International Perspectives on the History of Early Childhood Education

$75.00

How does the interplay between family, institution and profession characterise early childhood education worldwide? In this volume, the authors analyse the historical and theoretical developments in early childhood education from an international perspective. They show how different national educational approaches and state interventions influence the relationship between the family and the education system in times of globalisation. The volume offers an in-depth look at the challenges and opportunities arising from local and global educational practices.

Cover image for International Perspectives on the History of Early Childhood Education, isbn: 9783847431534

Global Perspectives on Social Work in Transition

$110.00

With perspectives from 8 countries, this book delves deep into a diverse array of topics that are relevant to current international social work. The authors illustrate and discuss social work practices and their adaptability in the post COVID period in their relative contexts. Research-driven reflections both from academia and practice are woven together to provide direction where traditional modes of service delivery are challenged. The authors of this book aim to enable readers to act in a future-oriented way as they deal with the implications of today’s challenges.

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At the Origins of Parliamentary Europe

$70.00

In 1952, politicians from Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg formed an Ad Hoc Assembly with the aim of drafting a constitution for a future European Political Community. Rediscovering this previously neglected origin of parliamentary Europe, Kari Palonen investigates the significance of the Ad Hoc Assembly for the politicization of European integration. He delves into how the debates of the assembly functioned as a project of European integration after the Second World War, interpreting it as a moment in the political theory and conceptual history of parliamentarism that opens new perspectives on the later stages of the parliamentarization of the EU.

Blurring Boundaries – ‘Anti-Gender’ Ideology Meets Feminist and LGBTIQ+ Discourses

$70.00

‘Gender’ is a catch-all term: it is used in discourses on women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights, gender equality, sexual education, gender studies – and by the anti-gender movements. The book offers an analysis of the blurring boundaries between political positions known as ‘anti-gender’ on the one hand and feminist and LGBTIQ+ strands on the other, starting from the hypothesis that there are discursive bridges between both camps which go beyond the exploitation of emancipatory attitudes. Rather, there are linkages which originate in mainstream feminist and LGBTIQ+ positions. The volume sheds light on these linkages in order to make the case for the need for alliances and dialogues to more effectively counter crusades on women’s and LGBTIQ+ constituencies.

Blurring Boundaries – ‘Anti-Gender’ Ideology Meets Feminist and LGBTIQ+ Discourses

Quality Teacher Education in Cameroon

$95.00

Quality teacher education improves the quality of teaching and learning processes. What role do the sociocultural backgrounds play here? The book highlights how actors’ sociocultural backgrounds influence the quality of teacher training within a pedagogical reform project involving participants from Cameroon and Germany. The analysis and interpretation of qualitative data shows that actors’ sociocultural backgrounds are important factors influencing international, intercultural dialogues on teacher education as well as teaching-learning interaction dynamics in classrooms. The book further discusses the influence of sociocultural contexts on learner-centered classrooms based on principles of diversity, interaction and reciprocal responsibility.

Open Borders, Open Society? Immigration and Social Integration in Japan

$95.00

Is Japan prepared for an ethnically diverse society? The volume examines the past and future trajectory of Japan’s immigration and integration policies and related institutions, taking a cross-disciplinary approach in social sciences. The authors highlight critical issues and challenges that the nation is facing as a result of the government’s inarticulate migrant-acceptance policy, e.g. in the fields of deportation, refugee policy, multicultural education and disaster protection. How can the situation be improved? The book investigates the changes and initiatives needed to build a resilient policy regime for a liberal, pluralistic, and inclusive Japan.

Open Borders, Open Society? Immigration and Social Integration in Japan

Status and Ethnic Identity

$55.00

Migrants’ minority and majority identity are controversial political topics, which disclose challenges of integration and social cohesion. Based on a two-dimensional model of ethnic identity, the book asks about the role of social status for migrants’ identification with their origin group and the majority population. It focuses on intergenerational differences, migrant visibility, status mismatch, and exposure in the receiving country. Results reveal forms of ethnic identity beyond the classical assumption of mutual exclusiveness, which suggests that minority identity primarily relates to lower status positions and majority identity to higher status positions.The book thus contributes to the important discussion about migrant assimilation and alternative forms of incorporation.

The City

$35.00

This book presents the current state of urban research across various disciplines. The author offers insights into the views of those key disciplines that deal with urbanism, such as sociology, geography, spatial and urban planning, history, philosophy, and political science. He also takes language philosophy into account and shows the different meanings of concepts related to cities in a dozen word languages. An overview of central approaches and theories as well as of their practical application enables readers to see a familiar topic in a new light.

