Research data are everywhere. In our everyday interactions, through social media, credit cards and even public transport, we generate and use data. The challenge for sociologists is how to collect, analyse and make best use of these vast arrays of information.The chapters in this book address these challenges using varied perspectives and approaches:The economics of big data and measuring the trajectories of recently arrived communitiesSocial media and soc...

Planet Petalbeet is being attacked by pests, and the beetbugs are losing their food source. When Space Agent Star Girl is sent to investigate with two other agents, she discovers the beetbugs aren't the only ones with a pest problem. Can the agents work together to save the planet and its alien beetbugs?

New Girl: Planet Polare's ice is melting, and now the alien life forms are in danger. When Star Girl is sent to investigate, she discovers that not all dangers come from hairy aliens or strange planets. Odd One Out: Planet Plantagan's air is being polluted, and the vine aliens are suffering. When the space cadets investigate, they’ll get themselves into a one big tangle. Winning Moves: An underwater world is being poisoned and the aquamantas are getting sick. Star Girl is eager to help, bu...

The primary objective of this book is to introduce students to the concepts underlying qualitative research and how this kind of research can be conducted in a practical manner. Thus, it discusses various approaches to qualitative research and provides examples of these approaches being carried out in practice. In doing so, the book shows how various disciplines all use qualitative research in order to discover answers to their own particular research questions. The various chapters presen...

Building on the success of the previous two editions, this book provides students with an exemplary overview of the theory and practice of public policy implementation and how it relates to contemporary public management. In doing so, this new edition makes use of more illustrative examples, delves further into researching implementation and explores issues about the relationship between policy formulation and implementation in greater depth.Written for an international audience, t...

"An excellent text for encouraging students to think critically about key public relations issues. Not only does it help students to develop a deeper appreciation of public relations, it also helps them to develop valuable learning skills."- Amanda Coady, The Hague University"A typically excellent piece of work from Jacquie L′Etang. Critical of every basic concept and provocative to all students. Ideal for second and final year undergraduates, plus ...

As adults, we are all continually involved in learning, with increasing numbers of us engaged in more formalized forms of learning; that is, in education or training. All those involved in the broad field of adult education and training will come into contact with many specialist ideas or concepts. It is often assumed of students that they already have a general understanding of these concepts, their meanings, applicability and inter-relationships. This is not always the case. This book ex...

Gender, Identity and the Culture of Organizations considers how organizations operate as spaces in which minds are gendered and men and women constructed. This edited collection brings together four powerful themes that have developed within the field of organizational analysis over the past two decades: organizational culture; the gendering of organizations; post-modernism and organizational analysis; and critical approaches to management. A range of essays by distinguished write...

Doing Development Research is a comprehensive introduction to research in development studies, that provides thorough training for anyone carrying out research in developing countries. It brings together experts with extensive experience of overseas research, presenting an interdisciplinary guide to the core methodologies.Informed by years of research experience, Doing Development Research draws together many strands of action research and particip...

Participatory design is about the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the technologies they use. Its central concern is how collaborative design processes can be driven by the participation of the people affected by the technology designed. Embracing a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses, and social institutions more responsive to human needs, the International Handbook of Participatory Design is...

Public services touch the majority of people in advanced and developing economies on a daily basis: children require schooling, the elderly need personal care and assistance, rubbish needs collecting, water must be safe to drink and the streets need policing. In short, there is practically no area of our lives that isn't touched in some way by public services. As such, knowledge about strategies to improve their performance is central to the good of society. In this book, a group of leadin...

Just as newspapers do not, typically, engage with the ordinary experiences of people′s daily lives, so organizational studies has also tended largely to ignore the humdrum, everyday experiences of people working in organizations. However, ethnographic approaches provide in-depth and up-close understandings of how the ′everyday-ness′ of work is organized and how, in turn, work itself organizes people and the societies they inhabit.Organizational Ethnography brings contributions from...