This open access book is about the successes and challenges of the institutions and individuals who transformed early child education in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (CEE) and Eurasia in response to the political transitions to democracy in the 1990's. Through new interviews and unpublished reports, the book gives voice to committed practitioners, researchers and policymakers who are developing inspiring services for and with young children and their families, including children who live in very difficult circumstances. They work with children affected by war, refugee families with young children, children who live in poverty, children of minorities, and children with disabilities and developmental delays. The voices of these pedagogues, experts and NGO leaders, who were supported by the Open Society Foundations Early Childhood Program, bring inspiring messages to those in the field of early childhood seeking to promote democratic values and social inclusion. The book traces the extension of programs to Africa and Asia and explores how strategies used to transform early childhood education following the political and social transformations in Europe and Eurasia can inform responsive reforms and innovations in early childhood education today and in the future.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Open Society Foundation (OSF).

How can we design our lives to be sustainable amidst an uncertain future for our planet?
How do we know what to trust in an online world rife with misinformation?
How can we confront our mental health crises?
How can we overcome polarization on issues of critical importance to our shared existence?
How can we work together with those who see the world differently to us?

Confronting these questions requires us to consider what the 'future of knowledge' might be, including the distinctive roles that disciplines across the sciences, arts and humanities might play. Epistemic insight is the 'knowledge about knowledge' needed to navigate the similarities and differences between disciplines and how they approach these questions differently. However, many education systems operate with a compartmentalized structure that limits the development of epistemic insight and thus our ability to provide students with the 'knowledge about knowledge' they need.

This open access book draws from 10 years of research into how epistemic insight can transform compartmentalized structures of learning. It presents a range of strategies and approaches for how educators, including schoolteachers, teacher educators, lecturers and education policy-makers, can facilitate epistemically insightful educational experiences. This book provides a distinctive contribution to the field of inter/multi/transdisciplinary education and will be of interested to anyone exploring the power and potential of these approaches.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF).

Written by a Sundance alum and short filmmaker, this book combines the practical advice of a craft guide with a curated, diverse anthology, including revealing interviews with the writers and directors.

Short Film Screenwriting demystifies the process of writing effective, emotionally involving short films and, for the first time, publishes the screenplays of some award-winning shorts, providing unfiltered access to the voice, vision, and approach of the filmmakers. A ground-breaking new addition to both film and creative writing instruction, this book treats short film screenwriting as a literary mode worthy of close examination and exploration to inspire screenwriters.

The book is built around accessible craft concepts and story forms: narrative design, visualizing character, uncommon relationship, the 10-minute journey, perception shift, formal experiments and hybrid forms, and revision. Contemporary, award-winning film scripts from the Oscars, Sundance, SXSW, and beyond accompany chapters as case studies, along with interviews with the writers/filmmakers about the drafting and revision process, production, and release. Each of the films is accessible for screening online, with additional screenplays included in an online resource.

Digital Stimulation explores the subject of intimacy, including romantic and sexual intimacy, between human and nonhuman entities, particularly technological entities. As relationships between humans and machines become increasingly prevalent, it is important to address the potential for such relationships to reflect, to reinforce, or to reinvent existing hierarchies. The distinction between man and machine, like the distinction between man and beast, between man and brute, between man and nature, between man and woman, and so on, is an expression of the anthropocentrism and androcentrism permeating western ideas of self and other.

Concerns about the representation (or misrepresentation) and treatment (or mistreatment) of machines are of consequence for other human and nonhuman others as well, and this book details many of the ways in which depictions of machines, especially robots, mirror ideas and attitudes about various human and nonhuman others. This book also addresses the ongoing development of machines designed explicitly for intimate engagement with humans, such as sex robots. As they become more and more lifelike, it becomes progressively more urgent to cultivate compassion toward such machines.

Covering both theory and methodology, expert contributors analyse the deep changes caused by technological advances at the individual, collective and global level. They identify approaches and methods that can lead to informed, considered decisions on technology and responsible handling of their consequences. Chapters explore a wide range of TA applications across different cultural contexts as well as in various fields including AI, climate engineering, healthcare and work.

Drawing on extensive practical experiences from a global movement, this Handbook is an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners of technology assessment. It is also an important guide for students of science and technology studies, the ethics of technology, risk assessment, and responsible research and innovation.

