Produced by the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and UNESCO, and published by the OECD, the 2013 World Social Science Report represents a comprehensive overview of the field gathering the thoughts and expertise of hundreds of social scientists from around the world. This edition focuses on the transformative role of the social sciences in confronting climate and broader processes of environmental change, and in addressing priority problems from energy and water, biodiversity and land use, to urbanisation, migration and education. The report includes 100 articles written by 150 authors from 41 countries all over the world. Authors represent some 24 disciplines, mainly in the social sciences. The contributions highlight the central importance of social science knowledge for environmental change research, as a means of understanding changing environments in terms of social processes and as framework for finding concrete solutions towards sustainability.

This book represents a comprehensive overview of the field gathering the thoughts and expertise of hundreds of social scientists from around the world. This edition focuses on the transformative role of the social sciences in confronting climate and broader processes of environmental change.

The Report--launched on 22 September at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm--highlights significant gaps in social science data about inequalities in different parts of the world and, to support progress towards more inclusive societies, calls for more robust research into the links between economic inequalities and disparities in areas such as gender, education and health.

This latest Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will again form the standard reference for all those concerned with climate change and its consequences, including students, researchers and policy makers in environmental science, meteorology, climatology, biology, ecology, atmospheric chemistry and environmental policy.

Although it is generally accepted that the climate is changing for the worse and that human activities are a major contributing factor in that change, there is still only marginal response to the challenge posed by climate change. The reasons behind this limited response are becoming clearer through the recognition that climate change is not just a set of physical science facts, but it is also part of a series of complex social processes. Consequently, this book is important in providing social science perspectives on a range of attempts to adjust human activity to reduce its environmental impact. These attempts vary from the changing of the dress code in Japanese offices to the creation of zero-carbon, gated communities in Bangalore, India. Taken together, the contributions to this book provide timely insights into the complexities of saving the planet through human endeavour. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

With the interest in practice theory and praxeology on the rise, praxeology can be considered an emerging new methodological as well as theoretical paradigm which successfully overcomes epistemological dichotomies of conventional approaches. The articles in this volume serve as starting points for rendering contemporary practice theory approaches useful for the analysis of political events and processes, without reducing the political aspect a priori to the formal policy sphere. In this context, Praxeological Political Analysis demonstrates that praxeological research is now increasingly addressing issues which are considered virulent in, for instance, the consumer, sustainability or political spheres. Following on from this key focus on political analysis, this title also seeks to expand the current status of primarily political science adaptions of practice theory approaches to the analysis of predominantly narrowly defined political practices. Written with an explicit focus on diverse political aspects and dimensions in the performative enactment of social practices, this title will appeal to post-graduate students and scholars interested in sociology of politics, social and public policy, development in social theory and political research methods.

The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development provides an interdisciplinary, agenda-setting survey of the fields of migration and development, bringing together over 60 expert contributors from around the world to chart current and future trends in research on this topic. The links between migration and development can be traced back to the post-war period, if not further, yet it is only in the last 20 years that the 'migration–development nexus' has risen to prominence for academics and policymakers. Starting by mapping the different theoretical approaches to migration and development, this book goes on to present cutting edge research in poverty and inequality, displacement, climate change, health, family, social policy, interventions, and the key challenges surrounding migration and development. While much of the migration literature continues to be dominated by US and British perspectives, this volume includes original contributions from most regions of the world to offer alternative non-Anglophone perspectives. Given the increasing importance of migration in both international development and current affairs, the Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development will be of interest both to policymakers and to students and researchers of geography, development studies, political science, sociology, demography, and development economics.

This handbook is the first to bring together the latest theory and research on critical approaches to social psychological challenges. Edited by a leading authority in the field, this volume further establishes critical social psychology as a discipline of study, distinct from mainstream social psychology. The handbook explains how critical approaches to social processes and phenomena are essential to fully understanding them, and covers the main research topics in basic and applied social psychology, including social cognition, identity and social relations, alongside overviews of the main theories and methodologies that underpin critical approaches. This volume features a range of leading authors working on key social psychological issues, and highlights a commitment to a social psychology which shuns psychologisation, reductionism and neutrality. It provides invaluable insight into many of the most pressing and distressing issues we face in modern society, including the migrant and refugee crises affecting Europe; the devaluing of black lives in the USA; and the poverty, ill-health, and poor mental well-being that has resulted from ever-increasing austerity efforts in the UK. Including sections on critical perspectives, critical methodologies, and critical applications, this volume also focuses on issues within social cognition, self and identity. This one-stop handbook is an indispensable resource for a range of academics, students and researchers in the fields of psychology and sociology, and particularly those with an interest in social identity, power relations, and critical interventions.

The value of small-scale qualitative research projects into young people’s reading is often underestimated. Yet these finely tuned studies, with a precise focus and highly specialised approach, can provide us with profound insights into the richness and variety of young people’s reading practices. Bringing together contributors from six continents, this fascinating volume explores researchers’ experiences of investigating the reading habits, preferences and practices of young people aged 12–21. Detailing a variety of empirical methodologies and research methods, its chapters also consider reading in an array of contexts, in various languages and using diverse media. Key issues addressed in the book include: the complexity of sociocultural similarities and differences in young people’s reading in international contexts multilingual, bilingual and monolingual readers’ experiences of reading how young readers use a range of different print and digital media how our understanding of the range of texts available to young readers and the different contexts of and purposes for reading can be enhanced through small-scale qualitative research. Providing in-depth discussion of contributors’ research and findings, and touching on many different contexts, text types and media, this volume will support and inspire current and future researchers, lecturers and teachers interested in young people’s reading.