Emergency Management.

  • Educational Technology - its Creation, Development and Cross-cultural Transfer

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 4
    • R.M. Thomas + 1 more
    • English
    This volume analyzes the conditions that promote the creation and development of educational technology in advanced industrial nations and the subsequent transfer of that technology to developing countries. Four technologies: print media, television/radio, computers and operating systems are examined in the context of both industrialized and developing nations. The problems that the developing countries face when adopting new technologies for their educational needs, political and economic conditions and cultural characteristics are discussed.
  • The Politics of School Government

    • 1st Edition
    • G. Baron
    • English
    Leading international scholars consider changes and developments in school government practice in the United States, Canada, England and Wales, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, France, West Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Each chapter looks at the introduction or reform of councils at school level designed to secure the involvement in decision-making of parents, teachers, students and the local community. Essential reading for everyone involved in educational administration this informative book will also be of interest to researchers of comparative education, the politics of education and participatory developments in the field.
  • Curriculum & Assessment

    Some Policy Issues
    • 1st Edition
    • P. Raggatt + 1 more
    • English
    An Open University set book, it explores recent changes in curriculum and assessment policy, and examines the trend towards centralized control. It also offers an assessment of continuing local authority influences. The selection of articles, though not comprehensive, will be useful to anyone with interest in curriculum and assessment policy.
  • The IEA Study of Mathematics III

    Student Growth and Classroom Processes
    • 1st Edition
    • Rami Burstein
    • English
    The Second International Mathematics Study was conducted in the schools of 20 education systems under the sponsorship of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). This is the third of three international reports, each of which focus on a major component of the study. This volume describes the main findings from analyses of classroom processes and mathematic growth by posing such questions as: how successful have the national education systems been in providing the opportunity to learn mathematics by the end of the lower secondary school; what do students at the lower secondary level know across educational systems and what have they learned during their most recent schooling experiences; and what teaching practices are utilized in the mathematics classroom of the various systems and to what extent can these classroom processes explain differences in student achievements?
  • New Citizens for a New Society

    The Institutional Origins of Mass Schooling in Sweden
    • 1st Edition
    • J. Boli
    • English
    Employing a macro-sociological perspective applicable to all Western countries, this book argues that mass schooling is an essentially ideological enterprise. Concentrating on the 1650-1850 period in Swedish history, the book traces the institutionalization of the universal, egalitarian individual and the homogeneous, integrated national polity as primordial social elements in place of the corporate groups of estate society. It then studies the reorganization of the Swedish polity as a secular project for the pursuit of progress under the direction of an active bureaucractic state. These transformations led to the ideology of mass schooling as a ceremonial means of preparing competent, responsible citizens who could participate successfully in the rationalized, exchange-oriented polity. The book's detailed study of primary schooling between 1800 and 1880 supports this theory, demonstrating that competing theories - functionalist, social control, status competition, and modernization arguments - are contradicted by the Swedish primary schooling in the 20th century and speculates about future mass schooling developments.
  • Current Issues in Mathematical Linguistics

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 56
    • C. Martín-Vide
    • English
    The present volume contains some selected topics of current interest around the world in the mathematical analysis of natural language. The book is divided into four sections:- analytical algebraic models- models from the theory of formal grammars and automata, with interest mainly in syntax- model-theoretic concepts in semantics or pragmatics, and- a final section containing some applications in computational linguistics.The varied perspectives illustrated in the book confirm that Mathematical Linguistics has finally introduced scientific methods into a previously fuzzy field, through the use of mathematical reasoning. The text will contribute to a fruitful convergence between linguists, mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, cognitive scientists and others interested in the formal treatment of natural language and the research of its properties.
  • The Geography of Tropical African Development

    A Study of Spatial Patterns of Economic Change Since Independence
    • 2nd Edition
    • A. M. O'Connor
    • English
    This best selling textbook focuses on the changes in geographical patterns that have taken place in recent years i.e. on the geographical pattern of recent and current economic change. The area covered includes the countries lying between the limits of the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. In this second edition substantial changes have been made in every chapter in order to keep up to date in respect of both the geographical pattern of development and prevailing attitudes towards it. The discussion is still largely confined to the twenty year period between 1956 and 1976, and to the economic component of development
  • Higher Education Policy: An International Comparative Perspective

    • 1st Edition
    • F. Kaiser + 5 more
    • English
    Tremendous changes are affecting the structure and funding of higher education in many countries. This volume attempts to identify and analyze the principles, structural features and modes of work of the different higher education policies operating in eleven countries, as well as their commonalities and differences in the light of both general international trends and country-specific factors. In order to gather the relevant information for the project, national correspondents were provided with an overarching framework to guide them in their work and to ensure maximum comparability of the resulting reports. Each country report is broken down into four sections: the structure and goals of higher education systems; authority in the system; higher education policy; and the impact of each on institutional governance and management.The final chapter draws together the general trends which have emerged: a move towards less state control; a strengthening of institutional autonomy and increased governance; competition between institutions; privatization of funding; greater market orientation and growing institutional accountability for quality and service.
  • Tradition and Change in Swedish Education

    • 1st Edition
    • L. Boucher
    • English
    An up-to-date description and analysis of the recent reforms, current structure and issues in Swedish education. All stages of the system, from pre-school through to adult education and teacher training are covered. The book seeks to place the material firmly within the context of Swedish society and politics but the problems addressed are of concern to people everywhere
  • Finite Automata

    Behavior and Synthesis
    • 1st Edition
    • A. de Vries
    • English
    This dictionary supplies associations which have been evoked by certain words, signs, etc. in Western civilization in the past, and which may float to the surface again tomorrow; for however 'daringly new' a modern use of imagery may look, it generally appears to have roots in what has been said and done in the past. No fine distinctions have been made between symbols (in the limited sense), allegories, metaphors, signs, types, images, etc. (not to mention 'ascending' and 'descending' symbols), since such subtle distinctions, however sensible from a scientific point of view, are useless to a person struggling with the deeper comprehension (and thus appreciation) of a particular 'symbol'.