This handbook presents a wide range of research on adults who have low literacy skills. It looks at the cognitive, affective, and motivational factors underlying adult literacy; adult literacy in different countries; and the educational approaches being taken to help improve adults' literacy skills. It includes not only adults enrolled in adult…

The economic boom of the 1990s veiled a grim reality: in addition to the growing gap between rich and poor, the gap between good and bad quality jobs was also expanding. The postwar prosperity of the mid-twentieth century had enabled millions of American workers to join the middle class, but as author Arne L. Kalleberg shows, by the 1970s this…

Higher education in the U.S. has traditionally prepared students for work and social success, but with families, work, and society itself undergoing revolutionary change, is this preparation sufficient to develop the 21st-century workforce? This book explores how evolving family structures, new ways of balancing work and personal lives, and rapid…

The chapters in this volume give an account of the process of modernisation and educational reform in Russia, variously considering the cultural and political dilemmas provoked by democratisation, the structural and policy challenges associated with the reform of higher and vocational education, and the deep divisions exposed as socio-cultural…

Learning is a changing phenomenon, depending on the advances in theory and research. This book presents a relatively new approach to learning, based on meaningful human activities in cultural practices and in collaboration with others. It draws extensively from the ideas of Lev Vygotsky and his recent followers. The book presents ideas that…

This book attempts to shed light on the seemingly contradictory aspects of Japanese behavior. Separate chapters, grounded in interaction-oriented social scientific theory, focus on the themes of social relativism, belongingness, empathy, dependency, occupying the proper place, reciprocity, situational interaction, early socialization, selfhood,…

An examination of social scientists' views on educational policy and practice over the last two decades may be useful to current reform efforts. Part one of this book reviews major social changes that have affected education during the past 20 years and that remain critically important today. Part two consists of papers by scholars who assess the…

Professionals in the field of social work are becoming increasingly aware of ethnic factors in their work and of the particular problems and requirements of ethnic minority clients. This book was written for students and practitioners who want to prepare for effective social work practice with black clients. The concept of "empowerment" is…

This volume is a cross-disciplinary analysis of the modern Olympic Games based on research in the social sciences and humanities. The focus is academic and scholarly, and the volume includes original theoretical and empirical research on various aspects of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement. This volume attempts to: (1) investigate the…

Essays on feminism, theory, and education are offered in this anthology, which examines the roles of women as active agents of change, as conservators actively resisting change, or as objects of change. Seventeen chapters focus on the relationship between gender and the politics of knowledge, analyze varied situational contexts of women's…

This book of essays addresses changes in the U.S. social scene by examining the roots of change in history. The present is pregnant with many futures and citizens cannot afford to live from an intellectually simple, ahistorical stance. The book contains 12 chapters, including: (1) "Introduction: The Past in the Present"; (2) "The Coalescing of…

This book examines how boarding schools have influenced their societal contexts. It shows that the view of boarding schools as agencies stabilizing or conserving social status and cultural traditions is not always valid. On the contrary, boarding schools may be educationally integrative and socially innovative, breaking up social structures by…

This anthology is an introduction to the sociocultural study of sport for those in physical education, sociology, anthropology, or any other study of human behavior in the social process. Part I provides a cultural framework, a series of definitions, and some understandings of the cultural setting of sport in American society as an orientation to…

Most contemporary social and political discourse in the United States takes place within a particular framework of assumptions. The rise of mass media, mass politics, and massive government means that an elite group of articulate people have great leverage in determining the course of the whole society. This book examines the vision of the…

Many current social and political developments, such as no-fault divorce and voluntary single motherhood, have systematically eroded the father's role in American family life. In the face of these and other challenges to the traditional concept of fatherhood, an essential question is raised: Why would an American man still want to be a social…