Research Methods: The Basics is an accessible, user-friendly introduction to the different aspects of research theory, methods and practice. This third edition provides an expanded and fully updated resource suitable for students and practitioners in a wide range of disciplines including the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It is structured in two parts - the first covers the nature of knowledge and the reasons for doing research, the second explains the specific methods used...

Wind energy is often portrayed as a panacea for the environmental and political ills brought on by an overreliance on fossil fuels, but this characterization may ignore the impact wind farms have on the regions that host them. Power Struggles investigates the uneven allocation of risks and benefits in the relationship between the regions that produce this energy and those that consume it. Jaume Franquesa considers Spain, a country where wind now constitutes the main source of energy production.

In particular, he looks at the Southern Catalonia region, which has traditionally been a source of energy production through nuclear reactors, dams, oil refineries, and gas and electrical lines. Despite providing energy that runs the country, the region is still forced to the political and economic periphery as the power they produce is controlled by centralized, international Spanish corporations. Local resistance to wind farm installation in Southern Catalonia relies on the notion of dignity: the ability to live within one's means and according to one's own decision...

Presents the research in media psychology, bridging selective exposure into a larger framework of choice in media usage. Considering the myriad media options available to use, this work seeks to answer such questions as: what mechanisms guide an individual's exposure to/choice of media and how can researchers model them.

What does it mean to be secure? In the global news, we hear stories daily about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about domestic-level conflicts around the world, about the challenges of cybersecurity and social security. This broad list highlights the fact that security is an idea with multiple meanings, but do we all experience security issues in the same way? In this book, Nicole Detraz explores the broad terrain of security studies through a gender lens. Assumptions about masculinity and ...

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to criminological theory for students taking courses in criminology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Building on previous editions, this book presents the latest research and theoretical developments. The text is divided into five parts, the first three of which address ideal type models of criminal behaviour: the rational actor, predestined actor and victimized actor models.

Within these, the various criminological t...

A new research project guide for social science students used to hybrid teaching and research; it comes from two young, energetic methods experts who map the individual’s journey through a contained project.

Approaches to Mixed Methods Research focuses on the choices social scientists make when designing a study that mixes quantitative and qualitative data. Authors Lisa D. Pearce and Jessica Halliday Hardie explore ways to weave together strands of research using qualitative and quantitative data to speak to and enhance each other; a strand being a series of steps involved in collecting and analyzing a single type of data.

The result, they show, is a more holistic body of evidence that emerges, a...

Illuminating, through ethnographic inquiry, how individual agents "make" language policy in everyday social practice, this volume advances the growing field of language planning and policy using a critical sociocultural approach. From this perspective, language policy is conceptualized not only as official acts and documents, but as language-regulating modes of human interaction, negotiation, and production mediated by relations of power. Using this conceptual framework, the volume addresses ...