The Active Society, published in 1968, is the most ambitious book in Amitai Etzioni's remarkable career. In this new collection of essays, Wilson Carey McWilliams brings together scholars in a range of disciplines to analyze the significance and shortcomings of this important work.

In much social scientific literature, Polish civil society has been portrayed as weak and passive. This volume offers a much-needed corrective, challenging this characterization on both theoretical and empirical grounds and suggesting new ways of conceptualizing civil society to better account for events on the ground as well as global trends such as neoliberalism, migration, and the renewal of nationalist ideologies. Focusing on forms of collective action that researchers have tended to overlook, the studies gathered here show how public discourse legitimizes certain claims and political actions as “true” civil society, while others are too often dismissed. Taken together, they critique a model of civil society that is ‘made from above’.

"This book is a must for those who, like me, believe passionately both in the power of peer mediation...and in the urgency of spreading good practice in a society like ours, which is desperately searching for ways to be inclusive and at peace with itself.” Tim Brighouse, former Commissioner for London Schools “As the challenges facing young people grow so do the array of support mechanisms to help them. During my time as a Member of Parliament and as a Minister I saw many of the ideas and initiatives which were tackling this issue. I am attracted to the idea of peer mediation mainly because it goes beyond the question of how can we protect and help children when they have a difficulty, and develops those increasingly important social and emotional skills in all children” Estelle Morris, Former Secretary of State, DfES Why use peer mediation? What are the factors that influence its failure or success? Peer mediation as a form of conflict resolution is growing in popularity and usage, particularly within education. The number of schools using this method has increased, with many schools in the UK now using mediation to settle disputes both in school, and in the wider community. Based on the author’s extensive work on peer mediation, the book provides a thorough account of theory and practice relating to an approach that can enable young people to resolve their own disputes – and those of their peers. The author shows how peer mediation can be embraced by schools to strengthen student voice, behaviour management, active citizenship and inclusion, as well as how it can be neglected and fail to achieve these aims. Drawing on case studies of peer mediation in schools, the book offers an analysis of the work that has been carried out in this area. It revisits key debates in education such as citizenship, social inclusion, student voice and behaviour management in order to begin to address the questions surrounding this method of conflict resolution. Peer Mediation is key reading for primary and secondary school teachers, educational professionals, academics, policy-makers and those with an interest in practical peace making.

This book presents a comprehensive view of the state of social progress worldwide over an entire 50-year period beginning 1970. It discusses original time-series research for the period 1970-2018 as well as contemporary trends in quality of life and well-being research for the period since 2018, and provides innovative research findings into the nature, history, and status of 160 of the world’s economically advanced and developing nations. Among the topics included are discussion of the worldwide development trends occurring with especially vulnerable population groups, such as children and youth, the elderly, women, persons with disabilities, sexual minorities, and economic migrants. Further, this book reports social indicator trends at four unit of analysis: individuals, nations, world regions, and for the world-as-a-whole.

This is the first book that systematically considers the academic achievements of Japanese institutionalist post-Keynesian economists in the postwar period and argues that we can learn much from their intellectual heritage. Those Japanese economists include the world-renowned figures, Shigeto Tsuru and Hirofumi Uzawa, whose inheritance came from Keynes, Marx, and institutionalism. In the era of globalization after the 1990s, economic inequality and social divide have intensified all over the world. In this situation, the academic achievements of those economists in postwar Japan should be reconsidered for the aim of establishing a new political economy. With this perspective, the book looks at what we can learn from Japanese institutionalist post-Keynesian economists In particular, the essence of research work that each of them developed is identified, focusing on the total image of the economy for contemporary capitalism. Those economists benefited from the diverse legacies of Keynes, Marx, Kalecki and institutionalist economists such as Veblen and Galbraith. When their research is examined systematically, Japanese institutionalist post-Keynesians are commonly characterized as those who developed their institutional analysis of contemporary capitalism with in-depth theoretical and empirical studies, with the aim of establishing their own political economy as the moral science of civil society. These important features provide us with insightful implications for institutional economics in the 21st century.

The book presents an overview and historic perspectives of a novel scientific field coming of age today: coastal and ocean management. It covers diverse and changing issues, ranging from conflict resolution to governance and ethical-political imperatives, natural disasters and climate change, culminating in coastal and ocean typologies, the basis for a future theory of coasts and oceans. Eighteen chapters, written by two main authors in cooperation with international experts, review 25 years of research. The authors address challenges to society related to global change issues that have been generated by human activity in both temperate (Sweden, Germany and the United States) and tropical regions (Brazil, Indonesia). Ultimately, the book documents the maturation of a field and responds to changing societal needs and scientific outlooks. It gathers recent analyses along with important earlier research, with a foreword by Biliana Cicin-Sain and Richard Delaney, globally renowned as coastal and ocean experts in theory and practice. Its broad approach makes the book a must-read for graduate and postgraduate students, as well as coastal management and marine spatial planning practitioners, and for researchers in the fields of geography, anthropology, history of science, human and social ecology, and environmental and development studies.

Torsten Husén has brought together in this volume a collection of his own essays, the topics of which reflect his long and distinguished career both as an academic and as a practical researcher. The essays are grouped under six main themes on which he has worked over the years: research and policy making; educational reforms; equality and meritocracy; the impact of education on career; international and comparative dimensions; and present trends and future perspectives. An underlying message running throughout the volume is the importance of examining educational problems from a wide social perspective, rather than solely from the narrow confines of the classroom.

This book explores the role played by ideologies and lobby groups in determining welfare state outcomes with specific reference to up-to-date theories about globalisation.

Sheds new light on the ways that policy is communicatively created, conveyed, understood, and implemented

Dewey's Democracy and Education Revisited focuses on democratic schools/democratic education and the work of teacher and leader practitioners in the new millennium, taking into consideration the complex and dynamic nature of preparing leaders for changing roles in schools amidst the challenges of standards and accountability, the No Child Left Behind Act, licensure/certification issues, increasing diversity, issues of social justice, shifting demographics, and the myriad of social issues that make democratic leadership necessary. The book presents a collection of contemporary discourses that reconsider the relationship of democracy as a political ideology and American ideal (i.e., Dewey's progressivist ideas) and education as the foundation of preparing democratic citizens in America. Jenlink takes the reader into a reflective and critical examination of Dewey's ideas on democratic education, set forth in the classic philosophy text, Democracy and Education. Each chapter draws the reader into a discussion of the salient and relevant points Dewey argued, and juxtaposes Dewey's points with the issues challenging educators today, in particular focusing on the challenge of fostering democratic education and leadership for America's schools.