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Transformations in Research, Higher Education and the Academic Market: The Breakdown of Scientific Thought
by Alexandra Waluszewski Sharon Rider Ylva HasselbergThis volume tackles head-on the controversy regarding the tensions between the principles underlying Academe on the one hand, and the free market on the other. Its outspoken thesis posits that seemingly irresistible institutional pressures are betraying a core principle of the Enlightenment: that the free pursuit of knowledge is of the highest value in its own right. As 'market principles' are forced on universities, inducing a neoteric culture of 'managerialism', many worry that the very characteristics that made European higher education in particular such a success are being eroded and replaced by ideological opportunism and economic expediency. Richly interdisciplinary, the anthology explores a wealth of issues such as the phenomenon of bibliometrics (linking an institution's success to the volume and visibility of publications produced). Many argue that the use of such indicators to measure scientific value is inimical to the time-consuming complexities of genuine truth-seeking. A number of the greatest discoveries and innovations in the history of science, such as Newton's laws of mechanics or the Mendelian laws of inheritance, might never have seen the light of day if today's system of determining and defining the form and content of science had dominated. With analytical perspectives from political science, economics, philosophy and media studies, the collection interrogates, for example, the doctrine of graduate employability that exerts such a powerful influence on course type and structure, especially on technical and professional training. In contrast, the liberal arts must choose between adaptation to the dictates of employability strategies or wither away as enrollments dwindle and resources evaporate. Research projects and aims have also become an area of controversy, with many governments now assessing the value of proposals in terms of assumed commercial benefits. The contributors argue that these changes, as well as 'reforms' in the managerial and administrative structures in tertiary education, constitute a radical break with the previous ontology of science and scholarship: a change in its very character, and not merely its form. It shows that the 'scientific thinking' students, researchers, and scholars are encouraged to adopt is undergoing a rapid shift in conceptual content, with significant consequences not only for science, but also for the society of which it is a part.
Transformations in Social Science Research Methods during the COVID-19 Pandemic (The COVID-19 Pandemic Series)
by J. Michael Ryan Valerie Visanich Gaspar BrändleThis volume explores how researchers made innovative use of online technologies to innovate, define, and transform research methodologies in light of the varying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those related to the ability to conduct qualitative research.The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a radical shift in the way that people all over the world were/have been able to live, work, study, and conduct their daily lives. Academics and other professionals who routinely engage in research were no exception. The sudden, continued, and uneven need for health mandates calling for physical distancing added a particular layer of complexity for those who used research methods that typically required face-to-face interactions. Continued technological developments associated with the Internet had already given rise to ongoing debates on innovative methodological thinking and practices. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accentuated how indispensable the internet has become for the private and public lives of those with access to it, including for their employment, education, leisure, and social interactions. For those fortunate enough to have access to them, communication software such as Zoom and Google Meet have also become indispensable digital resources for researchers seeking to continue conducting research during lockdowns and quarantines, and beyond. More than ever, researchers are finding it useful, even necessary, to equip themselves with online research tools in order to be able to continue conducting their fieldwork.Drawing on research and case studies from around the world, this volume serves as a guidebook for those interested in attuning their own research methods to a world still struggling to grapple with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Transformations in Tertiary Education: The Scholarship of Engagement at RMIT University
by Belinda Tynan Tricia McLaughlin Andrea Chester Catherine Hall-van den Elsen Belinda KennedyThis book presents a collection of papers from RMIT’s annual learning and teaching conference, Transformations in Tertiary Education: The Scholarship of Engagement at RMIT. It discusses innovative curricula and assessments, examines transformative student experiences and showcases examples of curricular and extra-curricular activities to promote and develop intercultural awareness and competence. The book showcases high-quality, innovative papers on promising new directions in tertiary education, representing the breadth and depth of teaching and learning at a leading global Australian university. Authors from Australian and offshore campuses address compelling questions related to curricula, technology, and assessment. Further, they employ a variety of methodological approaches to illustrate 21st century global perspectives on learning and teaching.Readers will be introduced to the complex interrelationships between scholarship and practice, innovative learning design and learning outcomes, and the shifting scholarship roles of the university, the teacher and the learner.