Drawing on theories in politics, sociology, gender and feminist studies, and social movement studies, this book compares and contrasts NGOized feminist organizations and informal street feminist groups in Belgium and Romania in order to understand the transformation of modern and contemporary feminist movements. Chapters trace the development of this NGOization process and its entanglements with neoliberal modes of governance and techniques and proposes an historically and empirically grounded analytical model to studying the NGOization of feminist movements as a multidimensional process. By analyzing the NGOization process through a cross-national comparison based on very different cases, the book disentangles the links between institutionalization, professionalization, bureaucratization and precarization and brings clarifications concerning the outcomes associated with them, such as demobilization, depoliticization, co-optation and burn-out. This book places the NGOization offeminist movement organizations within the specific context of relations between the state and the market in neoliberalism.

This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers across Gender & Feminist Studies, Social Movements, Sociology, and Politics.

Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, editors Nick Crossley and Paul Widdop bring together world-leading academics working on the culture-networks interface. The Handbook of Culture and Social Networks outlines theoretical foundations, applies network theory to varying acts and forms of culture, and brings into focus the question of social and relational meaning itself. Presenting empirical data, simulated network studies and first-person experiences, chapter authors develop nuanced social network analyses to help us understand the ways in which we experience and exist in society.

This Handbook is an invaluable resource for students and academics working in cultural sociology, social networks, and sociological theory. Exploring social networks in a variety of different cultural contexts, it will also appeal to researchers and practitioners in the arts and humanities.

How do metaverse technologies change how we communicate with each other? This book explores how existing metaverse technologies affect our communication, both verbal and non-verbal, as well as the ramifications of these effects.

Communication is central to the human experience, and how we currently communicate (and will communicate) can affect our sense of identity and relationships with others, which can have huge long term societal repercussions. Utilising methods of digital ethnography and linguistic landscape, this book takes an in-depth look at what exactly the metaverse is-or will be-and tracks the technological and societal trends that surround it. To do so, it questions what differentiates the metaverse from earlier connected virtual worlds like World of Warcraft or Second Life, and features extracts from interviews with the users and developers of current metaverses, such as Roblox, Minecraft, and Gather.town. It also investigates the impact of the pandemic in changing and accelerating how we communicate in virtual spaces.

In the age of ecological crisis, language and discourse are emerging as a new battleground in the environmental debate. With the rise of new environmentalist movements and their subsequent backlash, we are now exposed to a plethora of different and often opposing discourses on the environmental crisis and our relationship with nature. This book argues for the need to develop classroom practices which aid students in critically reviewing and evaluating different perspectives on discourses of environmentalism and sustainability.

Remarking that language and humanities teachers are perfectly positioned to play a key role in the development of eco-critical language awareness at this crucial juncture, this book explores how they can help students utilise a critical perspective to navigate the multitude of cultural messages regarding our relationship with nature. Employing ecolinguistics as a form of eco-critical pedagogy, Emile Bellewes presents key concepts underpinning ecolinguistics, before guiding readers through their application in the classroom. Serving as a bridge between critical perspectives on environmental education and forms of discourse analysis, Ecolinguistics and Environment in Education explains how ecolinguistics can be used to carry out detailed linguistic analyses of environmentally significant messages in the classroom.

This open access book examines the untold human history of the Amazon rainforest, from the arrival of the earliest humans to the present. A spate of recent discoveries in unexplored regions and technological breakthroughs have allowed us to peer through the forest canopy to the earth below, revealing an entirely new picture of Amazonian past, which overturns the long-held assumption of a virgin rainforest.

This book demonstrates how Amazonia's current diversity of landscapes and people are deeply rooted in prehistory with lasting repercussions on today's rainforests. Among the major achievements of ancient Amazonian peoples were the domestication of globally important crops, including manioc, cacao, rice, yams and sweet potato, manufactured America's first ceramics, engineered the landscape for sustainable food production, built massive geometric ceremonial structures, and had distinctively complex, early urban polities that can rival any civilization of antiquity.

Amazonia is currently facing a crisis and lessons from its traditional peoples are more urgent than ever. The extraordinary archaeological discoveries of recent years are not just spectacle, but represent the history of a way of life that is rapidly disappearing, and on which the Amazonian rainforest as a major reservoir of biodiversity, and in turn all humanity, depends. By connecting the past to the present and bringing to light the critical role of today's indigenous and traditional lands in providing a barrier to deforestation under current climate and political pressures, The Archaeology of Amazonia lays out the way ahead to a more socially responsible future of rainforest management.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council.

