Workers from various diverse disciplines such as geography, public policy, administration, social work, education, public health and so on are joining together to address complex social issues such as poverty, health, peace building, the environment and others. Interdisciplinary Community Development: International Perspectives is a unique look at the innovations in interdisciplinary community development around the world. Leading experts from various disciplines explore the latest research, programs, and innovative approaches to promote strategies that enable social justice.

In Social Capital at the Community Level, John Halstead and Steven Deller examine social capital formation beyond the individual level through a variety of disciplines: planning, economics, regional development, sociology, as well as non-traditional approaches like engineering and built environmental features. The notion of social capital in community and economic development has become a focus of intense interest for policy makers, practitioners, and academics. The notion is that communities with higher levels of social capital (networks, trust, and norms) will prosper both economically and socially. In a practical sense, how do communities use the notion of social capital to build policies and strategies to move their community forward? Are all forms of social capital the same and do all have a positive influence on the community? To help gain insights into these fundamental questions Social Capital at the Community Level takes a holistic, interdisciplinary or systems approach to thinking about the community. While those who study social capital will acknowledge the need for an interdisciplinary approach, most stay within their disciplinary silos. One could say there is strong bonding social capital within disciplines but little bridging social capital across disciplines. The contributors to Social Capital at the Community Level have made an attempt to build that bridging social capital. While disciplinary biases and research approaches are evident there is significant overlap about how people with different disciplinary perspectives think about social capital and how it can be applied at the community level. This can be from neighborhoods addressing a localized issue to a global response to a natural disaster. This book is an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers and policy makers of community and economic development, as well as rural sociologists and planners looking to understand the opaque process of social capital formation in communities.

Despite several idealistic efforts towards a united Africa, the term remains a hypothetical concept symbolizing a desired federal state on the continent. While globalization and interconnectedness have brought prosperity in some parts of the world, Africa has not generally benefited from global decisions. These decisions, policies, and practices have tended to be wholly influenced by the rich and powerful countries and their transnational agencies and corporations in pursuit of their national interests. Faced with such enormous external economic and political forces, the divided and powerless African states have been unable to bargain for lucrative economic deals or pursue national interests for the benefit of their people, hence the need to examine what exists in varied fields and the emerging trends for the future. Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Future of Africa and Policy Development addresses critical issues and challenges in Africa and seeks to examine and understand the future trends in Africa through a deconstructive interrogation of present trends. Covering a wide range of topics such as sustainability, equality, and democracy, it is ideal for researchers, academicians, students, economists, policymakers, political parties, trade unions, and NGOs.

This is the first truly interdisciplinary book that examines how professionals work together within community mental health. It takes into account the key concepts of community mental health and combines them with current technology to develop an effective formula that redefines the community mental health practice.

Beginning with the foundations of community development, An Introduction to Community Development offers a comprehensive and practical approach to planning for communities. Road-tested in the authors’ own teaching, and through the training they provide for practicing planners, it enables students to begin making connections between academic study and practical know-how from both private and public sector contexts. An Introduction to Community Development shows how planners can utilize local economic interests and integrate finance and marketing considerations into their strategy. Most importantly, the book is strongly focused on outcomes, encouraging students to ask: what is best practice when it comes to planning for communities, and how do we accurately measure the results of planning practice? This newly revised and updated edition includes: increased coverage of sustainability issues, discussion of localism and its relation to community development, quality of life, community well-being and public health considerations, and content on local food systems. Each chapter provides a range of reading materials for the student, supplemented with text boxes, a chapter outline, keywords, and reference lists, and new skills based exercises at the end of each chapter to help students turn their learning into action, making this the most user-friendly text for community development now available.

Interdisciplining Digital Humanities sorts through definitions and patterns of practice over roughly sixty-five years of work, providing an overview for specialists and a general audience alike. It is the only book that tests the widespread claim that Digital Humanities is interdisciplinary. By examining the boundary work of constructing, expanding, and sustaining a new field, it depicts both the ways this new field is being situated within individual domains and dynamic cross-fertilizations that are fostering new relationships across academic boundaries. It also accounts for digital reinvigorations of “public humanities” in cultural heritage institutions of museums, archives, libraries, and community forums.

The Oxford Handbook of Human Development and Culture provides a comprehensive synopsis of theory and research on human development, with every chapter drawing together findings from cultures around the world. This includes a focus on cultural diversity within nations, cultural change, and globalization. Expertly edited by Lene Arnett Jensen, the Handbook covers the entire lifespan from the prenatal period to old age. It delves deeply into topics such as the development of emotion, language, cognition, morality, creativity, and religion, as well as developmental contexts such as family, friends, civic institutions, school, media, and work. Written by an international group of eminent and cutting-edge experts, chapters showcase the burgeoning interdisciplinary approach to scholarship that bridges universal and cultural perspectives on human development. This "cultural-developmental approach" is a multifaceted, flexible, and dynamic way to conceptualize theory and research that is in step with the cultural and global realities of human development in the 21st century.

This book proposes a new interdisciplinary understanding of urban design in China based on a study of the transformative effects of socio-spatial design and planning on communities and their governance. This is framed by an examination of the social projects, spaces, and realities that have shaped three contexts critical to the understanding of urban design problems in China: the histories of “collective forms” and “collective spaces”, such as that of the urban danwei (work-unit), which inform current community building and planning; socio-spatial changes in urban and rural development; and disparate practices of “spatialised governmentality”. These contexts and an attendant transformation from planning to design and from government to governance, define the current urban design challenges found in the dominant urban xiaoqu (small district) and shequ (community) development model. Examining the histories, transformations, and practices that have shaped socio-spatial epistemologies and experiences in China – including a specific sense of community and place that is rather based on a concrete “collective” than abstract “public” space and underpinned by socialised governance – this book brings together a diverse range of observations, thoughts, analyses, and projects by urban researchers and practitioners. Thereby discussing emerging interdisciplinary urban design practices in China, this book offers a valuable resource for all academics, practitioners, and stakeholders with an interest in socio-spatial design and development.

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) defines the term biomedical informatics (BMI) as: The interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective uses of biomedical data, information, and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving and decision making, motivated by efforts to improve human health. This book: Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics: A Knowledge Base for Practitioners, explores the theories that have been applied in health informatics and the differences they have made. The editors, all proponents of evidence-based health informatics, came together within the European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI) Working Group on Health IT Evaluation and the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Working Group on Technology Assessment and Quality Development. The purpose of the book, which has a foreword by Charles Friedman, is to move forward the agenda of evidence-based health informatics by emphasizing theory-informed work aimed at enriching the understanding of this uniquely complex field. The book takes the AMIA definition as particularly helpful in its articulation of the three foundational domains of health informatics: health science, information science, and social science and their various overlaps, and this model has been used to structure the content of the book around the major subject areas. The book discusses some of the most important and commonly used theories relevant to health informatics, and constitutes a first iteration of a consolidated knowledge base that will advance the science of the field.

The Second Edition provides a comprehensive introduction to interdisciplinary studies with an approach that is succinct, conceptual, and practical. Completely updated to reflect advances in the literature on research, learning, and assessment, the book describes the role of both disciplines and interdisciplinarity within the academy, and how these have evolved. Authors Allen F. Repko, Rick Szostak, and Michelle Phillips Buchberger effectively show students how to think like interdisciplinarians in order to facilitate their working with topics, complex problems, or themes that span multiple disciplines.