Changlin Zhang provides a scientific basis for the success behind alternative therapies such as acupuncture, qigong, Ayurveda, and other traditional therapies in an illuminating discussion that explains the efficacy of these approaches in treating a number of chronic conditions. Underlining how public perception of acupuncture has shifted over the last few decades from one of skepticism to one of acceptance, he explores the progression of acupuncture research from its unsuccessful beginnin...

This collection is concerned with two fundamental concepts of social science– power and emotion. Power permeates all human relationships and is constitutive of social, economic, and political life. It stands at the centre of social and political theorizing, and its study has enriched scholarship within a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, political science, philosophy, and anthropology. The conceptual cluster of emotion, by contrast, had a more troubled time within these same ...

Sociology: A Complete Introduction is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear, jargon-free English and providing added-value features like summaries of key experiments and even lists of questions you might be asked in your seminar or exam.The text is split into four parts, with an emphasis throughout on understanding and treating all concepts ...

This book brings together key themes in Childhood Studies to provide an accessible yet scholarly introduction for students and practitioners.

Social justice: an ideal, forever beyond our grasp; or one of many practical possibilities? More than a matter of intellectual discourse, the idea of justice plays a real role in how - and how well - people live. And in this book the distinguished scholar Amartya Sen offers a powerful critique of the theory of social justice that, in its grip on social and political thinking, has long left practical realities far behind.

Community is a central idea in urban studies but remains conceptually vague and empirically difficult to work with. Building on existing theories of community, Talja Blokland offers an important contribution to defining and understanding this key theme.Blokland argues that there has been too much focus on community as a stable construct, formed by durable relationships with kin, friends, social groups or neighbours. She draws attention to the non-durable, fluid encounters that cons...

The widespread use of the measurement of educational outcomes in order to compare the performance of education within and across countries seems to express a real concern for the quality of education. This book argues that the focus on the measurement of educational outcomes has actually displaced questions about educational purpose. Biesta explores why the question as to what constitutes good education has become so much more difficult to ask and shows why this has been detrimental for th...

This volume brings together key writings since the 1992 publication of Linguistic Imperialism – Robert Phillipson’s controversial benchmark volume, which triggered a major re-thinking of the English teaching profession by connecting the field to wider political and economic forces. Analyzing how the global dominance of English in all domains of power is maintained, legitimized and persists in the twenty-first century, Linguistic Imperialism Continued reflects and contribu...

The literature on governmentality has had a major impact across the social sciences over the past decade, and much of this has drawn upon the pioneering work by Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose. This volume will bring together key papers from their work for the first time, including those that set out the basic frameworks, concepts and ethos of this approach to the analysis of political power and the state, and others that analyse specific domains of the conduct of conduct, from marketing to ...

This concise encyclopedia is the most complete international survey of sociology ever created in one volume.Contains over 800 entries from the whole breadth of the disciplineDistilled from the highly regarded Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, with entries completely revised and updated to provide succinct and up-to-date coverage of the fundamental topicsGlobal in scope, both in terms of topics and contributorsEach entry includes references and...

Arguing that policy has become an increasingly central concept and instrument in the organisation of contemporary societies and that it now impinges on all areas of life so that it is virtually impossible to ignore or escape its influence, this book argues that the study of policy leads straight into issues at the heart of anthropology.

Socio-legal researchers increasingly recognise the need to employ a wide variety of methods in studying law and legal phenomena, and the need to be informed by an understanding of debates about theory and method in mainstream social science. The papers in this volume illustrate how a range of topics, including EU law, ombudsmen, judges, lawyers, Shariah Councils and the quality assurance industry can be researched from a socio-legal perspective. The objective of the collection is to show h...