The definitive analysis of how the presence of women politicians affects young people.From Kamala Harris to Nikki Haley, women in public life are widely expected to inspire young people, especially girls, to follow in their footsteps. See Jane Run provides the definitive analysis of women politicians as role models. With wide-ranging data and attention to gender, race, and party, David E. Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht find that women in politics help co...

American society is rapidly secularizing–a radical departure from its historically high level of religiosity–and politics is a big part of the reason. Just as, forty years ago, the Religious Right arose as a new political movement, today secularism is gaining traction as a distinct and politically energized identity. This book examines the political causes and political consequences of this secular surge, drawing on a wealth of original data. The authors show that secular identity is in pa...

American Grace is a major achievement, a groundbreaking examination of religion in America.Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation’s religious landscape has been reshaped.America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced...

Mormons have long had an outsized presence in American culture and politics, but they remain largely unknown to most Americans. Recent years have seen the political prominence of Mormons taken to a new level - including the presidential candidacy of Republican Mitt Romney, the prominent involvement of Mormons in the campaign for California's Proposition 8 (anti-gay marriage), and the ascendancy of Democrat Harry Reid to the position of Senate Majority Leader. This book provides the most th...

Zoe’s Fright NightBy: David E. Campbell Zoe the Firefly is afraid of the dark. In the big backyard, many things seem like monsters to Zoe’s imagination. But when she looks just a little bit closer, she realizes there’s nothing to be scared of. There is nothing in the dark that is not there during the day. About the AuthorDavid E. Campbell came up with Zoe to help his children. He hopes Zoe comforts all children at bedtime.

"By nearly every measure, Americans are less engaged in their communities and political activity than generations past.” So write the editors of this volume, who survey the current practices and history of citizenship education in the United States.They argue that the current period of “creative destruction”—when schools are closing and opening in response to reform mandates—is an ideal time to take an in-depth look at how successful strategies and programs promote...

Why do more people vote--or get involved in other civic and political activities--in some communities than in others? Why We Vote demonstrates that our communities shape our civic and political engagement, and that schools are especially significant communities for fostering strong civic norms.Much of the research on political participation has found that levels of participation are higher in diverse communities where issues important to voters are hotly contested. In this...

American Grace takes its findings from two of the largest, most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America, plus in-depth studies of diverse congregations—among them a megachurch, a Mormon congregation, a Catholic parish, a reform Jewish synagogue, and an African American congregation.From abortion to gay marriage to feminism, this book shows how religion has influenced politics in America—and vice versa. The discoveries are often unexpecte...

Having earned a Scotiabank Giller Prize for her poignant novel Late Nights on Air, best-selling author Elizabeth Hay further enhances her literary legacy with another complex, captivating drama, Alone in the Classroom. Set in Saskatchewan and the Ottawa Valley, this finely honed tale begins in 1929 with a small-town school teacher helping an underprivileged child learn to read-all under the watchful eye of the school's domineering, enigmatic principal. From there, the story takes listeners...

Disciplining the Poor explains the transformation of poverty governance over the past forty years—why it happened, how it works today, and how it affects people. In the process, it clarifies the central role of race in this transformation and develops a more precise account of how race shapes poverty governance in the post–civil rights era. Connecting welfare reform to other policy developments, the authors analyze diverse forms of data to explicate the racialized origins, operati...

A powerful, thought-provoking and always lively examination of how American Christianity has badly lost its way—with most of what goes by the name of Christianity today being one or another type of heresy—by the youngest writer ever appointed as editorial columnist for The New York Times.In a world populated by “pray and grow rich” gospels and Christian cults of self-esteem, Ross Douthat argues that America’s problem isn’t too much religion; nor is it into...

A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases.