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This book includes a comprehensive survey of the theories and principles employed by sociologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists in the study of sociocultural change. Employing these tools, the later chapters examine the major trends and challenges that face today's rapidly globalizing world. Students are asked to consider how they can participate actively in shaping the events that affect their lives. Among the book's pedagogical features are well over one hundred Web sites, organized by chapter and topic, which connect the text with contemporary events and commentary. Visit our website for sample chapters!
Today, surveillance and regulation of employees are pervasive at all levels (except the highest) in a wide variety of American workplaces. Digital information systems have become important tools of managerial control. The constraints built into these systems by so-called "business process reengineering" are a continuation of scientific management principles developed during the late 19th century. Additional means of control have included employment-based "welfare capitalism," and human relations and corporate culture approaches. This book provides fresh insight into various practices of managerial control from the 1880s to the present and their effects on work organization and quality, and worker skill requirements. The author highlights current developments--including those focused on highly skilled knowledge workers--accounting for enhanced automation, offshoring and related changes in the production and distribution of goods and services.
Innovation is an oft-heard buzzword in both public and private sectors concerned with the organisation and delivery of services to vulnerable individuals. This thoughtful volume explores what innovation might actually involve in the context of contemporary human services. Highlighting both the importance and utility of innovation but also promoting a more reflective approach, the book distinguishes between innovation and improvement and discusses the relevant differences between private sector, public sector and non-profit organisations. It looks at how innovation is often as much a result of the power relations between the involved actors, and the structural context, as a result of popularl...
Globalization is in retreat, but history tells us that this is but a temporary reversal. Globalization will return, but in what form? More cycles of boom and bust? Or can globalization be rebuilt on a more feasible and sustainable platform? These are the compelling questions that Michael Veseth tackles in this thoroughly revised and updated edition of his award-winning book. Veseth shows how pre-crash visions of globalization were based on three powerful myths: that global finance was a stable foundation for a global economy, that global markets homogenized and Americanized the world, and that globalization itself was irresistible—impossible to shape or oppose at any level from the grassroots on up. The world economic crisis has revealed globalization's Achilles heel: the fundamental instability of global financial markets and the unsettled foundation of economic globalization generally. This realization is a necessary first step, but it alone is not enough. We must rethink the rest of globalization's myths, Veseth persuasively argues, if we want to move beyond boom and bust to a sustainable global future.
Historically, few topics have attracted as much scholarly, professional, or popular attention as food and eating--as one might expect, considering the fundamental role of food in basic human survival. Almost daily, a new food documentary, cooking show, diet program, food guru, or eating movement arises to challenge yesterday's dietary truths and the ways we think about dining. This work brings together voices from a wide range of disciplines, providing a fascinating feast of scholarly perspectives on food and eating practices, contemporary and historic, local and global. Nineteen essays cover a vast array of food-related topics, including the ever-increasing problems of agricultural globalization, the contemporary mass-marketing of a formerly grassroots movement for organic food production, the Food Network's successful mediation of social class, the widely popular phenomenon of professional competitive eating and current trends in "culinary tourism" and fast food advertising. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
What are the obligations of the university to society and its communities? What are the virtues of university education? What are the university's ethical responsibilities to its students? The role of citizenship and civic responsibility in higher education is a highly contested yet crucial element of any consideration of the role of university in society. This book offers thoughtful insights into this role, outlining the intellectual and practical tensions and pressures which come to bear upon higher education institutions. Wide ranging in scope, it offers perspectives from British, European, Canadian and North American educational environments. Citizenship and Higher Education will prove stimulating reading for anyone concerned with the ethics of education and the university's place in society - including educationalists, researchers, sociologists and policy-makers.
Discipleship is one of the key words used in the churches today and there are many initiatives in the mainstream churches to enable people to grow as disciples of Christ.
Many contemporary issues cannot be readily or fully understood at the level of the nation state and the concept of globalization is used to develop understanding through the analysis of global (transnational) processes. This volume explores the phenomenon of Americanization, and its worldwide impact, and the cultural consequences of globalization.
Annotation "Religion and Global Culture draws together the work of a group of historians of religion whose concern is situating the contemporary study of religion within the cultural complexity of the modern world. Each of the volume's contributors has independently explored the implications of the work of leading historian of religion, Charles H. Long, who has located religion in the contacts and exchanges of the colonial and post-colonial periods. Together with Long, these scholars consider phenomena ranging from hierophanies of water in Tokyp and the civil and ritual activities of African Immigrant communities in the United States to the philosophy of Sankara and the regional reprecussions of multinational business. They invite a reconfiguration of the study of religion by localizing religion itself in the conflicted and cooperative relationships of the colonial and post-colonial periods."
This edited collection brings together a robust range of philosophers who offer theoretically and critically informed proposals regarding the aims, policies, and structures of the university. The collection fills a major gap in the landscape of higher education theory and practice while concurrently reviving a long and often forgotten discourse within the discipline of philosophy. It includes philosophers from across the globe representing disparate philosophical schools, as well as various career stages, statuses, and standpoints within the university. There is also a diversity in method, approach and style, which varies from personal narratives and case studies, to philosophical genealogies, to traditional philosophical essays, and to systematic theories. The collection can serve as a theoretical resource for critically minded administrators and faculty who wish to analyze and change policies and structures at their home institutions. It will introduce them to a wide range of possible educational imaginaries, as well as provide them with productive suggestions for pragmatic change on campuses.