Transformations of African Marriage (African Seminars: Scholarship from the International African Institute #6)
by David Parkin David NyamwayaOriginally published in 1987, this book shows that there is still considerable continuity in the practices and ideas of marriage in Afican against a background of social and economic change. This book discusses the diverse marriage forms in Africa and explores the different systems some of which can be understood in terms of Levi-Strauss's distinciton between complex and semi-complex structures, while others throw up questions of filiation, child custoidanship and rights secured through bridewealth transactions.
Transformations of Gender and Race: Family and Developmental Perspectives
by Rhea AlmeidaTransformations of Gender and Race will help you become a better therapist by arming you with new theories and practices that concern inclusiveness of identity, psyche, and culture in the therapy room. This book radically shifts current thinking in systemic theory and practice with individuals, children, couples, and families, giving you a fresh perspective on working with your clients of all cultural backgrounds and both genders.In Transformations of Gender and Race: Family and Developmental Perspectives, you’ll discover superb contemporary thinking in cultural studies, post-colonial theory, gender theory, queer theory, and clinical and research work with numerous populations who have been overlooked and undertheorized. You’ll gain a wealth of knowledge and expertise from its contributors who have been immersed in the issues they address.The chapters in Transformations of Gender and Race provide a superb, state-of-the-art bibliography of contemporary thinking in cultural studies, post-colonial theory, and clinical and research work with numerous populations who have been “overlooked and undertheorized.” The new paradigms dicussed and practiced in Transformations in Gender and Race encourage cultural multiplicity, inclusiveness, and understanding. A pallete of contemporary thinking, this insightful book will guide you in: how to bring diversity into the lived experience of young children numerous theoretical paradigms couples therapy men&’s work and children addressing the intersections of gender, race, class, and culture in the therapy room transformations regarding race and gender the inclusiveness of feminismA wealth of expertise and sharp observation that reaches out to enrich and humanize therapy practices, Transformations of Gender and Race addresses the interactions between gender, class, race, sexual orientation, and age. Creative and in-depth, this volume articulates a perspective that connects all of these contexts of potential oppression and privilege. You will gain a deeper understanding of numerous theoretical paradigms for working with couples, individuals, and children that will improve your practice.
Transformations of Social-Ecological Systems: Studies in Co-creating Integrated Knowledge Toward Sustainable Futures (Ecological Research Monographs)
by Tetsu Sato Ilan Chabay Jennifer HelgesonThrough this book, readers will gain a comprehensive overview of transdisciplinary knowledge co-production in local contexts as an issue-driven and solution-oriented process, and will come to understand its relationship to societal transformation processes toward sustainability. In a single volume, the theory, approaches and academic implications of this novel type of knowledge production are addressed, together with its societal impacts.In the midst of global anthropogenic impacts that affect various environments, over the past few decades we have observed autonomous initiatives in local communities around the world to tackle these environmental challenges. It is vital that such local actions be scaled up to achieve sustainable societies, which requires societal transformation on larger scales. Thanks to numerous collaborative actions in local communities, transdisciplinary knowledge co-production among diverse stakeholders has successfully been mobilized, resulting in the development of Integrated Local Environmental Knowledge (ILEK); knowledge that can inform and support decisions and actions promoting the sustainable transformation of society. This book uses comparative case studies in communities around the world to illuminate and clarify processes and factors promoting the co-production and utilization of ILEK to facilitate decision-making. In addition, readers will gain deeper insights into the science-society interactions that can contribute to finding collaborative solutions to a wide range of critical environmental problems. Though the book is ideally suited for researchers and students, it also offers a valuable resource for practitioners, government agencies, and stakeholder agencies.
Transformations, Third Edition: Women, Gender and Psychology
by Mary Crawford<P>This edition examines the latest research in the context of a retrograde political climate on such topics as women’s leadership, backlash against competent women, sexual harassment, transgender identity, reproductive justice, and feminist activism.<P> Students are introduced to the concepts of feminism, multiculturalism, diversity and intersexuality.