Research-driven Curriculum Design

$35.00

Research-based course design involves processes of needs assessment, course development and testing. This book presents a curriculum design study in the field of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) which aims to link curriculum theory to educational practice through research-oriented course development activities. It is a practical guide for teachers and curriculum designers primarily in languages, but also provides perspectives into curriculum design processes in other areas.

Political Leadership Between Democracy and Authoritarianism

$60.00

This book sheds light on the theory of political leadership, which is still an under-researched field of political science. It is related to the philosophical argument about determinism versus activism and helps to understand the basic conflict of the 21st century between liberal democracy and new authoritarianism. The book looks at Max Weber's typology of political rule and his concept of the ethics of responsibility, which are key to the theory of leadership. The author shows that the unfinished contest between democracy and new authoritarianism in the 21st century confirms the importance of leadership in old and new democracies as well as in the neo-authoritarian regimes and calls for a new type of political leaders.

Political Leadership Between Democracy and Authoritarianism

Social Policies and Institutional Reform in Post-COVID Cuba

$85.00

The economic crisis in the wake of the COVID pandemic is putting Cuba's socialism to a severe test. The government in Havana has added a fundamental reform of the economy, institutional structure and social policies to the agenda. This volume brings together contributions from leading international experts as well as from the island itself, analysing the economic, political and social challenges Cuba is facing today.

Social Policies and Institutional Reform in Post-COVID Cuba

Syrian Female Refugees in Turkey

$50.00

In recent years, migration has become one of the most discussed phenomena, both within and outside the academic world. This book takes into account how Syrian female refugees are socially, economically, culturally, ethnically and sexually marginalized. The author analyzes how discourses produced in the Turkish host society affect Syrian female refugees and local women. What do these women think about the ongoing events, their status and the steps the Syrian government and NGOs as well have taken so far in order to produce solutions for women’s invisibilization in the public sphere?

The Future of Childhood Studies

$50.00

Since the 1990s, the emerging field of childhood studies has been catalyst for empirical research, for policy analysis, and for the development of professional practice. Which concepts and theories are the most helpful in analyzing phenomena relevant to children’s lives? The book reflects on this debate and discusses current challenges of major disciplines within the social studies of childhood.

Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order

$85.00

The book critically analyzes the ongoing changes in the regional, intra-regional, and global dynamics of cooperation, from a multi-disciplinary and pluralist perspective. It is based on the insight that in a post-hegemonic world the formation of regions and the process of globalization can be largely disconnected from the orbit of the US, and that a plurality of power and worldviews has replaced US hegemony. In spite of these changes, most existing analyses of current changes in the world order still rely upon Western-centered approaches, and Westphalian thinking. Against this backdrop, the book proposes to advance a truly global IR understanding of the post-hegemonic world, and weaves together the pluralist and multi-disciplinary perspectives of scholars located all around the world.

Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order

Arsenal of Autocracy

$55.00

This book explores the military strategy and military modernization of Russia and China post-2001. In a complex international system where US power wanes and new powers emerge, Russia and China are the most notable and potent challengers to the post-Cold War world order centred on the West, the US, and NATO. The security challenge these powers pose is enhanced by their unique military histories and ways of war, which are driven by their status as revisionist powers, and are tailored to counter the advantages of the Western way of war.

How Sentiment Matters in International Relations: China and the South China Sea Dispute

$80.00

The rise of the People‘s Republic of China represents a major challenge for global politics at large and regional stability in Southeast Asia in specific. This book reveals that growing negative sentiment and disrespect experiences perceived by the Chinese side over time have contributed to Beijing‘s increasingly bold and proactive stance toward the South China Sea Dispute in recent years. At the same time, growing regional tensions and a hardening of the stakeholders‘ positions have been the ultimate result. Based upon this book‘s findings, however, conflict is considered not inevitable and avoidable instead. To this end, a number of implications and policy recommendations are provided and critically examined.

How Sentiment Matters in International Relations: China and the South China Sea Dispute

Political Science and Digitalization – Global Perspectives

$85.00

Digitalization is not only a new research subject for political science, but a transformative force for the discipline in terms of teaching and learning as well as research methods and publishing. This volume provides the first account of the influence of digitalization on the discipline of political science including contributions from 20 different countries. It presents a regional stocktaking of the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in most world regions.