This book addresses how longitudinal research approaches are used to understand young people's lives. It elucidates how youth researchers use longitudinal approaches, and how longitudinal research can help us to both understand and shape the field of youth sociology. Chapters discuss the creation of knowledge about youth and how longitudinal research shapes the field of youth sociology and shed light on key tensions and emerging debates in longitudinal youth research ranging from research design to data collection, analysis, and use. It considers longitudinal studies using a broad range of methods, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, retrospective methods, and creative and participatory methods. This collection offers insights from longitudinal youth scholars conducting research in Argentina, Lithuania, Australia, Estonia, Canada, the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Finland and India. These researchers reflect on the future of longitudinal youth research, addressing emerging and prospective issues. This book provides a concise survey of key established and emerging areas of concern in longitudinal research and of the relationship between these areas and the field of youth studies more specifically.

'All art is propaganda,' wrote George Orwell, 'but not all propaganda is art.' Moving from World War I to the 'War on Terror' and beyond, The Story of British Propaganda Film shows how the emergence of film as a global media phenomenon reshaped practices of propaganda, while new practices of propaganda in turn reshaped the use of the moving image. It explores classic examples of cinematic propaganda such as The Battle of the Somme (1916), Listen to Britain (1942) and Animal Farm (1954) alongside little-known newsreels, 'telemagazines' and digital media initiatives, in the process challenging our understanding of propaganda itself, and its many diverse manifestations.

Richly illustrated with unique material from the BFI National Archive, the book shows how central propaganda is to the development of British film, and how it has filtered our understanding of modern British history, from narratives of decolonisation to the celebration of pop culture and the meanings of the postwar consensus. In a contemporary moment so preoccupied with misinformation, malinformation and disinformation, Scott Anthony explains why the response to the ubiquity of the propaganda film has often turned out to be the production of ever more propaganda.

This book surveys and critiques existing empirical and theoretical literature on the Bourdieu-informed concept of transnational habitus. The term "transnational" has been used widely in studies of migration research where it has allowed scholars to have a deeper understanding of the practices not only of migrants moving across national borders but also of agents taking positions in transnational spaces without necessarily criss-crossing different nation states. Focusing on the potential of transnational habitus as an analytical tool, the authors propose a model of transnational habitus to identify integral key factors for the operationalisation in research. Drawing on reflexivity, the authors analyse transnational selves and map transnational spaces of classification. Identifying strengths, inconsistencies and key problems in this rapidly developing body of literature, this interdisciplinary and international book will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology, anthropology, migration studies, cultural studies, human geography, as well as diaspora studies.

In a radical reflection, John Young contends that the US model of democracy has failed the Global South because its emphasis on the supremacy of market capitalism entails a loss of national sovereignty and a truncated notion of human rights that leaves little room for citizens' engagement or socioeconomic justice.

The Global South needs democracy, but the US model does not address issues of national oppression or economic injustices by raising living standards and ensuring national sovereignty. However, the US international liberal order is increasing being challenged, and a multipolar world is emerging that provides opportunities for people in the Global South to construct systems of democracy that meet their needs rather than those of the US.

This book explores the evolving world of drones through a multifaceted lens, revealing their profound impact on society and visual culture. The comprehensive collection bridges the gap between technology and aesthetics, dissecting the transformative role drones play in various domains, from cinema and art to surveillance and environmental sensing. Each chapter, penned by leading scholars, explores the unique ways drones are redefining our visual landscape, whether in capturing unprecedented cinematic shots, aiding in critical rescue missions, or offering new perspectives in artistic endeavours.

The book is an essential read for academics, professionals, and enthusiasts alike, and is a key resource for anyone seeking to comprehend the full spectrum of drone capabilities and their implications for the future of visual communication and technology.

Chapter 2 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Drawing on a deep and long-term first-hand engagement with major labels in the early years of the 21st century, this book sheds new light 'behind the scenes', at a time of drastic and far-reaching transformation. Refreshingly, it centres not on artists and the most powerful decision-makers but on everyday experiences of work and back-office corporate employees.