Transformations Women: Women, Gender & Psychology (Second Edition)
by Mary CrawfordThis groundbreaking text presents a framework for understanding how the lives of all people are shaped by gender. Instead of presenting gender as a collection of individual traits, Transformations presents gender as a social system that is used to categorise people and is linked to power and status.
Transformationsprozesse am Fluchtort Stadt
by Mariam Arouna Ingrid Breckner Hazal Budak-Kim Umut Ibis Frauke Meyer Joachim SchroederDiese Publikation untersucht „Transformationsprozesse am Fluchtort Stadt“, die sich vor und nach der verstärkten Fluchtzuwanderung im Untersuchungsraum Hamburg der Jahre 2015/2016 nachweisen lassen. Kenntnisleitend war dabei die Frage, inwiefern Flucht und Zuwanderung von Geflüchteten nicht mehr nur als vorübergehende und kurzfristige Phänomene betrachtet und als Reaktion auf einen „Ausnahmezustand“ gedacht werden, sondern auch auf institutionellen/strukturellen Ebenen Transformationen auslösen und deshalb in regulärer Stadtpolitik und Stadtentwicklung zu berücksichtigen sind.Der theoretische Zugang erfolgte entsprechend der interdisziplinären Ausrichtung des Projekts mit einer wechselseitigen Bezugnahme auf bildungstheoretische, stadtsoziologische und migrationstheoretische Überlegungen. Empirisch wurden zunächst Transformationsprozesse administrativer und institutioneller Strukturen und deren Spuren in den Lebenslagen Geflüchteter in den Blick genommen. Abschließend erfolgt eine kontrastierende Diskussion der Hamburger Befunde zu den vielfach bundesweit als vorbildlich beurteilten kommunalen Strategien und Praktiken des Umgangs mit Flucht*Migration in Schwäbisch Gmünd sowie eine Reflexion ethischer Fragen in der wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Flucht*Migration.
Transformative Approaches to New Technologies and Student Diversity in Futures Oriented Classrooms
by Leonie Rowan Chris BigumIn this book we outline an optimistic, aspirational and unashamedly ambitious agenda for schooling. We make cautious use of the concept of 'future proofing' to signal the commitment of the various authors to re-thinking the purposes, content and processes of schooling with a view to ensuring that all children, from all backgrounds are prepared by their education to make a positive contribution to the futures that are ahead of them. The book focuses on issues relating to technology and social justice to re-examine the traditional relationship between schools and technology, between schools and diverse learners, and between schools, children and knowledge. Drawing from examples from around the world, the book explores practical ways that diverse schools have worked to celebrate diverse understandings of what it means to be a learner, a citizen, a worker in these changed and changing times and the ways different technologies can support this agenda.
The Transformative Capacity of New Technologies: A Theory of Sociotechnical Change (Routledge Advances in Sociology)
by Ulrich DolataScientific concepts on the co-evolution of technology and society, as well as recent sociotechnical system approaches, focus on the general interrelations between technology, socioeconomic structures, and institutions. Their aim is to study and explain processes and modes of technological change. Rarely, however, have answers been put forward on the related question of processes of socioeconomic and institutional change, provoked by emerging new technological opportunities and constraints. The Transformative Capacity of New Technologies redresses this imbalance, exploring the questions: how and to what extent do socioeconomic structures, institutions, and actors change under the influence of new technologies? how do they react to technology-induced pressures to change? what patterns do they adopt? The book provides theoretical considerations as well as practical tools for analyzing and classifying exceptional periods of substantial sociotechnical change. It examines the literature on path-dependency and path-creation, on organizational and institutional change, and on sociotechnical transitions. Case studies on subjects such as the pharmaceutical industry, the music industry, the energy sector, and scientific publishing support the theoretical analysis. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, science and technology studies, work and industry studies, and management of technology and innovation.
