Many in higher education fear that the humanities are facing a crisis. But even if the rhetoric about “crisis” is overblown, humanities departments do face increasing pressure from administrators, politicians, parents, and students. In A New Deal for the Humanities, Gordon Hutner and Feisal G. Mohamed bring together twelve prominent scholars who address the history, the present state, and the future direction of the humanities. These scholars keep the focus on public high...

An indictment of the American educational system criticizes the fact that the system has discarded the traditional goals of transmitting knowledge and fostering cognitive skills in favor of building self-esteem and promoting social harmony.

We live in an age dominated by the cult of efficiency. Efficiency in the raging debate about public goods is often used as a code word to advance political agendas. When it is used correctly, efficiency is important: it must always be part of the conversation when resources are scarce and citizens and governments have important choices to make among competing priorities.Even when the language of efficiency is used carefully, that language alone is not enough. Unilingualism will not...

Long a fruitful area of scrutiny for students of organizations, the study of institutions is undergoing a renaissance in contemporary social science. This volume offers, for the first time, both often-cited foundation works and the latest writings of scholars associated with the "institutional" approach to organization analysis.In their introduction, the editors discuss points of convergence and disagreement with institutionally oriented research in economics and political science,...

Veteran journalist Naomi Shaefer Riley contends that tenure—the jobs-for-life entitlement that comes with a university position—is at the heart of so many problems with higher education today. She explores how tenure—with the job security, mediocre salaries, and low levels of accountability it entails—may be attracting the least innovative and interesting members of our society into teaching.

"Crisp and illuminating . . . well worth reading."—Wall Street JournalThe publication of The Marketplace of Ideas has precipitated a lively debate about the future of the American university system: what makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects are required? Why are so many academics against the concept of interdisciplinary studies? From his position at the heart of academe, Harvard professor Louis Menand thinks he's found the answer...

Make the Right Choice - Enhance Your Ethical Decision Making Skills Today!Ethical issues arise in all walks of life, but none have implications as far-reaching and serious as those related to public management. Most people working in the public sector want to do the "right" thing, but the issues can be highly complex or just not lend themselves to easy answers. Practical Ethics in Public Administration, Third Edition, provides the ...

John W. Budd's The Thought of Work provides a much needed and highly eloquent statement of the meanings and orientations to work across time and nations. It is essential reading for students of work from senior scholars to beginning undergraduates.— Randy Hodson, Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences The Ohio State University and past editor ― American Sociological ReviewBy drawing explicit attention to diverse, implici...

Eliot Freidson has written the first systematic account of professionalism as a method of organizing work. In ideal-typical professionalism, specialized workers control their own work, while in the free market consumers are in command, and in bureaucracy managers dominate. Freidson shows how each method has its own logic requiring different kinds of knowledge, organization, career, education and ideology. He also discusses how historic and national variations in state policy, professional ...

Compared to much of the rest of the world, America and its citizens are rich. But many people are also deeply miserable—at work, at home, or both. In this provocative book, author John Brueggemann unpacks why so many people are struggling, both emotionally and financially, in a nation that looks so prosperous on the surface. From a hospital patient reduced to a balance sheet to a parent working such long hours that he misses dinner, Brueggemann argues that market thinking has permeated eve...

How public affairs are run depends upon the degree of authority and control central government decides to relinquish to regional and local governments, and the extent to which it favors citizen involvement in the governing process. Public administrators do not operate in a vacuum. The context within which decision-making takes place greatly influences public administrators approach to public issues. Consequently, what government decides to do and how it decides to carry it out affects the ...

The extensively revised and updated second edition combines carefully chosen primary quotes with wide-ranging discussion and everyday illustrative examples to provide an in-depth introduction to classical and contemporary sociological theory.Combines classical and contemporary theory in a single, integrated textShort biographies and historical timelines of significant events provide context to theorists' ideasInnovatively builds on excerpts from original t...