This anthology provides a unique collection of articles on classic grounded theory, as developed by sociologist Dr. Barney G. Glaser. Organized in four sections, teaching grounded theory, techniques, history and philosophy, and advanced approaches, the 19 chapters fill gaps and correct misunderstandings about the method. Chapters on the merits of classic grounded theory over other versions, the historical and philosophical influences on the method, and advice for Ph.D. students doing classic grounded theory dissertations will be useful to novice and experienced researchers. How-to chapters on the use of focus groups, online interviews, and video for data collection expand data possibilities, while articles on formal theory, software, and testing concepts with structural equation modeling w...

This book is a comprehensive, intelligible guide to grounded theory with a focus on classic grounded theory. It will be useful for graduate students, experienced researchers, and practicing professionals who want to use the method for practical purposes. It will also be useful for mentors and teachers of grounded theory. A glossary is included in the preface so readers can familiarize themselves with grounded theory terminology before beginning the chapters. Its seven chapters provide a comprehensive guide to grounded theory. Chapter one covers how the author’s familiarity with the symbolic interactionist perspective gained from his undergraduate sociology professors enabled him to readily discern how and why Glaser and Strauss had different understandings about grounded theory and what ...

Banished presents a detailed review of the sex offender; the pedophile and the child molester, and directly explores his thinking processes, reasoning and related issues that offer a clear and concise exposé in these most hated people. In addition to covering the adult offender, this work also exemplifies the thought processes of child and adolescent offenders in order to offer cues for parents and educators of possible abuse or illicit behavior. Through direct examples of client art, case histories and offender testimonies, the book’s purpose will surely educate, as well as in purposing methods for positive change in the process. The research and findings are based on a journalistic foundation, as well as from an experiential point-of-view, where the author had worked with and had int...

The Power and Paradox of Physical Attractiveness is a scholarly look into physical attractiveness. It articulates the great importance placed on this dimension of a person’s appearance. Analysis of the dynamics and consequences reveals a powerful, pervasive, and frequently unrecognized or denied physical attractiveness phenomenon. This phenomenon transcends time, geography, and culture, regardless of demographics and socioeconomics of individuals and populations. With penetrating vision, Dr. Patzer provides evidence that despite professed ideals, people do judge others by their looks. Physical attractiveness is a more powerful determinant of a person’s fortune and misfortune in life than people admit. No matter the words, thoughts, and ideals proclaimed by people, these same people ...

How can an economy based on something as volatile as knowledge be sustained? The urgency of improving our understanding of a knowledge-based economy provides the context and necessity of this study. In a previous study entitled A Sociological Theory of Communications: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-based Society (2001) the author specified knowledge-based systems from a sociological perspective. In this book, he takes this theory one step further and demonstrates how the knowledge base of an economic system can be operationalized, both in terms of measurement and by providing simulation models. The measurement instruments are applied to the German and Dutch economies and elaborated in terms of regional and sectorial differences. The knowledge base is specified in th...

This reader introduces the student to prison management. Particular interest is given the increased role of profit in the application of punishment. Profit and prison privatization are viewed within their larger context. As such, public and private prison operations are compared. Part of this comparison takes place through situating each sector upon an ideological continuum. This placement helps indicate the direction being taken by the contemporary prison. It further reveals that tomorrow's prisons may be less driven by traditional objectives and more driven by the notions of profit and efficiency.

Social scientists are only beginning to question the idea of culture and the way it comes to be part of who we are as a people. While most would suggest that culture emanates from our values and traditions, this book wonders if it is given to us by corporations, media, and political institutions as a way to keep us docile and compliant. So much of what we do, how we dress, and what we value is actually a manifestation of government propaganda and advertising. And so, we embrace sentimental notions about our founding fathers, about marriage, our political system, and time honored rituals. While we think of ourselves as free, we are deluged with messages from powerful conglomerates who want us to dress and act a certain way and who have clear agendas for what they want us to believe about o...

The Karen Revolution for self-determination has the distinction of being one of the world's longest-running struggles for freedom, having begun in 1949 and continuing to this very moment. This sociological work makes visible how ethnopolitical, petropolitical, geopolitical, and ecosystemic issues affect the political economy of a people experiencing ethnic cleansing. From the inception of its self-determination struggle in 1949, readers will be taken on a historical journey with the Karen, finally "arriving" in the 21st century. Along the way, the author exposes readers to the anatomy of how Karen revolutionary dynamics attempt to shield the Karen people against internal colonization committed by the various military regimes of Burma, and how these complex dynamics engaged by Karen revolut...

