The volume addresses major features in empirical social research from methodological and theoretical perspectives. Prominent researchers discuss central problems in empirical social research in a theory-driven way from political science, sociological or social-psychological points of view. These contributions focus on a renewed discussion of foundations together with innovative and open research questions or interdisciplinary research perspectives.

Provides a framework to demonstrate how to unify formal, theoretical and empirical analysis through various interdisciplinary examples.

A diverse array of factors may influence both earnings and consumption; however, this work primarily focuses on the impact of investments in human capital upon an individual's potential earnings and psychic income. For this study, investments in human capital include such factors as educational level, on-the-job skills training, health care, migration, and consideration of issues regarding regional prices and income. Taking into account varying cultures and political regimes, the research indicates that economic earnings tend to be positively correlated to education and skill level. Additionally, studies indicate an inverse correlation between education and unemployment. Presents a theoretical overview of the types of human capital and the impact of investment in human capital on earnings and rates of return. Then utilizes empirical data and research to analyze the theoretical issues related to investment in human capital, specifically formal education. Considered are such issues as costs and returns of investments, and social and private gains of individuals. The research compares and contrasts these factors based upon both education and skill level. Areas of future research are identified, including further analysis of issues regarding social gains and differing levels of success across different regions and countries. (AKP).

Over the past decade, conducting empirical research in linguistics has become increasingly popular. The first of its kind, this book provides an engaging and practical introduction to this exciting versatile field, providing a comprehensive overview of research aspects in general, and covering a broad range of subdiscipline-specific methodological approaches. Subfields covered include language documentation and descriptive linguistics, language typology, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics, cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. The book reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of each single approach and on how they interact with one-another across the study of language in its many diverse facets. It also includes exercises, example student projects and recommendations for further reading, along with additional online teaching materials. Providing hands-on experience, and written in an engaging and accessible style, this unique and comprehensive guide will give students the inspiration they need to develop their own research projects in empirical linguistics.

Two questions often shape our view of the world. On the one hand, we ask what there is, on the other hand, we ask what there ought to be. Empirical research and normative theory, the methodological traditions concerned with these questions, entered a difficult relationship, from at least as early as around the time of the advent of modern sciences. To this day, there remains a strong separation between the two domains, with both tending to neglect discourses and results from the other. Contrary to a verdict of strict segregation between "is" and "ought," there are, nowadays, various attempts to integrate both theoretical approaches. This calls for a discourse on the relation between empirical research and normative theory. In this volume, scholars from different disciplines – including psychology, sociology, economics, and philosophy – discuss the possible desired or undesired influences on, and limits of, the integration of these two approaches.

This important volume examines rights from an inter-disciplinary law and society perspective, beginning with the premise that the most basic functions of rights requires the empirical study of rights consciousness and claiming behavior. As such the volume includes articles and essays by political scientists, historians, lawyers, and sociologists which place the study of ordinary citizens' understandings of rights, and what actions they take based on that knowledge, at the forefront of an empirical research agenda. This has important implications for law's capacity to achieve social change and can lead to better understanding of how rights can and should operate in a social and legal system. The volume is organized around the social movements and political processes which give rise to rights, the processes by which people come to understand they enjoy a right, the decision to invoke the right either formally or informally, and the organizational and institutional constraints and opportunities for exercising rights.

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