Transformative Consumer Research for Personal and Collective Well-Being
by Saskia StachowitschDaily existence is more interconnected to consumer behaviors than ever before, encompassing many issues of well-being. Problems include unhealthy eating; credit card mismanagement; alcohol, tobacco, pornography, and gambling abuse; marketplace discrimination; and ecological deterioration; as well as at-risk groups who are impoverished, impaired, or elderly. Opportunities for well-being via consumer behaviors include empowerment via the Internet, product sharing, leisure pursuits, family consumption, and pro-environmental activities, among others. In 2005 the Association for Consumer Research launched Transformative Consumer Research (TCR). Its mission is to foster research on quality of life that is both rigorous and applied for better assisting consumers, their caregivers, policy administrators, and executives. This edited volume includes 33 chapters on a wide range of topics by expert international authors. All royalties from sales of this book are donated to the Association to support TCR grants.
Transformative Education through International Service-Learning: Realising an ethical ecology of learning (Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education)
by Philip M BamberTransformative learning is a compelling approach to learning that is becoming increasingly popular in a diverse range of educational settings and encounters. This book reconceptualises transformative learning through an investigation of the learning process and outcomes of International Service-Learning (ISL), a pedagogical approach that blends student learning with community engagement overseas and the development of a more just society. Drawing upon key philosophers and theorists, Bamber offers an integrated, multi-dimensional approach, linking transformative learning to the development of the authentic self, and analysing the aesthetic, moral and relational dimensions of ISL in an increasingly globalized world. Chapters explore rich empirical data to provide a timely framework and ethical ecology of transformative learning, detailing the challenges facing the approach, and how it can be embedded at the levels of practice, institutional ethos and partnership. Transformative Learning through International Service-Learning will appeal to academics, researchers, teachers, instructors and leaders in the fields of service-learning, international education, character education and in adult learning and education. It will also be of interest to practitioners working in international education, development education, volunteering, service-learning and community engagement.
Transformative L2 Teacher Education Innovations: Insights from Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory (ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series)
by Karen E. Johnson Paula R. Golombek Jacob RiekerTransformative L2 Teacher Education Innovations features empirical research studies informed by Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory (VSCT) that are explicitly and intentionally designed to transform second language (L2) teacher reasoning and thinking, as well as L2 teaching practices and pedagogical choices.With contributions from scholars and practicing teacher educators, each chapter highlights a designed innovative professional development experience that has created a “new” social situation of development with a clearly articulated “ideal” for L2 teachers to embrace and/or achieve. Each study articulates the rationale and unique design features of the innovation, the intentionality behind the choices made when designing and enacting the innovation, and the quality, character, and outcomes of the intervention for L2 teachers. Furthermore, each study documents the forms of mediation that are offered to support L2 teacher professional development, such as conceptual tools, goal-directed activities, and/or social relations/interactions.The book offers insight into the internal logic of VSCT-informed L2 Teacher Education and provides concrete examples of how L2 teacher educators can adopt a Vygotskian-informed pedagogical stance in their teacher education practices. The edited collection is especially applicable for scholars and teacher educators in language education, applied linguistics, TESOL, and bilingual education who engage with Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory.
Transformative Management Education: The Role of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies)
by Ulrike Landfester Jörg MetelmannDue to the recent global financial crises, academic business schools have come in for much criticism, having, in the eyes of the public, failed in their responsibility to society by teaching future managers only how to increase their personal gain without any consideration as to their actions’ social and cultural consequences. Realising that there is a pressing need to innovate their educational offers accordingly, business schools are beginning to turn to the humanities and social sciences to improve on the understanding and thus the teaching of management. This book is the result of an empirical study conducted at eight academic business schools that either already practise or are beginning to practise linking management education to the humanities and social sciences. Gathered mostly in interviews our research team conducted during site visits to these schools, the material presented shows three major fields of concern: how to shift the focus from instrumental to transformative learning, how to reframe the concept of disciplinary subject matter towards a more relational understanding of knowledge—especially in the light of the impact digitalisation is having on education—and how to address the organisational, as well as the political consequences of management education turning towards the inclusion of the humanities and social sciences strategically. The findings indicate that the humanities and social sciences indeed offer knowledge which can significantly help management education with meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. Innovating management education by making it part of its program portfolios proves a challenge in and of itself in the face of a university system which still determinedly clings to disciplinary segregation. Reforming management education towards an engagement with fields of knowledge traditionally at best ignored and at worst vilified as being completely useless in the "real world" may therefore place academic business schools at the forefront of a movement that is beginning to reshape the educational landscape as a whole. This book will be of value to researchers, academics and students in the fields of business, management studies, organisational studies and education studies.