Doing so reveals the internal activities and conflicts that, while hidden from public view, enable processes of change: from paperwork, data systems, managerial pressures and redundancies to graduate training schemes, departmental politics and shared playlists, providing a new route into understanding the broader cultures and infrastructures of the global recording industry. This oft-forgotten office work tells a different story of contemporary digital music , one more sensitive to the complex intersections that texture the conduct of work and organizational life.

This edited volume focuses on the (un)equal access to the public space granted to the various groups that make up hybrid and multicultural societies: i.e. majority vs minority groups, immigrants vs non-immigrants, and so forth. With 'access to public space' the authors refer not only to participation through discursive practices in the public arena (e.g. political, social and institutional debates) but also to a full operationalization of the knowledge, habits and opportunities attached to true citizenship. Furthermore, in contexts of inequality and sociocultural conflict, the role of mediators has always been underscored as third-party figures (in)formally acknowledged and authorized-by participants in the interaction and/or external bodies-to set the ground for mutual understanding and foster balanced communication. Such mediation can range from interpreting in legal and medical encounters to dispute-resolution practices in situations of sociocultural clash among groups or individuals. Therefore, as is shown by the contributions in this volume, (intercultural) mediators are key agents in facilitating integration and providing disadvantaged groups with effective tools to gain access to the public sphere.

This volume provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the phenomenon of verbal irony and sarcasm and the methodological aspects of its study. The chapters employ quantitative and qualitative measures of the use of verbal irony and sarcasm in both adults and children, with methods ranging from questionnaires and comment elicitation through experimental studies to a qualitative analysis of naturalistic data. By examining the phenomena in a range of contexts, the volume also show that cultural norms of communication may affect both the use and understanding of irony in specific ways and should therefore be taken into account in research.

This textbook analyses the work of classical and contemporary sociological theorists. The first part is dedicated to Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, and Simmel. The second part covers the major contemporary sociological perspectives: Functionalism, Marxism, Conflict Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenological Sociology, and Rational Choice Theory. The third part is devoted to Postmodern Theory, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and Race Theory.

The author combines academic rigour with clear and accessible language, offering students an in-depth and extensive overview of the main, recurring problems that have troubled sociological theory from its origins to the present day. The textbook uses contemporary examples, analysing how sociological theory can explain the most tragic phenomena of our time, including the war in Ukraine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US-China competition over Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, radicalization, neofascism, white suprematism, jihadism, and terrorism.

With pedagogic features aiding learning, this book helps navigate the various approaches, methods, and research that divide sociologists into distinct schools. This textbook is therefore an invaluable tool to any sociology student looking to gain a comprehensive understanding of the foundational thinkers that have shaped the discipline.

This book offers insight into the most important scientific society on urban morphology worldwide: the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF). After addressing the three-decade history of ISUF, the book analyses the present and future of this scientific society, of urban morphology, and of human settlements. This timely and fundamental reflection gathers contributions from present and past leadership of ISUF since its inception in 1994.

Over the last three decades, the urban world has undergone major changes: the urban population is now higher than the rural population; more than half of the world's population lives on a single continent-Asia, home to almost three billion people in China and India alone-so geographical imbalance is considerable; and while half of the urban population still lives in small cities of fewer than 300,000 inhabitants, the number of megacities has increased significantly. How does the physical form of cities in different parts of the world respond to these dynamics? Can cities preserve fundamental elements of humankind's urban heritage while accommodating changes driven by the main socioeconomic and environmental needs of today?

The field of urban morphology has been continuously adjusting to the essential dynamics of its object of study. While developing and strengthening its most robust theories, concepts, and methods designed after the mid-twentieth century, urban morphology has been able to integrate innovative approaches for describing and explaining the emerging dynamics and patterns of urban form-often incorporating groundbreaking technologies for data collection, analysis, modelling, and simulation. But what is the role of urban morphology in science and society today? How effective is it in communicating a rigorous understanding of the urban landscape both to academics and researchers in other fields and to citizens in general? How successful is it in providing practitioners with relevant and useful knowledge that informs their action on cities' form and structure through spatial planning, urban design, and architecture?

This book addresses these fundamental questions, offering academics, researchers, and practitioners comprehensive knowledge on human settlements, the field of urban morphology, and the role of ISUF in promoting groundbreaking morphological thought.