Until recently, race relations research has been an understudied and stigmatized area of the social sciences. This volume traces its emergence as a central topic, highlighting the major milestones that established it as a legitimate research domain. The contributors, key figures in the post-war development of United States race research, relate their own experiences with race and racism and the developing interest in the understanding of race as a social force, giving the reader an insider's view of the field.
What quality control methods can be used most effectively to structure and monitor interviews and convert refusals? What telephone numbers should be used in random digit dialling? How can eligible respondents be chosen and their cooperation secured? Addressing these and other survey issues, this book offers researchers a guide to thinking about and executing telephone surveys from generating phone numbers to structuring the work of interviewers and supervisors. New to this edition are a focus on the total survey error concept, a comparison of CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviews) with PAPI (paper and pencil inventory) procedures, mixed-mode surveys and new telecommunication technologies. In addition, the book covers such topics as how to control the sampling pool, how to identify appropriate respondents and how to improve on-the-job training of interviewers.
While there is an evident trend towards increasing legal responses to wife assault in North America, any change that has occurred has met with controversy, and the challenge remains to improve the circumstances of battered women. This book offers in-depth coverage of four major themes that address this issue: the historical framework of legal responses to wife assault; police attitudes and action; prosecution, mediation and treatment within the court system; and victims as defendants and participants in the legal system. Each chapter examines past and present policies of a specific branch of the legal system, and discusses their merits and demerits.
While much has been written on alternative paradigm research, there is little concrete advice on how to effectively use the theoretical notions of naturalistic inquiry in practice. Doing Naturalistic Inquiry is the practical guide designed to help beginning researchers apply the constructivist paradigm. Based upon the theoretical work of Lincoln and Guba in developing the naturalistic-or constructivist--paradigm, Erlandson and his colleagues show readers how these ideas shape the practice of conducting alternative paradigm research. The book covers the research process from design through data collection analysis and presentation and examines important issues generally minimized in positivist research texts ethics, trustworthiness, and authenticity. Cases from a wide variety of disciplines demonstrate the efficacy of the methods described. Doing Naturalistic Inquiry is a highly useful teaching tool for anyone using a constructivist lens on research.
This introductory textbook presents psychological and sociological perspectives on the family and explores the links between the family and social policy. The focus is on issues which bring the family into contact with the welfare state - such as domestic violence, child abuse, mental health, old age, poverty, juvenile delinquency and homelessness. The book highlights the different forms of regulation and intervention that "the family' can be subejct to, and how theoretical and ideological models of the "family" are use to explain a wide range of "problems" and inform professional interventions.
Rape is probably the most misunderstood of violent crimes. The dynamics related to both rapists and rape victims are explored in this volume, which dispels many mistaken beliefs about rape by synthesizing current research from a psychological perspective. Among the topics explored are: that only a very small proportion of rapists are ever convicted; that when an accusation of rape is made, it is the victim who too often becomes the focus of attention; and that while the stereotype of the rapist as a madman, a stranger to the victim, is still prevalent, most rapes are committed by someone known to the victim.
This is the first volume on social support from a nursing perspective. The author documents nursing's contribution to the field and analyzes current conceptual controversies. She emphasizes the necessity for a social support based framework and proposes a psychosocial model of health care delivery that incorporates environment, nursing and health and that regards patients as partners, families as allies.
How do organizations such as universities, television and radio networks, advertising agencies, voluntary groups, community and government agencies collaborate to make a successful campaign? How do organizational dynamics or structures influence campaign outcomes? This book explores these questions by bringing together campaign experts and leading management scientists to investigate the organizational dimensions of some of the most high-profile health campaigns in the United States.
The purpose of this book is to examine the scale and significance of the local dimensions of these developments and the implications for central government complementing the existing literature, which focuses almost entirely on the overall national picture. It contains a set of ten original studies which demonstrate the existence of marked geographical variations in population profiles and trends and highlight the main implications and responses. The focus is primarily on those policy areas where there needs to be a local-scale mechanism for decision-making and implementation, such as education, labour recruitment, housebuilding needs, social services and health care.