This dissertation concerns the structures and individual agency of Filipina brides who met their American husbands through Internet or pen pal advertisements. Popular media, legal scholars, and some feminists have largely described the phenomenon in terms of its oppressiveness toward the women involved, thus dismissing any agency on the part of the women. Similarly, much of the scholarship has located the American Internet grooms as ogres who are out to exploit these women for domestic and sexual services. If prominent researchers of this phenomenon are correct in their assessments that Filipina Internet brides operate as effective agents, then one also assumes these women continue that agency when they settle into their new lives as Filipina wives married to American men. Therefore, my c...

Of what use is psychology if it does not help to solve the pressing problems of the day at the individual and collective levels? This is no less a pointed question to the reader as it is to the author that sets the stage for an adventurous sharing of ideas. The author shies away from providing ready-made answers but spares no effort in stirring the reader to ponder questions about human nature and behavior. Soon, the reader will react with the exclamation, “Ah, this book is about me, useful to my life!” In this way, the book serves to bridge the gap between academia and the general public. As the reader may well expect, bold assertions may be found throughout this volume. For instance, Piaget’s stage of formal operations does not represent the final or highest level of cognitive dev...

Today, when India is certainly once more emerging as one of the most important social experiments in the world, it is more than ever incumbent to explore and re-discover the underlying reasons and philosophy that marginalized the Indian consciousness in terms of caste, ethnicity, religion and the like. This book is intentionally taking a re-look at caste as ontology in a deeper level by taking recourse to the major mode of dehumanization that has systematically happened in this country by upholding tradition as sacred and thus cannot be challenged. Unlike the European enlightenment which was powerful enough to overthrow a cognitive method that was centered on religious considerations, Indian cultural and civic movements could not depose doctrinal claims based on caste and caste identities....

This volume is addressed to scholars as well as a popular audience, aimed to bridge the gap between academia and the general public. It deals with "who we are," concerning our sense of self and identity; and "how we live," concerning our ways of life in diverse cultures. It affirms that we may transcend our cultural-ethnic roots and redefine our identities, individual or collective. Transcendence opens the door not only to personal transformation but also to confront ethnic stereotypes and prejudices. Readers will gain fresh cultural knowledge from both the East and the West and be attuned to the theme of letting no ethnic group be alien to us.This book is at once about the immersion of life in culture and the remaking of culture by human action--reciprocal influence at work. The idea of i...

Midlife Mavericks chronicles a new trend--unmarried American and Canadian women building better lives for themselves in Mexico's beautiful colonial villages. Cozy up on a comfortable couch and share a margarita with successful women who have found an alternative to high-stress careers. Sip a glass of wine with empty-nesters seeking adventure and drink a glass of ice tea with retirees living in comfort on just their Social Security or disability income. You'll laugh and cry with these gutsy gringas as they journey from unfulfilled yearnings towards answers each woman must ultimately discover for herself. "Like the seafaring sirens, Midlife Mavericks, will lure reticent readers from their lukewarm existences into lives of discovery and purpose." Marilyn Davis, aut...

This book presents ten essays about environmental communication. Chapter one introduces the concept of environmental communication and the ways in which it was conceived, imagined, and developed as a form of interdisciplinary enquiry. Chapter two explores the concept of green communication and education for the sustainable development movement. Chapter three is concerned with one of the major underlying socio-cultural influences of the human/nature divide: that of anthropomorphic or anthropogenic reasoning. Chapter four takes an ecological view of economics and develops an argument for the place of economic intangibles in the modern political economy. Chapters five and six explore specialist aspects of environmental communication practices: Chapter five is concerned with the contexts of ps...

A non-profit executive, governmental employee, financial advisor, travel agent, student, fashion designer - what these gay men have in common is a knowledge of pain, obsession, despair, degradation, and finally freedom from the one element that connects their stories: crystal meth use. Dr. Ken Cimino reveals the intimate and horrifying nature of meth abuse and presents ten inspiring true life dramas of meth use and recovery in The Politics of Crystal Meth: Gay Men Share Personal Stories of Addiction and Recovery. In part one he illustrates the varied reasons why gay men use methamphetamines, from gay oppression to homophobia to building self esteem to HIV issues. In the second part of the book he shares ten personal and motivating stories of meth use and recovery. In The Politics of...