Political Science and Digitalization – Global Perspectives

International Perspectives on School Settings, Education Policy and Digital Strategies

$65.00

An exchange on education ideas has shaped the transatlantic discourse in education for a long time. Over the past two decades education science has increasingly become networked internationally. Since 2015, the Office for International Cooperation in Education at DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education has organized international sessions on education research at the Annual Meetings of the American Educational Research Association, thus providing a floor for transatlantic exchange on current research topics. The volume gives an overview of the transatlantic activities in education research with regard to these sessions representing a collection of topics ranging from school development over the use of large scale assessment and digital data in education to questions related to migration and public education or the economization of education. At the same time the volume offers a reflection on the assets and obstacles of international exchange.

International Perspectives on School Settings, Education Policy and Digital Strategies

International Developments in Research on Extended Education

$75.00

From childhood to adolescence, young people are enrolled in various public or private forms of educational arrangements outside regular school lessons. These activities can be summarized by the term extended education. The volume provides an overview of extended education in multiple nations around the world. Different models, policies, methods, and research findings are discussed from an international point of view.

International Developments in Research on Extended Education

New Authoritarianism

$52.00

The authors deal with comparative aspects of contemporary authoritarianism. Authoritarian tendencies have appeared in several “old democracies” but their main successes take place in several states which departed from dictatorial regimes recently. The book contains case-studies of contemporary Hungarian, Kenyan, Polish, Russian and Turkish regimes.

International Social Work and Forced Migration

$65.00

The book focuses on Social Work with refugees in African, Middle East and European countries. Published as a follow-up to the ‘International Social Work Week’ in Würzburg/Germany with professionals and experts from all over the globe, this book intends to share insights into country-specific developments, challenges and potentials of Social Work in forced migration contexts. The objectives are to map Social Work in this field of action across several countries, to bring into sharper focus an International Social Work in forced migration contexts as well as to contribute in connecting Social Work scholars and experts around the globe.

International Social Work and Forced Migration

European Social Work – A Compendium

$125.00

The publication takes account of the fundamental developments transforming social work in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century. A European standard of social work has already emerged, but models for future European social work are absent. Therefore the compendium gives an overview of the current transformation process for the first time, discusses the visible and invisible changes and maps out where social work is positioned in the emerging post-welfare states.

Family Diversity

$75.95

Family in all its aspects Familienbande International experts provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art of European family research and outline the multiple formations, structures and configurations of family in Europe. Four aspects are discussed in depth: family images, sex/gender roles, globalisation and family development processes. Influenced by globalisation, European countries experience processes which still have greatly varying consequences. Cultural differences, reflected in a range of family schemes and national family policies, are one reason for the continued existence of differences in the scope and speed of change processes. Quite generally, images and concepts of family have become more heterogeneous and flexible. The flip side of this coin is that family members are increasingly faced with the challenges of achieving a satisfactory work-life balance – a task aggravated by globalisation. We therefore need to ask how family policy can help families enjoy adequate freedom of action and latitude for their decision-making. To summarise: a read well worth the effort for all experts working in family research and family policy.

Political Science in Central-East Europe

$89.95

The book will survey the recent development and current “state of the art” of political science in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. It will comprise (a) three comparative overviews: Political Science and Regime Change in East-Central Europe from the 20th to the 21st Century; Analytical and Normative Elements in Political Science Approaches: Is there a Specific Central-East European Pattern?; Political Science Associations in East-Central Europe: How Important, how much International Cooperation?; (b) 20 detailed and comparable country reports: Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine; (c) a chapter on the European Confederation of Political Science Associations. The country reports will include tables on political science faculty, students with political science as a major, and sub-fields taught at both state and private universities (as per the end of 2008). They will cover the following topics: Institutionalization of the discipline; achievements, deficits, prevailing approaches, and funding of research in the discipline’s sub-fields; curricula, admission regulation, and degree system in political science teaching; national representation and international cooperation (major journals and published books, political science associations, international links); public impact of the discipline, labor market, challenges and opportunities.

Political Science in Central-East Europe

Family, Ties and Care

$119.95

Families international – the new milestone How may care be secured—particularly in ageing societies, how may families, relatives and friends support each other and live together beyond market reasons? How can social welfare be secured? How do different countries and different cultures solve the problems they may or may not, now or in days to come, share with other countries and cultures? Families, as is found in this publication by internationally renowned experts, are the base and well of society’s fortune in a humane paradigm. Furthermore, it is the very backbone of lifelong solidarity in inter-generational relations, and the very place where the readiness of taking on care and responsibility are experienced and learned. The publication’s underlying idea opens up two perspectives: on the one hand, differences and similarities in family life forms are chiselled out on the base of an international cooperation. Simultaneously, the international authors are called upon to express their ideas about their own country’s future more distinctly and clearly; thus, distinctions and similarities of the respective paths of development are rather easily perceived.

