Learning from Comparing is a major two-volume study which reassesses the contribution of comparative educational research and theory to our understanding of contemporary educational problems and to our capacity to solve them. At a time when educational research is under attack on the grounds of ‘bias’ and ‘irrelevance’, and under pressure to address only those questions which are acceptable politically (as good a definition of bias as any), this is a serious attempt to bridge the worlds of research, policy and practice. The editors have put together a collection – in terms of both perspective and nationality – which ensures contrasting viewpoints on each topic.

The Second Edition of this popular text brings up-to-date Marieke de Mooij’s important analysis of the impact of culture on consumer behavior worldwide. The author shows how it is increasingly vital for marketing students—tomorrow’s marketing professionals—to understand the limits of consistent brand identities and universal advertising campaigns. Consumer behavior is not converging across countries, and therefore it is of even greater importance to understand, and be able to respond to, differences in behavior. This edition offers a new chapter, Chapter 7, on culture, communication, and media behavior that extends the prior edition’s discussion on communication theories and advertising styles to cover differences in media usage worldwide, particularly the use of the Internet.

Thomas Sowell gives you his ins and outs about writing. He describes the challenge of dealing with publishers, copy-editors, and book reviewers.

This book examines the approach to civic education in six societies located on the Pacific Rim: Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US. In these scrupulously designed studies, the contributors investigate the recent re-emergence of civic education in this region. Developments such as globalization, nationalism, and sovereignty have profound effects on how schools make "good citizens." These essays reveal how definitions of citizenship are contested and revised under such influences, and interrogate differences in civic education from nation to nation. As societies attempt to strike a balance between obedience and critical thinking, schools become the primary site of these transformations. Analyzing both educational policy and its implementation, these contributors offer a groundbreaking, comparative study that grounds civic education historically and politically.

In One World Emerging? Alex Inkeles clarifies the meaning of convergence in the social organization of modern societies, shows how it can be measured, and illustrates in detail the manner and degree of convergence across national boundaries. Inkeles assesses the extent to which convergence in institutional patterns is reflected in the emergence of more common attitudes, values, and daily behaviors in different national populations as individuals and communities engage with and respond to the standardizing pressures of national development and global modernization. One popular image of the probable condition of humanity in the twenty-first century anticipates a new Armageddon with all the great civilizations at war with each other. This model neglects a less dramatic but deeper-seated process of worldwide change in which national economic and political systems become more alike and populations worldwide come to adopt similar lifestyles and develop similar attitudes and values for daily living. Alex Inkeles penetrating analysis focuses on this process of convergence.In One World Emerging? Inkeles clarifies the meaning of convergence in the social organization of modern societies, shows how it can be measured, and illustrates in detail the manner and degree of convergence across national boundaries. Sensitive to evidence counter to the main trend, he gives close attention to the many instances in which national differences persist and nations and their populations diverge from a common path.At the national level, he compares and contrasts the modernization of the United States, Russia, China, and India. Focusing on particularly important institutions, he reviews the process of convergence in prestige hierarchies, the family, education, and communications. Capping the enterprise, Inkeles assesses the extent to which convergence in institutional patterns is reflected in the emergence of more common attitudes, values, and daily behaviors in different national populations as individuals and communitiesin North America, Europe, and increasingly in Asiaengage with and respond to the standardizing pressures of national development and global modernization.