The originality of this book rests in the application of the human security framework to analyze sexual and gender-based violence in conflict. The human security paradigm is concerned and centered on the individual's security threats holistically and is inclusive of both men and women in its agenda. The author argues that making a balanced narrative of sexual violence that includes both men and women as both victims and perpetrators could be a more effective means of preventing conflict-related sexual violence than when men are excluded. Another positive feature of the book rests in its analysis of the plights of victims and survivors of sexual violence during conflict and post-conflict situations. The author describes the devastating emotional and traumatic pain, the psychological agony,...

Creating Relationship Wellness is a tool book to be used by couples who want to gain the skill of relationship wellness. Each chapter offers evidence-based, and therapist verified techniques to gain insight into yourself and your partners world. Creating Relationship Wellness offers skills-based interventions that draw upon the fields of mindfulness and behavioral psychology, both recognized as pathways to enrichment. Each segment of this text builds upon the previous in an effort to lead the reader toward a mastery of relationship wellness. Divorce, separation, or disconnection do not always need to be the solution, a new approach to your problems will empower your path to reconnection. Prepare to break down specific methods of mindfulness and apply them during each chapter’s exercise...

Working the Affect Shift explores the changing U.S. racial and political economic context of Latina working-class film and media images, and how Ethnic, Cultural, Film, and Feminist Studies have contributed to sociologically understanding them. We can rethink our orientation to so-called “stereotypes” by focusing on our forward-looking, positive neoliberal ideology as related to our "national forgetting of collective racial injury." Each film and media image analyzed herein offers an example of how the fraught relational matrices of race, class, gender, and sexual identities continue to shape national politics despite our national commitment (on the political Right and Left) to "multiculturalism." Using Latina service workers as examples, this volume offers ways to think productive...

Security is now a $500 billion global business, and it`s growing fast. It's developed from the night watchman keeping a sleepy eye out, to the guard patrolling the shopping mall, to smart surveillance systems monitoring everything, everywhere, all the time. This book explains: --how demand for security is generated by an alignment of interests between big business, insurance companies, the media, lawyers, politicians, and human nature; --how our response to terrorism is driven by fear rather than risk; --and how security has become a key feature of our lives at home, on-line, at work, when shopping, and when flying. This is a panoramic view from an industry insider who describes why the more security we have, the more we want. And crucial question emerges, as securit...

Everything on earth revolves around people. Your success or your failure revolves around people. Those who have made the most out of their life understood the key and secret of using people. Now think about the top billionaires around the world, the keyword empowering their success story is people. In politics, think about our world leaders, they are nothing without people. This book is an in-depth study of people and how they can be used to achieve anything. I personally share my success story in this manuscript of how I used seven kinds of people to make millions. If you are in politics, trying to win an election, or you are in a university trying to make good grades, or even in business trying to succeed, then this book is for you. This book exposes the core categories of peop...

This book is a collection of skeptical social essays in which the author reveals that much of our popular beliefs, psychology and science are defective, because, although we live in the 21st century, our approach to them is deeply rooted in our culture, and biased by history and evolution. These essays help the reader take a step sideways, think independently, and not fall victim to fads, fakes, and frauds. Anyone who values a deeper understanding of contemporary social reality and the changes taking place in it should read this book--from students to scientists and intellectuals. Through these essays we learn to look under the veneer of reality, behind the altars of science, under the scenery of pop-psychology and behind the facade of therapeutic culture. Thanks to essays on suicide...

Currents of Thought in African Sociology and the Global Community focuses on research findings further enriched in the realm of the emergent, indigenous African sociology within a global context. An authentic guide, it has potential to expose readers to the intricacy of research in its various ramifications. Its uniqueness consists in casting, in an explanatory framework, what each of the subdisciplines of sociology is all about, while simultaneously discussing the theoretical and methodological orientations in which the accompanying research findings are situated. The transition of sociology in Africa, inextricably tied in with global dimension, is its major theme. And discussion questions/exercises and essays at the end of each chapter constitute a stimulating teaching tool. Its theore...

