While some social scientists may argue that we have always been networked, the increased visibility of networks today across economic, political, and social domains can hardly be disputed. Social networks fundamentally shape our lives and social network analysis has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field of research. In The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks, Ryan Light and James Moody have gathered forty leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and in...

Interdisciplinarity has become a buzzword in academia, as research universities funnel their financial resources toward collaborations between faculty in different disciplines. In theory, interdisciplinary collaboration breaks down artificial divisions between different departments, allowing more innovative and sophisticated research to flourish. But does it actually work this way in practice?Investigating Interdisciplinary Collaboration puts the common beliefs ab...

Despite the swift spread of social network concepts and their applications and the rising use of network analysis in social science, there is no book that provides a thorough general introduction for the serious reader. Understanding Social Networks fills that gap by explaining the big ideas that underlie the social network phenomenon. Written for those interested in this fast moving area but who are not mathematically inclined, it covers fundamental concepts, then discusses netwo...

Winner of the 2019 McGuffey Longevity Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA)Recognized as one of the most cited methodology books in the social sciences, the Sixth Edition of Robert K. Yin′s bestselling text provides a complete portal to the world of case study research. With the integration of 11 applications in this edition, the book gives readers access to exemplary case studies drawn from a wide variety of academi...

An exploration of the implications of developments in artificial intelligence for social scientific research, which builds on the theoretical and methodological insights provided by "Simulating societies".; This book is intended for worldwide library market for social science subjects such as sociology, political science, geography, archaeology/anthropology, and significant appeal within computer science, particularly artificial intelligence. Also personal reference for researchers.

Social Network Theory and Educational Change offers a provocative and fascinating exploration of how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform.Drawing on the work of leading scholars, the book comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders, contrasting formal and informal organizational structures, and exploring the mechanisms by which ideas, information, and influence flow from per...

The ego-net approach to social network analysis, which takes discrete individual actors and their contacts as its starting point, is one of the most widely used approaches in the field. This is the first textbook to take readers through each stage of ego-net research, from conception, through research design and data gathering to analysis.It starts with the basics, assuming no prior knowledge of social network analysis, but then moves on to introduce cutting edge innovations, cover...

Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments provides students, faculty, and instructional designers with a clear, concise introduction to the major pedagogical and psychological theories and their implications for the design of new learning environments for schools, universities, or corporations. Leading experts describe the most important contemporary theories that form the foundation of the conception and design of student-centered learning environments and new applications...

Egocentric network analysis is used widely across the social sciences, especially in anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology, and is increasingly being employed in communications, informatics, and business and marketing studies. Egocentric network analysis requires a unique set of data collection and analysis skills that overlap only minimally with other network methodologies. However, until now there has been no single reference for conceptualizing, collecting, and analy...

The perfect book for any student taking a research methods course for the first time!The new edition of David and Sutton′s text provides those new to social research with a comprehensive introduction to the theory, logic and practical methods of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research. Covering all aspects of research design, data collection, data analysis and writing up, Social Research: An Introduction is the essential companion for all undergraduate and postgraduate...

Relationships and the pattern of relationships have a large and varied influence on both individual and group action. The fundamental distinction of social network analysis research is that relationships are of paramount importance in explaining behavior. Because of this, social network analysis offers many exciting tools and techniques for research and practice in a wide variety of medical and public health situations including organizational improvements, understanding risk behaviors, co...

We live in a world that is paradoxically both small and vast; each of us is embedded in local communities and yet we are only a few ′links′ away from anyone else in the world.This engaging book represents these interdependencies′ positive and negative consequences, their multiple effects and the ways in which a local occurrence in one part of the world can directly affect the rest. Then it demonstrates precisely how these interactions and relationships form.This is a book f...