Principles of Distributive Justice

$89.95

Is there one simple, all-encompassing governing principle that automatically yields the ‘fairest‘ results in the ‘just‘ distribution of goods? In this book Grzegorz Lissowski argues that three types of principles need to be distinguished according to three requirements of justice: • equality, • impartiality, • unanimity.

Polish-German Relations

$29.95

The book constitutes a sociological analysis of the origins of the Polish-German antagonism in the nineteenth and twentieth century and of the process of overcoming it. The author discusses the role played by the religious and political leaders as well as intellectuals of both nations and presents survey research data showing the marked improvement in mutual relations. After a long history of alternating relations, things between Poland and Germany were as bad as never before after World War II. The Nazi attack on Poland in 1939 and the atrocities committed during the occupation resulted in intense Polish hostility towards Germany. On the German side, the loss of territories created a feeling of harm and contributed to deepen anti-Polish stereotypes. The process of reconciliation emanated from initiatives taken by the Christian churches and courageous individuals on both sides, but the crucial step was taken by Chancellor Willy Brandt and the Polish communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka, who in 1970 worked out a comprehensive agreement for normalizing relations between Poland and the Federal Republic. Following the collapse of communist regimes and unification of Germany mutual relations took the form of co-operation and partnership within the structures of democratic Europe. Today, both sides are about to overcome former stereotypes. While some differences of interests still remain, the overall picture of the current relations between Germany and Poland is one proof that even deepest wounds of the past do not prevent nations from overcoming antagonism and from building friendly relations.

Critical Social Policy and the Capability Approach

$79.95

The (European) welfare state as well as the political space of “the social” is currently being reorganised in a fundamental way. This has major implications for any attempt to contribute to a more just or even emancipatory way of shaping “the social”. The authors discuss what the Capabilities Approach may contribute to this attempt. Rather than assessing the philosophical foundation of this approach, “Shaping the Social” critically discusses the potentials and pitfalls of analysing social and labour-market policy and in particular social services from a capabilities perspective.

Critical Social Policy and the Capability Approach

The Politics of Parliamentary Procedure

$86.00

Currently, parliament as a political institution does not enjoy the best reputation. This book aims to recover less known political resources of the parliamentary mode of proceeding. The parliamentary procedure relies on regulating debates in a fair way and on constructing opposed perspectives on the agenda items.

Health Among the Elderly in Germany

$49.00

Whether increasing life expectancy leads to better health remains still controversial. Three topics are explored: (1) vanguard groups which inform about possible levels of health if the general social and environmental conditions were to approach those of the vanguard group; (2) the social and behavioral determinants of health differentiated into proximal and distal factors; (3) vulnerable groups such as migrants and the health differences between migrant groups. Newly available population-based data as well as new study designs and advanced stati¬stical modelling form the basis for the empirical analyses.

The Internet and European Integration

$75.95

This book offers a wealth of original empirical data on how online media shape EU contestation. Taking a public sphere perspective, the authors highlight the myths and truths about the nature of audience-driven online media content and show how public demands for legitimacy are at the heart of the much-analyzed politicization of European integration. What EU citizens most intensely debate online are the fundamental questions of what the European institutions stand for and how they can be held accountable. Drawing on innovative and rigorous analysis of online media ownership, journalistic content and online readers’ inputs, the authors piece together the components of the dynamic nature of EU contestation and the degree of convergence towards Euroscepticism across EU member states in the first years of the Eurocrisis. There is no doubt that EU citizens have strong opinions about the EU and interactive online media allow these opinions to come to the fore, to be challenged and amplified both within and beyond national public spheres. Yet, for all its potential to unite European publics, online EU contestation remains firmly anchored in offline news media frames, while citizens and journalists alike struggle to put forward a clear vision of the future EU polity.

“Frozen conflicts” in Europe

$75.95

Oft forgotten but simmering “frozen conflicts” continuously mark the political map of Europe. All located in South Eastern Europe, the Black Sea area and Transcaucasia, these conflicts run along ethnic, national, cultural and linguistic lines, separating communities. This insightful book offers a rare critical analyses of the cases of Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo, and Crimea.

