This book explores the personal value of healthy behavior, arguing that our modern tendency to praise or blame individuals for their health is politically and economically motivated and has reinforced growing health disparities between the wealthy and poor under the guise of individual responsibility. We are awash in concerns about the state of our health and recommendations about how to improv…
This open access book compares and contrasts the results of international student assessments in ten countries. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released the results of its 2018 assessment in December 2019. This book reflects the debates that typically follow the release of these results and focuses on the causes of differences between countries. Such causes in…
"This comparative study aims to develop a deeper understanding of collectivism, trade unionism, and the capacity to create collective action using Finland and Cambodia as examples of individualistic and collectivistic societies, respectively. The study has two goals: 1) To explore the relationship between collective action, and the level and forms of collectivism in Cambodia and in Finland. 2) …
Rethinking the significance of films including Pillow Talk, Rear Window, and The Seven Year Itch, Pamela Robertson Wojcik examines the popularity of the “apartment plot,” her term for stories in which the apartment functions as a central narrative device. From the baby boom years into the 1970s, the apartment plot was not only key to films; it also surfaced in TV shows, Broadway plays, lite…
In the past ten years, the concept of education for sustainable development has become one of UNESCO’s key educational initiatives to address current global challenges. However, the attention was mainly devoted to primary and secondary education, and higher education was somewhat neglected. The primary focus on basic education has also diverted academic attention from the research exploring t…
Australia’s federal system is in a state of flux and its relevance is being challenged. Dramatic shifts are occurring in the ways in which power and responsibility are shared between governments. Pressure for reform is coming not just from above, but from below, as the needs of local and regional communities – both rural and urban – occupy an increasingly important place on the national s…
"Replacing tyranny with justice, healing deep scars, exchanging hatred for hope . . . the women in This Was Not Our War teach us how."—William Jefferson Clinton This Was Not Our War shares amazing first-person accounts of twenty-six Bosnian women who are reconstructing their society following years of devastating warfare. A university student working to resettle refugees, a paramedic who foun…
This open access book presents the most current research results and knowledge from five multidisciplinary themes: Vulnerability of Arctic Environments, Vulnerability of Arctic Societies, Local and Traditional Knowledge, Building Long-term Human Capacity, New Markets for the Arctic, including tourism and safety. The themes are those discussed at the first ever UArctic Congress Science Section, …
This open access book, originally published in Portuguese in 1988 and now available in English for the first time, describes the Brazilian educator, Antonio Leal's, experiences teaching so-called “unteachable” children in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. A Voice for Maria Favela tells the story of how Leal considers what the children bring to the class, gradually engaging them in developing a na…