"An annotated edition of John Dewey's work of democratic theory, first published in 1927. Includes a substantive introduction and bibliographical essay"--Provided by publisher.

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.

Loneliness among older people and how the dying should be cared for are issues that evoke public debate. These issues are often described as universal and existential aspects of the human experience. Societal understandings of loneliness and dying have, however, changed dramatically over the past decades. Loneliness among older people and how we die are surrounded with ideals of how to "age well" and "good deaths", where failure to meet these expectations is associated with tabus, stigma and personal and societal failures. Consequently, studying loneliness among older people and care of the dying gives rise to the question of to what degree loneliness and dying are personal or public concerns. The aim of this dissertation is to study how loneliness among older people is constructed in the Swedish news press and how care of the dying is constructed in policies and through the perspectives of experts in palliative care. Specifically, the analysis explores to what extent these issues have become public concerns, and how "old and lonely" and "the dying" are positioned and constructed. In Paper I, the focus is on identifying overall discourses on loneliness among older people in the Swedish news press. Paper II is an analysis of how the responsibility for reducing loneliness is designated in the Swedish news press. Paper III explores how policies on palliative care have emerged and developed in Sweden over time since the 1970s up until today. Paper IV highlights the perspectives of experts, in palliative care, on the development and current state of palliative care, and the role of policymaking in this context. The findings of Paper I illustrate that although loneliness among older people have seemingly gained increased attention, much of the news articles are about the deficiencies in the organisation of eldercare and volunteer work with aims of reducing loneliness. In Paper II, the main finding is that the task of reducing loneliness is discussed, defined, and designated by and to those who were "non-old" and "non-lonely", where ambitions of inclusion result in constructing old people as the "others". Paper III shows how policies on palliative care have changed, from an emphasis on psychological end-of-life care and an overarching critique of the hospice care philosophy, to claims for care to be instead inspired by the very same philosophy. Furthermore, ideals of dying at home have lost their significance as palliative care should be universal and carried out everywhere. Based on interviews with experts in palliative care, the results of Paper IV highlight the complex development of palliative care in between deficiencies in end-of-life care of the past and improvements of the present. These improvements resulted, however, in risks of too much bureaucracy. The overall findings of this dissertation indicate that loneliness among older people and care of the dying serve as symbols for criticising the idea of the development of "modern society", which is altogether viewed as individualistic, bureaucratised and medicalised. Throughout the studies included in this dissertation, the issues of individual autonomy and activity as well as responsibility have shown to be central. In the context of palliative care, the concept of autonomy has a key position and responsibility is on the dying person to make choices in order to achieve "good palliative care". Regarding loneliness among older people, emphasis is on how to make older people physically and socially active. Loneliness is constructed as a problem which should be avoided and solved by "society" bearing the responsibility for enabling older people not to be lonely. Ensamhet bland äldre och vård av döende personer är frågor som diskuteras i offentliga fora. Dessa frågor beskrivs ofta som universella och en central del av människans existens. Dock har samhälleliga förståelser av ensamhet och döende förändrats dramatiskt under de senaste decennierna. Ensamhet bland äldre människor och hur vi dör är frågor som är omgärdade av ideal om "god död" och om att "åldras väl", där misslyckanden med att uppfylla dessa förväntningar är förknippade med tabun, stigma och personliga och samhälleliga brister. Eftersom äldres ensamhet och vård i livets slut är frågor som till viss del välfärdsstaten i Sverige engagerar sig i aktualiseras frågan om i vilken grad ensamhet och vård av döende personer är individens eller samhällets ansvar. Den ökade samhälleliga uppmärksamheten för dessa frågor i media och genom policyer, motiverar behovet av forskning om hur ensamhet bland äldre konstrueras, vad som ger upphov till att vissa definitioner blir förgivettagna och vilka typer av definitioner som nyhetspressen och policyer lutar sig emot. Syftet med denna avhandling är att studera hur ensamhet bland äldre konstrueras i svensk nyhetspress och vård av döende konstrueras i policyer samt utifrån experters perspektiv. En central del av detta syfte är att analysera i vilken utsträckning dessa frågor är individens respektive samhällets ansvar. Syftet är vidare att undersöka hur ”ensamma äldre” och ”döende personer” positioneras och konstrueras. I Paper fokuserade jag på att identifiera övergripande diskurser om ensamhet bland äldre i den svenska nyhetspressen. Paper II utgjordes av en analys av hur ansvar för att minska ensamheten bland äldre utpekats i den svenska nyhetspressen. Hur policyer kring palliativ vård i Sverige först etablerades och har utvecklats över tid, mellan åren 1974-2018, studerades i Paper III. Experters perspektiv på utvecklingen och det nuvarande tillståndet för palliativ vård och vilken roll policyer haft i denna typ av vård belystes i Paper IV. Trots att ensamhet bland äldre till synes har fått ökad uppmärksamhet i media, visade resultaten i Paper I att nyhetsartiklarna till stor del handlade om bristerna i organiseringen av äldreomsorg och betydelsen av volontärarbete för att minska ensamheten. I Paper II var den övergripande slutsatsen att uppdraget att minska ensamheten diskuterades, definierades och utpekades av och till dem som var "icke-äldre" och "icke-ensamma", där ambitioner om inkludering resulterade i att konstruera äldre människor som de "andra”. I Paper III var ett centralt fynd att policyer kring palliativ vård förändrats från betoning på psykologisk vård i livets slut och en övergripande kritik av vårdfilosofin från hospicerörelsen till krav på att vården bör utgå från denna filosofi. Dessutom tappade idealen om att dö hemma sin betydelse eftersom policyer med tiden betonade vikten av att palliativ vård ska vara universell och kunna genomföras överallt. Baserat på intervjuer med experter inom palliativ vård var resultaten av Paper IV att den historiska utvecklingen av hospice-rörelsen och samtida internationella händelser inom palliativ vård fungerade som referenspunkter för att förstå utvecklingen och det nuvarande tillståndet för den palliativa vården. Dessa metaberättelser sammanflätades också med personliga erfarenheter från palliativ vård. De övergripande resultaten i denna doktorsavhandling var att ensamhet bland äldre och vård av döende tjänade som symboler för att kritisera utvecklingen av det ”moderna samhället” som betraktades som individualistiskt, byråkratiserat och medikaliserat. I de studier som ingår i denna doktorsavhandling var frågor om ansvar, individuell autonomi och aktivitet centrala. I policyer för palliativ vård var begreppet autonomi centralt och döende personer framställdes som ansvariga för att göra val för att uppnå ”god palliativ vård”. Beträffande ensamhet bland äldre låg tonvikten på att göra äldre fysiskt och socialt aktiva. Ensamhet bland äldre människor ansågs mestadels som ett problem som bör undvikas och lösas. Det var också ”samhället” som skulle göra det möjligt för äldre att inte uppleva ensamhet.