Divergent Pathways: Turkey and the European Union

$58.00

Should Turkey become a part of the European Union? This heated debate has been going on for many years now, always under the assumption that it is the membership candidate alone who needs to adjust to the EU’s influence. The book’s main argument is precisely that the Turkish accession needs to be analyzed not only by looking at the EU’s impact on Turkish transformation but also from an angle that captures the Turkish role in recasting Europe.

Divergent Pathways: Turkey and the European Union

Gendering European Integration Theory

$79.95

The authors engage a dialogue between European integration theories and gender studies. The contributions illustrate where and how gender scholarship has made creative use of integration theories and thus contributes to a vivid theoretical debate. The chapters are designed to make gender scholarship more visible to integration theory and, in this way stimulates the broader theoretical debates. Investigating the whole range of integration theory with a gender lens, the authors illustrate if and how gender scholarship has made or can make creative use of integration theories.

Handbook of Direct Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989

$84.00

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the political history of Central and Eastern Europe has been mainly the story of arise, consolidation, transformation and struggles of new democratic regimes and societies. The handbook offers an instructive approach to that history focusing on the relevance of practices and institutions of direct democracy. It collects 20 political analyses of direct democracy in 20 Central and Eastern European countries after 1989.

Handbook of Direct Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989

Gender in Focus

$70.00

This book deals with the interplay between identities, codes, stereotypes and politics governing the various constructions and deconstructions of gender in several Western and non-Western societies (Germany, Italy, Serbia, Romania, Cameroon, Indonesia, Vietnam, and others). Readers are invited to discover the realm of gender studies and to reflect upon the transformative potentialities of globalisation and interculturality.

Germany’s New Partners

$50.00

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis Germany became Europe’s most influential nation state. This book aims to provide a comparative assessment of how this is reflected in the country’s bilateral security relationships with key global and regional partners. Prepared by an international team of scholars, it offers unique, in-depth perspectives on the ways these evolving interactions affect the prospects for addressing recent and emerging security challenges.

Russia and China

$70.00

This book depicts the sophisticated relationship between Russia and China as a pragmatic one, a political “marriage of convenience”. Yet at the same time the relationship is stable, and will remain so. After all, bilateral relations are usually based on pragmatic interests and the pursuit of these interests is the very essence of foreign policy. And, as often happens in life, the most long-lasting marriages are those based on convenience. The highly complex, complicated, ambiguous and yet, indeed, successful relationship between Russia and China throughout the past 25 years is difficult to grasp theoretically. Russian and Chinese elites are hard-core realists in their foreign policies, and the neorealist school in international relations seems to be the most adequate one to research Sino-Russian relations. Realistically, throughout this period China achieved a multidimensional advantage over Russia. Yet, simultaneously Russia-China relations do not follow the patterns of power politics. Beijing knows its limits and does not go into extremes. Rather, China successfully seeks to build a longterm, stable relationship based on Chinese terms, where both sides gain, albeit China gains a little more. Russia in this agenda does not necessary lose; just gains a little less out of this asymmetric deal. Thus, a new model of bilateral relations emerges, which may be called – by paraphrasing the slogan of Chinese diplomacy – as “asymmetric win-win” formula. This model is a kind of “back to the past“ – a contemporary equivalent of the first model of Russia-China relations: the modus vivendi from the 17th century, achieved after the Nerchinsk treaty.

Changing Gender Norms in Islam Between Reason and Revelation

$71.50

Women‘s movements in Islamic countries have had a long and arduous journey in their quest for the realization of human rights and genuine equality. The author examines whether discriminatory laws against women do in fact originate from Islam and, ultimately, if there is any interpretation of Islam compatible with gender equality. She investigates women’s rights in Iran since the 1979 Revolution from the perspectives of the main currents of Islamic thought, fundamentalists, reformists, and seculars, using a sociological explanation.

Changing Gender Norms in Islam Between Reason and Revelation

The Politics of Nuclear Energy in the European Union

$80.00

For the foreseeable future the overall use of nuclear electricity in the European Union is unlikely to change significantly despite the controversies surrounding its use amongst the EU’s nation states. The author questions the role that nuclear electricity plays in meeting the challenges of providing secure, competitive and sustainable energy to support the development of the low carbon economy in the EU. Analysis presented focuses on the evolution of the discourse on nuclear energy amongst policy makers at European and national levels as well as amongst the public.