`This is an admirable book which can be recommended to students with confidence, and is likely also to become an indispensable source of reference for those researching fact construction′ - Discourse & SocietyHow is reality manufactured? The idea of social construction has become a commonplace of much social research, yet precisely what is constructed, and how, and even what constructionism means, is often unclear or taken for granted. In this major work,...

This book offers an innovative reassessment of the way Victorians thought and wrote about visual experience. It argues that new visual technologies gave expression to new ways of seeing, using these to uncover the visual discourses that facilitated, informed and shaped the way people conceptualised and articulated visual experience. In doing so, the book reconsiders literary and non-fiction works by well-known authors including George Eliot, Charles Dickens, G.H. Lewes, Max Nordau, Herbert...

First published in 1984, Social Texts and Context illustrates the ways in which familiar psychological concepts – femininity, the environment, groups, the self – are constructed in discourse. Novels by Thomas Hardy, Barbara Cartland, Doris Lessing, C. P. Snow, Charles Dickens and Robert Musil are examined, and the theoretical approaches of Roland Barthes, Rom Harre, Jonathan Culler, Henri Tajfel, Irving Janis and Paul Willis are discussed. Development in literary theory – such as ...

Focus Group Practice is unique in providing a picture of focus group moderation and interaction that is based on the study of what actually happens in high-class market research focus groups and in using recent theories of interaction, for example discourse and conversation analyses, to throw light on the practice of moderation. It is written in clear, engaging and non-technical manner and richly illustrated by examples from focus groups in a wide range of different contex...

Religious Horror and the Ecogothic explores the intersections of Anglophone Christianity and the Ecogothic, a subgenre that explores the ecocritical in Gothic literature, film, and media. Acknowledging the impact of Christian ideologies upon interpretations of human relationships with the environment, the Ecogothic in turn interrogates spiritual identity and humanity’s darker impulses in relation to ecological systems. Through a survey of Ecogothic texts from the eighteenth centur...

Canadians have relatively few binding national myths, but one of the most pervasive and enduring is the conviction that the country is doomed. In 1965 George Grant passionately defended Canadian identity by asking fundamental questions about the meaning and future of Canada’s political existence. In Lament for a Nation he argued that Canada – immense and underpopulated, defined in part by the border, history, and culture it shares with the United States, and torn by conflicting loyalties t...

This title was first published in 2003. Until recently, planning and development in the Caribbean have been "top-down", "centre-out" and "expert-led". For a few years now, though, the region has bowed to the global trend and has experimented with participatory planning methods. Participatory planning is heralded by much of the development community as the most appropriate alternative strategy to the traditional approaches. In this volume, a range of experts drawn from the Caribbean, the Un...

The mental health of children is a current concern, and this applies even to the earliest years of a child’s life. This book supports trainees and practitioners working in early years contexts to understand the risk factors which can result in the development of mental health needs in children from birth to 5. It argues that high quality early years provision can mitigate against some of these risk factors and provides clear, evidence-informed guidance around government policy, transitions...

Magic, wizards and talking animals. Those would all be totally cool with Thomas except he woke up as a talking cougar! Now he's viewing the magical world from the bottom up, and everyone's telling him he better roll over if he knows what's good for him. Or else!Thomas runs for "else" as fast as he can on four legs, surprising the entire magical community as they scrambled to keep up. In this three book series, can Thomas keep a collar off his neck and claw out a place for himself i...

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is a classic sermon by Jonathan Edwards, first delivered in Massachusetts in 1741. This rendition is beautifully narrated by John Potter.

Power corrupts. Can Thomas resist the lure?Thomas may be the first magical cougar to go freelance, but he still has a lot to learn about selecting clients. Guilty over the injuries suffered by his friend and client O’Meara, Thomas resolves to collect enough magical essence to get her healed. Teaming up with an under-appreciated cabal of technomagi, Thomas finds himself battling encroaching mages, vicious spirits, and the forces of the multiverse itself to gather the energy mysterio...

Thomas wanted a simple, stable existence, but saddled with unemployment, an absentee girlfriend, and the impending unpaid rent, change is hurtling down on him whether he likes it or not. Following the sudden murder of his strange elderly neighbor, He awakens on wrong side of the Veil transformed into a mountain lion and thrust into a dangerous world of magic.Thomas must team up with a disgraced Inquisitor and a pyromaniac squirrel to dodge the fate pushed upon him by haughty mages,...