"This handbook brings together evaluation approaches relevant across the program life cycle, starting from program design, to implementation, and ultimately to the scaling up of successful interventions. It fills a gap in available publications, which are predominantly focused on impact evaluations and inadequately grounded in methods that can address why programs succeed or fail as well as their potential to contribute to broader and more systemic change. This chapter starts by setting the context and describes key questions relevant to each stage of the program lifecycle. The second section highlights four cross-cutting consideration that social programs today must confront including: (1) ensuring culturally responsive and equitable evaluations, (2) the decolonization of evaluation practices, (3) adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health crises, and (4) understanding the impact of climate change on social programs. The last section describes how this handbook can be used and highlights relevant evaluation topics and case studies covered in each section of the handbook"--

"This handbook brings together evaluation approaches relevant across the program life cycle, starting from program design, to implementation, and ultimately to the scaling up of successful interventions. It fills a gap in available publications, which are predominantly focused on impact evaluations and inadequately grounded in methods that can address why programs succeed or fail as well as their potential to contribute to broader and more systemic change. This chapter starts by setting the context and describes key questions relevant to each stage of the program lifecycle. The second section highlights four cross-cutting consideration that social programs today must confront including: (1) ensuring culturally responsive and equitable evaluations, (2) the decolonization of evaluation practices, (3) adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health crises, and (4) understanding the impact of climate change on social programs. The last section describes how this handbook can be used and highlights relevant evaluation topics and case studies covered in each section of the handbook"--

"The categories commonly mobilized to think about education have long been associated with the notion of the nation state, and functioned as obstacles, rather than resources, for our understanding of how globalization plays out in this particular field. In the last two decades, both social theory and comparative politics have attempted to overcome these limitations in their own way. Social theory increasingly acknowledged education as a global phenomenon. Theories have been developed to describe a global society evolving across borders. They show how, through processes that remain debated (cultural isomorphism, capitalism, functional differentiation), a number of structural and semantic evolutions have spread across education systems. Part I of this Handbook is dedicated to presenting, discussing, and comparing three such theories of globalization and their implications for our understanding of education and education policy. Comparative politics has for its part concerned itself with developing a more complex, less unified and 'transformationalist' view of the State by acknowledging the fragmentation and distribution of its functions among distinct domains and levels. Part II gravitates around this global constellation, with chapters focusing on global reforms, norms and ideas put forward by supranational organizations, on international accountability processes and on the ways in which nation states or local actors adopt, implement or resist global ideas and reforms. The two Parts reflect these disciplinary approaches to the relation between globalization and education. Together, these two approaches seek to provide a comprehensive overview of how globalization and education interact to result in distinct and varying outcomes across world regions"--

The Oxford Handbook of Prevention in Counseling Psychology presents a lifespan approach to prevention that emphasizes strengths of individuals and communities, integrates multicultural and social justice perspectives, and includes best practices in the prevention of a variety of psychological problems in particular populations.

A clearly articulated, well-defined, and relatively stable grand strategy is supposed to allow the ship of state to steer a steady course through the roiling seas of global politics. However, the obstacles to formulating and implementing grand strategy are, by all accounts, imposing. The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy addresses the conceptual and historical foundations, production, evolution, and future of grand strategy from a wide range of standpoints. The seven constituent sections present and critically examine the history of grand strategy, including beyond the West; six distinct theoretical approaches to the subject; the sources of grand strategy, ranging from geography and technology to domestic politics to individual psychology and culture; the instruments of grand strategy's implementation, from military to economic to covert action; political actors', including non-state actors', grand strategic choices; the debatable merits of grand strategy, relative to alternatives; and the future of grand strategy, in light of challenges ranging from political polarization to technological change to aging populations. The result is a field-defining, interdisciplinary, and comparative text that will be a key resource for years to come.

This Handbook brings together a collection of leading international authors to reflect on the influence of central contributions, or classics, that have shaped the development of the field of public policy and administration. The Handbook reflects on a wide range of key contributions to the field, selected on the basis of their international and wider disciplinary impact. Focusing on classics that contributed significantly to the field over the second half of the 20th century, it offers insights into works that have explored aspects of the policy process, of particular features of bureaucracy, and of administrative and policy reforms. Each classic is discussed by a leading international scholars. They offer unique insights into the ways in which individual classics have been received in scholarly debates and disciplines, how classics have shaped evolving research agendas, and how the individual classics continue to shape contemporary scholarly debates. In doing so, this volume offers a novel approach towards considering the various central contributions to the field. The Handbook offers students of public policy and administration state-of-the-art insights into the enduring impact of key contributions to the field.

With its roots in clinical and educational psychology, school psychology is an ever-changing field that encompasses a diversity of topics. The Oxford Handbook of School Psychology synthesizes the most vital and relevant literature in all of these areas, producing a state-of-the-art, authoritative resource for practitioners, researchers, and parents. Comprising chapters authored by the leading figures in school psychology, The Oxford Handbook of School Psychology focuses on the significant issues, new developments, and scientific findings that continue to change the practical landscape. The handbook's focuses include: - allegiance to the reciprocal relationship between science and practice to promote problem-solving and enrichment models - service delivery designed to improve competencies of all students - the relationship between general cognitive ability and important life outcomes - the development of viable and enduring educational, family, and community systems to support students - increasing student diversity and the necessity of increased sensitivity to the influences of social, cultural, political, and legislative variables of schooling - outlining tenable reasons why, since the end of World War II, children from kindergarten through the secondary grades have generally not been the recipients of a superior or efficient educational system - all relevant legislation, including the No Child Left Behind Act, and the ongoing question of who or what is responsible for the inadequate academic preparation of inner-city children - building a cumulative knowledge base to better facilitate students' academic, social, and personal competencies including the promotion of positive mental health and subjective well-being The scholarship compiled here is a must-read for practitioners, students, and faculty, and an ideal resource for parents seeking a scientific approach to the efficacy of school psychology practices. In both breadth and depth, this handbook promises to serve as the benchmark reference work for years to come.

Offering a variety of innovative methods and tools, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date presentation on multi and mixed methods research.

The Oxford Handbook of Crime Prevention is the most reliable and the only comprehensive source on research and experience on the prevention of crime in the United States and across the Western world.

Public administration plays an integral role at every stage of social policy creation and execution. Program operators' management decisions shape policymakers' perceptions of what can and should be accomplished through social programs, while public administrators wield considerable power to mobilize tangible and intangible resources and fill gaps in policy designs. Furthermore, the cumulative effects of public administrators' daily activities directly influence outcomes for program participants, and may shift policy itself. Location also matters to social policy, as those same administrators are expected to innovate continuously in response to shifting local and national conditions, including changes in budgetary allocations, client needs and capacities, and public attitudes. This Handbook will aim to capture what is being learned across six geographical regions: Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. and Canada. Specifically, each regional section will contain 6-10 chapters canvassing a particular set of promising practices or emerging challenges at the regional or sub-regional level, in addition to a brief overview written by the section editor. The regional sections will be flanked by integrative chapters. As a whole, the volume contains 65 chapters.