"Everyone knows 'drunk driving' is a 'serious' offense. And yet, everyone knows lots of 'drunk drivers' who don't get involved in accidents, don't get caught by the police, and manage to compensate adequately for their 'drunken disability.' Everyone also knows of 'drunk drivers' who have been arrested and gotten off easy. Gusfield's book dissects the conventional wisdom about 'drinking-driving' and examines the paradox of a 'serious' offense that is usually treated lightly by the judiciary and rarely carries social stigma."—Mac Marshall, Social Science and Medicine "A sophisticated and thoughtful critic. . . . Gusfield argues that the 'myth of the killer drunk' is a creation of the 'public culture of law.' . . . Through its dramatic development and condemnation of the anti-social character of the drinking-driver, the public law strengthens the illusion of moral consensus in American society and celebrates the virtues of a sober and orderly world."—James D. Orcutt, Sociology and Social Research "Joseph Gusfield denies neither the role of alcohol in highway accidents nor the need to do something about it. His point is that the research we conduct on drinking-driving and the laws we make to inhibit it tells us more about our moral order than about the effects of drinking-driving itself. Many will object to this conclusion, but none can ignore it. Indeed, the book will put many scientific and legal experts on the defensive as they face Gusfield's massive erudition, pointed analysis and criticism, and powerful argumentation. In The Culture of Public Problems, Gusfield presents the experts, and us, with a masterpiece of sociological reasoning."—Barry Schwartz, American Journal of Sociology This book is truly an outstanding achievement. . . . It is sociology of science, sociology of law, sociology of deviance, and sociology of knowledge. Sociologists generally should find the book of great theoretical interest, and it should stimulate personal reflection on their assumptions about science and the kind of consciousness it creates. They will also find that the book is a delight to read."—William B. Bankston, Social Forces

Much of public opinion research over the past several decades suggests that the American voters are woefully uninformed about politics and thus unable to fulfill their democratic obligations. Arguing that this perception is faulty, Vincent Hutchings shows that, under the right political conditions, voters are surprisingly well informed on the issues that they care about and use their knowledge to hold politicians accountable. Though Hutchings is not the first political scientist to contend that the American public is more politically engaged than it is often given credit for, previous scholarship--which has typically examined individual and environmental factors in isolation--has produced only limited evidence of an attentive electorate. Analyzing broad survey data as well as the content of numerous Senate and gubernatorial campaigns involving such issues as race, labor, abortion, and defense, Hutchings demonstrates that voters are politically engaged when politicians and the media discuss the issues that the voters perceive as important. Hutchings finds that the media--while far from ideal--do provide the populace with information regarding the responsiveness of elected representatives and that groups of voters do monitor this information when "their" issues receive attention. Thus, while the electorate may be generally uninformed about and uninterested in public policy, a complex interaction of individual motivation, group identification, and political circumstance leads citizens concerned about particular issues to obtain knowledge about their political leaders and use that information at the ballot box.

Collecting several key documents and policy statements, this supplement to the ninth edition of the Intellectual Freedom Manual traces a history of ALA’s commitment to fighting censorship. An introductory essay by Judith Krug and Candace Morgan, updated by OIF Director Barbara Jones, sketches out an overview of ALA policy on intellectual freedom. An important resource, this volume includes documents which discuss such foundational issues as The Library Bill of RightsProtecting the freedom to readALA’s Code of EthicsHow to respond to challenges and concerns about library resourcesMinors and internet activityMeeting rooms, bulletin boards, and exhibitsCopyrightPrivacy, including the retention of library usage records

This book examines the key issues for consideration when evaluating information, consultation and public participation.