Transformative Marketing: Combining New Age Technologies and Human Insights (Palgrave Executive Essentials)
by Philip Kotler V. KumarThis book gives an indispensable guide to navigating the shift in customer behavior and discovers how to rally their resources, cultivate capabilities, and forge strategies that harness cutting-edge technologies. In today's tech-centric world, customers crave lightning-fast digital experiences and demand instant solutions. In response, firms are changing the way they do business by accelerating the application of new age technologies, revamping processes, building new organizational structures, and innovating new business models. The authors unveil the secrets of integrating diverse data sources, principles of Marketing 5.0 and employing advanced techniques to unearth profound insights about the customers. This work is the ticket to the latest in AI, machine learning, drones, and other game-changing technologies. Stay ahead of the curve by learning not just what tech to use, but how, when, and why to deploy it in this digital age. For the trailblazers with the influence and resources to reshape marketing strategies, this book is the essential read. Executives climbing the corporate ladder will find it a compass, unraveling how new age technologies dance with both traditional and emerging marketing practices. And for MBA students hungry for insights on navigating the digital era's competitive landscape, this book is the treasure trove of tools and real-world cases. Dive in and chart the course in the tech-driven marketing landscape!
The Transformative Mind
by Anna StetsenkoThe book suggests a transition from a relational worldview premised on the socio-political ethos of adaptation towards a transformative worldview premised on the ethos of solidarity and equality. Expansively developing Vygotsky's revolutionary project, the Transformative Activist Stance integrates insights from a vast array of critical and sociocultural theories and pedagogies and moves beyond their impasses to address the crisis of inequality. This captures the dynamics of social transformation and agency in moving beyond theoretical and political canons of the status quo. The focus is on the nexus of people co-creating history and society while being interactively created by their own transformative agency. Revealing development and mind as agentive contributions to the 'world-in-the-making' from an activist stance guided by a sought-after future, this approach culminates in implications for research with transformative agendas and a pedagogy of daring. Along the way, many key theories of mind, development and education are challenged and radically reworked.
Transformative Planning: Smarter, Greener and More Inclusive Practices
by Andrea I. FrankThe Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning series offers a selection of some of the best scholarship in urban and regional planning from around the world with internationally recognized authors taking up urgent and salient issues from theory, to education for and practice of planning. This 7th volume features contributions on the theme of Transformative Planning: Smarter, Greener and More Inclusive Practices. It includes chapters from leading planning scholars and practitioners who critically examine how transformative planning practices seek to reduce inequalities, promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, achieve gender equality, improve human health and well-being, foster resilience of urban communities and protect the environment and thereby change urban planning paradigms. Several case studies of emerging transformative planning interventions illustrate practical ways forward. Transformative Planning offers provocative insights into the global planning community’s struggle and contribution to tackle the major challenges to society in the 21st century. It will be of use for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in the wide-ranging fields encompassed by urban studies, sustainability studies, and urban and regional planning. The Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) series is published in association with the Global Planning Education Association Network (GPEAN) and its member national and transnational planning schools associations.
