In a time of divisive headlines, it's vital for students to learn the many ways diversity makes the world a better place. With this volume, students will be encouraged to celebrate the many different cultures of the globe. They will learn to understand concepts like intersectionality and discrimination, and how these concepts affect them and their friends. Young readers will learn why it is important to respect everyone no matter how different they may seem. The narrative simplifies complex ideas, making them accessible to students and showing them that when we celebrate our differences, the world becomes a friendlier place.
This book examines very important issues in research evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities. It is based on recent experiences carried out in Italy (2011-2015) in the fields of research assessment, peer review, journal classification, and construction of indicators, and presents a systematic review of theoretical issues influencing the evaluation of Social Sciences and Humanities. Several chapters analyse original data made available through research assessment exercises. Other chapters are the result of dedicated and independent research carried out in 2014-2015 aimed at addressing some of the debated and open issues, for example in the evaluation of books, the use of Library Catalog Analysis or Google Scholar, the definition of research quality criteria on internationalization, as well as opening the way to innovative indicators. The book is therefore a timely and important contribution to the international debate.
This open access book advocates for the Social Sciences and Humanities to be more involved in energy policymaking. It forms part of the European platform for energy-related Social Sciences and Humanities’ activities, and works on the premise that crossing disciplines is essential. All of its contributions are highly interdisciplinary, with each chapter grounded in at least three different Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines. These varying perspectives come together to cover an array of issues relevant to the energy transition, including: energy poverty, justice, political ecology, governance, behaviours, imaginaries, systems approaches, modelling, as well as the particular challenges faced by interdisciplinary work. As a whole, the book presents new ideas for future energy policy, particularly at the European level. It is a valuable resource for energy researchers interested in interdisciplinary and society-relevant perspectives. Those working outside the Social Sciences and Humanities will find this book an accessible way of learning more about how these subjects can constructively contribute to energy policy.
Media and Information Literacy: An Integrated Approach for the 21st Century provides a novel rationale for the integration of media and information literacy and gives direction to contemporary media and information literacy education. The book takes a synthetic approach to these two areas, presenting critical histories of both. The book explores the influence of political forces and educational practice on media literacy and the contemporary media environment, focusing on computing and mobile technology as a platform for existing and non-computational media. The final section considers a new rationale for the adjustment of content and activities into a combined project, building on a range of skills from contemporary media, reconsidering the mission of media literacy, and advocating that media and information literacy be expanded out of the classroom and positioned as a 'public pedagogy'. - Proposes a new route direction for media and information literacy - Combines critical histories of media literacy and information literacy - Integrates an account of technological development as a key driver to educational activities while retaining core progressive intents - International in scope with recognition of international agencies, such as UNESCO and the UN
The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society? Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including: identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved. This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research.
Library and Information Studies for Arctic Social Sciences and Humanities serves as a key interdisciplinary title that links the social sciences and humanities with current issues, trends, and projects in library, archival, and information sciences within shared Arctic frameworks and geographies. Including contributions from professionals and academics working across and on the Arctic, the book presents recent research, theoretical inquiry, and applied professional endeavours at academic and public libraries, as well as archives, museums, government institutions, and other organisations. Focusing on efforts that further Arctic knowledge and research, papers present local, regional, and institutional case studies to conceptually and empirically describe real-life research in which the authors are engaged. Topics covered include the complexities of developing and managing multilingual resources; working in geographically isolated areas; curating combinations of local, regional, national, and international content collections; and understanding historical and contemporary colonial-industrial influences in indigenous knowledge. Library and Information Studies for Arctic Social Sciences and Humanities will be essential reading for academics, researchers, and students working the fields of library, archival, and information or data science, as well as those working in the humanities and social sciences more generally. It should also be of great interest to librarians, archivists, curators, and information or data professionals around the globe.
In Professional Academic Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Susan Peck MacDonald tackles important and often controversial contemporary questions regarding the rhetoric of inquiry, the social construction of knowledge, and the professionalization of the academy. MacDonald argues that the academy has devoted more effort to analyzing theory and method than to analyzing its own texts. Professional texts need further attention because they not only create but are also shaped by the knowledge that is special to each discipline. Her assumption is that knowledge-making is the distinctive activity of the academy at the professional level; for that reason, it is important to examine differences in the ways the professional texts of subdisciplinary communities focus on and consolidate knowledge within their fields. Throughout the book, MacDonald stresses her conviction that academics need to do a better job of explaining their text-making axioms, clarifying their expectations of students at all levels, and monitoring their own professional practices. MacDonald’s proposals for both textual and sentence-level analysis will help academic professionals better understand how they might improve communication within their professional communities and with their students.
The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism that has been passed on the European approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; criticism of European social sciences by “subaltern” social sciences, their “talking back”, has become a frequent line of reflection in European social sciences. The re-labelling of the critique of the European approach to social sciences towards a critique from “Southern” social sciences of “Western” social sciences has somehow turned “Southern” as well as “Western” social sciences into competing contributors to the same “globalizing” social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe prevails. If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are very adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences; or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the “Western” as in the “Southern” discourse.
