First published in 1955, "Personal Influence" reports the results of a pioneering study conducted in Decatur, Illinois, validating Paul Lazarsfeld's serendipitous discovery that messages from the media may be further mediated by informal "opinion leaders" who intercept, interpret, and diffuse what they see and hear to the personal networks in which they are embedded. This classic volume set the stage for all subsequent studies of the interaction of mass media and interpersonal influence in...

With four simple truths as his framework, Charles Murray, the bestselling coauthor of The Bell Curve, sweeps away the hypocrisy, wishful thinking, and upside-down priorities that grip America’s educational establishment.Ability varies. Children differ in their ability to learn academic material. Doing our best for every child requires, above all else, that we embrace that simplest of truths. America’s educational system does its best to ignore it.Half of the childr...

A powerful and unassailable argument for reforming America's schooling methods and ideas—by one of America's most important educators, the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy."A penetrating and compelling analysis of how, despite the good intentions of educators, bad ideas and failed theories now characterize American education." —The Indianapolis StarFor over fifty years, American schools have operated under the assum...

Howard S. Becker is a master of his discipline. His reputation as a teacher, as well as a sociologist, is supported by his best-selling quartet of sociological guidebooks: Writing for Social Scientists, Tricks of the Trade, Telling About Society, and What About Mozart? What About Murder? It turns out that the master sociologist has yet one more trick up his sleeve—a fifth guidebook, Evidence.Becker has for seventy years been mulling over ...

Social work practitioners write for a variety of publications, and they are expected to show fluency in a number of related fields. Whether the target is a course instructor, scholarly journal, fellowship organization, or general news outlet, social workers must be clear, persuasive, and comprehensive in their writing, especially on provocative subjects. This first-of-its-kind guide features top scholars and educators providing a much-needed introduction to social work writing and scholars...

The increased focus on raising standards in education requires leaders to engage in complex decision making about teacher assessment, mandated accountability measures, and the collection and use of large amounts of data. Showcasing exemplary practices of school and district administrators, Decision Making in Educational Leadership covers issues concerning the role of emotion, ethical and legal ramifications, the use of data, and complexity in decision making. Chapter authors in th...

Graduate students and teachers of introductory graduate courses in curriculum have many textbooks to choose from. What is special about Fundamentals of Curriculum: Passion and Professionalism, Second Edition?Content and approach: Clear, focused, and tightly structured, this text provides essential information and resources education professionals need to effectively deal with the urgent and important curriculum problems they face in schools today. Part I (...

In Great Minds In Management Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt have brought together some of the most influential and original thinkers in management. Their contributions to this volume not only outline their landmark contributions to management theory, but also reflect on the process of theory development, presenting their own personal accounts of the gestation of these theories. The result is not only an ambitious and original panorama of the key ideas in management theory presen...

Evaluation is a controversial and little-understood strategy of public governance, control, and decision making. As early as classical antiquity, scholars were summoned to court to counsel kings. Public policy and program evaluation is a recent addition to the great chain of attempts to use the brainpower of scholars and scientists to further the interests of the state. Evaluation scholars are asked to provide retrospective assessments of the implementation, output, and outcome of governme...

This book charts the state of organizational research and theory during the 1960s. A compendium of results, references, concepts ideas and theories, this Handbook will be of interest to both academics in organizational theory and managers facing operating problems of organizations.

Evaluating Language Assessments offers a comprehensive overview of the theoretical bases and research methodologies for the evaluation of language assessments and demonstrates the importance of a fuller understanding of this widely used evaluative tool. The volume explores language assessment evaluation in its wider political, economic, social, legal, and ethical contexts while also illustrating quantitative and qualitative methods through discussions of key research studies. Suit...

Few applied disciplines are more sensitive to cross-cultural issues than marketing and consumer psychology. The chapters prepared for this volume reflect awareness of both similarities and differences within and across cultures. They include analyses of methodological issues, theoretical investigations of cultural and social values and their implications for marketing specialists, studies of gender- and sub-culture specific advertising, and investigations of advertising efforts in several ...