Depression is prevalent throughout western society. But while identifying "risk factors," we rarely make the link to the liberal value system which so shapes the society in which we live. Freedom; equality; progress; respect for the "individual." What's wrong with liberalism? As residents of western liberal democracies, aren't we living in the type of society most conducive to happiness? Intellectually, we like to think so. We intone the liberal mantra "rationality defines a person," "my life is up to me," "liberalism is the best there is." But there are parts of ourselves that suspect otherwise, and that remain unconvinced. We become symptomatic. This book challenges individualist readings of depression which are still so dominant in western societies. This is in professional circles an...

Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection: Social, Emotional, and Educational Contexts draws on research to offer a global perspective on issues of fundamental importance to family functioning, childhood development, and adult intimate relationships, as well as to policy and practice for children, adolescents, couples, and families at risk. It draws on the perspectives of major social science disciplines such as clinical and educational psychology, anthropology, psychology, special education, and sociology, thus ensuring topics are discussed within broad theoretical frameworks. The authors cover a wide spectrum of questions and topics in relation to perceived acceptance and rejection by significant others. Chapters are set in the context of worldwide trends in the area of interpersonal accept...

This study shall explore the social and political significance of the so-called kyureki, the Japanese lunisolar calendar that was abolished by the Meiji government in 1872. This calendar was the principal method of timekeeping in Japan from 604 to 1872, but has received little attention from English speaking scholars. This study argues that the study of the lunisolar calendar is essential to gaining a comprehensive understanding of pre-Meiji society and political history. Chapter 1 uses a detailed analysis of an actual lunisolar calendar coupled with passages from pre-Meiji historical and literary texts to show that the lunisolar calendar reflects the value pre-Meiji society placed on minute seasonal changes, the phases of the moon, and divination controlled by various directional deities...

Internationally adopted persons confront multiple challenges in constructing their identities. This study of the narrative burden of self looks at and interprets the dynamic process in which internationally adopted people develop, coordinate and manage their sense of self, identity and cultural/racial personhood. Drawing on the theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), the study focuses on their use of orphaning and adoption stories to most skillfully position and tell one's origin story in concert with one's internal sense of self, and the pressures and forces found in interpersonal and intercultural dialogue. The research reveals how internationally adopted people develop and demonstrate varying levels of game mastery in managing societal scripts and oppressive frames of st...

This thesis analyses how and why culture and geography influence the allocation and licensing of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum in different nations. Based on a broad comparative study of 235 countries, an inter-disciplinary approach is used to explore regulatory frameworks and attitudes toward risk. In addition, detailed case studies of the UK, France, the US and Ecuador provide deeper insights into the main contrasting regulatory styles. Three alternative sociological theories are used to analyse and explain the results for both the in-depth and broad brush studies. The Cultural Theory of Mary Douglas and co-workers is first used to categorise countries in terms of perceptual filters. The empirical findings indicate some countries to be apparently exceptional in their behaviour. Th...

In recent years there has been a clear rise in scientific collaboration, as well as in studies on the subject. While most scholars examine disciplines traditionally known to be collaborative, such as physics and space research, this book focuses on biology. It investigates the growing collaboration in the life sciences, or the emergence of what is called 'big biology'. While the Human Genome Project is often presented as the first large-scale research project in biology, cooperation in the life sciences has a longer history. A comparison between centralised 'big physics' and 'big biology' reveals how the latter has a networked structure, which evolved in interaction with the integration of information and communication technologies. By concentrating on the construction of these networks, t...

Organization development activities intervene in the interactions of human resource systems, such as formal and informal groups, work culture and climate, and organization design to increase their effectiveness using a variety of applied behavioral sciences. Organizational development is an ongoing, systematic process to implement effective change in an organization. Organizational development is known as both a field of applied behavioral science focused on understanding and managing organizational change and as a field of scientific study and inquiry. This peer-reviewed International Journal of Strategic Organization and Behavioural Science (IJSOBS) ISSN 0974-3464 is interdisciplinary in nature and draws on sociology, psychology, and theories of motivation, learning, and personality and ...

Scientometrics--the quantitative study of scientific communication--challenges science and technology studies by demonstrating that organized knowledge production and control is amenable to measurement. First, the various dimensions of the empirical study of the sciences are clarified in a methodological analysis of theoretical traditions, including the sociology of scientific knowledge and neo-conventionalism in the philosophy of science. Second, the author argues why the mathematical theory of communication enables us to address crucial problems in science and technology studies, both on the qualitative side (e.g., the significance of a reconstruction) and on the quantitative side (e.g., the prediction of indicators). A comprehensive set of probabilistic entropy measures for stu...