The Transformative Politics of Music Education (ISME Series in Music Education)
by Tuulikki Laes Gert Biesta Heidi WesterlundThis book introduces a unique approach to the interconnections between music education and politics. By taking a broader, more diverse, and explicitly ethico-political philosophical and theoretical stance, the book challenges institutional and structural conditions that may be resistant to change and expands the understanding of the professional responsibility of music educators in the 21st century to meet a variety of societal and ecological challenges.Emerging from a collaboration between international music education scholars and prominent contemporary educational theorist Gert Biesta, this book connects contemporary educational theories with music education to unlock its transformational capacity. In eight chapters, the contributors show how music education can move towards ways of being and doing that are attuned to social justice and to the broader social and ecological responsibility of music professionals. Strengthening the interdisciplinary connections between music education and education, philosophy, sociology, policy, systems thinking, and more, the volume offers a renewed vision of the scope and boundaries of both music teacher education and professional work in music more widely.Connecting the decades-long work of internationally established music educator scholars and ideas from large-scale research projects with a shared interest in transformative theorisation, this book fills a knowledge gap and reframes the philosophy of music education as a vibrantly multidisciplinary, theory-generating field. Relevant to researchers and students across music teacher education and performance studies, this book speaks to both conservatoires and university contexts across Europe and North America, helping us unlock the transformative capacity of music education.
Transformative Politics of Nature: Overcoming Barriers to Conservation in Canada
by Andrea Olive Chance Finegan Karen F. BeazleyTransformative Politics of Nature highlights the most significant barriers to conservation in Canada and discusses strategies to confront and overcome them. Featuring contributions from academics as well as practitioners, the volume brings together the perspectives of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts on land and wildlife conservation, in a way that honours and respects all peoples and nature. Contributors provide insights that enhance understanding of key barriers, important actors, and strategies for shaping policy at multiple levels of government across Canada. The chapters engage academics, environmental conservation organizations, and Indigenous communities in dialogues and explorations of the politics of wildlife conservation. They address broad and interrelated themes, organized into three parts: barriers to conservation, transformation through reconciliation, and transformation through policy and governance. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the need for increased social-political awareness of biodiversity and conservation in Canada, enhanced wildlife conservation collaborative networks, and increased scholarly attention to the principles, policies, and practices of maintaining and restoring nature for the benefit of all peoples, species, and ecologies. Transformative Politics of Nature presents a vision of profound change in the way humans relate to each other and with the natural world.
Transformative Scenario Planning: Working Together to Change the Future
by Adam Kahane&“Take[s] scenario planning to a new level, beyond the confines of business strategy, to deal with wider social and economic issues.&”—Vince Cable, former Secretary of State for Business, UK People who are trying to solve tough economic, social, and environmental problems often find themselves frustratingly stuck. They can&’t solve their problems in their current context, which is too unstable or unfair or unsustainable. They can&’t transform this context on their own—it&’s too complex to be grasped or shifted by any one person or organization or sector. And the people whose cooperation they need don&’t understand, agree with, or trust them…or each other. Transformative scenario planning is a powerful new methodology for dealing with these challenges. It enables us to transform ourselves and our relationships and thereby the systems of which we are a part. At a time when divisions within and among societies are causing so many people to get stuck and to suffer, it offers hope—and a proven approach—for moving forward together. Praise for Adam Kahane&’s books &“Thought-provoking discourse on handling difficult situations.&”—Publishers Weekly &“Profound . . . a wise way to negotiate our toughest group, community, and societal challenges.&”—William Ury, New York Times–bestselling coauthor of Getting to Yes
Transformative Sustainability Pedagogy: Designing and Facilitating Eco-Spiritual Learning
by Heather BurnsThis book offers stories and tools for designing and facilitating transformative sustainability pedagogy and explores how educators can intentionally design and facilitate eco-spiritual learning that promotes healing and wholeness. In these times of accelerating climate change and systemic injustice, we need learning spaces that both challenge our unsustainable dominant paradigms and support us in re-learning how to live in relational and regenerative ways. Rooted in the paradigm of interconnection and relationality, this book offers practical ways to design and facilitate learning toward more just, ecological, and spiritual ways of being. The author weaves together a variety of personal stories of teaching and learning, an exploration of how new science can be applied to transformative sustainability pedagogy, and eco-spiritual practices to help educators nurture wholeness and connection in themselves and in learning spaces.
Transforming America: Politics and Culture During the Reagan Years
by Robert M. CollinsBy the end of the 1980s, the "malaise" that had once pervaded American society was replaced by a renewed sense of confidence and national purpose. However, beneath this veneer of optimism was a nation confronting the effects of massive federal deficits, a reckless foreign policy, AIDS, homelessness, and a growing "cultural war." In Transforming America, renowned historian Robert Collins examines the decade's critical and controversial developments and the unmistakable influence of Ronald Reagan. Moving beyond conventional depictions that either demonize or sanctify Reagan, Collins offers fresh insights into his thought and influence. He portrays Reagan as a complex political figure who combined ideological conservatism with political pragmatism to achieve many of his policy aims. Collins demonstrates how Reagan's policies helped to limit the scope of government, control inflation, reduce the threat of nuclear war, and defeat communism. Collins also shows how the simultaneous ascendancy of the right in politics and the left in culture created a divisive legacy. The 1980s witnessed other changes, including the advent of the personal computer, a revolution in information technology, a more globalized national economy, and a restructuring of the American corporation. In the realm of culture, the creation of MTV, the popularity of self-help gurus, and the rise of postmodernism in American universities were the realization of the cultural shifts of the postwar era. These developments, Collins suggests, created a conflict in American society that continues today, pitting cultural conservatism against a secular and multicultural view of the world.Entertaining and erudite, Transforming America explores the events, movements, and ideas that defined a turbulent decade and profoundly changed the shape and direction of American culture and politics.
Transforming an Idea Into a Business with Design Thinking: The Structured Approach from Silicon Valley for Entrepreneurs and Leaders
by Muhammad AlamWe are living in fascinating times, when the power of technology is not just reshaping, but is transforming the globe in unprecedented ways. These include the ability to connect with anyone across the globe in an instant using a tiny device in the palm of our hands to the availability of self-learning systems to take over, not only the most mundane of tasks, but the most sophisticated tasks previously thought to be performable only by superior human faculties. Regardless of whether you consider this progress to be beneficial to society or harmful, these technological advancements are here to stay. On one hand, these current transformational technological advancements threaten this stability of society. On the other hand, they present an opportunity for all of us to awaken our inner entrepreneurs. This book makes the transition from an employee to an entrepreneur smooth for the masses. Many of us have ideas to improve this world in some way and even feel strongly about some of those ideas at a deeper level. However, we find ourselves perplexed on two levels: 1. Where to start when building an idea into a business? 2. What are the various dimensions and activities needed to launch an idea into a business? This book will introduce you to a structured framework, called Transform3+1, to transform your idea into a business by following simple and specific steps spread across four stages. The framework is grounded in the belief that all solutions solve human problems using technology or otherwise. The first stage will help you understand the problem facing your target user by building empathy. Once you understand the problem, comes the stage of devising a solution in an iterative manner through prototyping the new concept and validating with the user. Most start-ups fail not because they didn’t find the right problem to solve for the target user or that their solution lacked technological prowess but because they could not figure out a sustainable business model. Third stage will focus on crafting a business model. And the final stage introduces you to a unique approach of managing risk associated with your venture. This unique framework leverages the principles of Design Thinking, agile development, and lean start-up combined in an easy to follow manner by anyone and helps transform ideas into business in a short timeframe with little or no investment.
Transforming Asian Governance: Rethinking assumptions, challenging practices (Routledge Research On Public and Social Policy in Asia)
by M. Ramesh Scott FritzenThere are a multitude of hazards that confront attempts to change institutional or political orders in pursuit of good governance. Even seemingly technical prescriptions run up against local political and social realities which make their adoption difficult and, if adopted, require significant modification of the original prescriptions. Moreover, the technical, rationalist and/or normative language employed in the good governance discourse masks contests over power, rights, resources, and actors’ conflicting interests. There is a definite need to situate the good governance debate in the local context rather than reflexively adopting a universalistic positing of the fact or desirability of governance convergence across countries and sectors because the reality is that the world-wide deployment of good governance rhetoric is not accompanied by convergence in thinking or practices across nations. Transforming Asian Governance asks: • How do good governance principles translate into local settings?• How do local settings influence the conception of what is good governance and how the debate over good governance is deployed as a political or administrative strategy? Using case studies in governance from Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Korea and Japan, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the public and social policy of Asia, and international and comparative governance more generally.