Karen Ross

Making Sense of Social Research Methodology: A Student and Practitioner Centered Approach introduces students to research methods by illuminating the underlying assumptions of social science inquiry. Authors Pengfei Zhao, Karen Ross, Peiwei Li, and Barbara Dennis show how research concepts are often an integral part of everyday life through illustrative common scenarios, like looking for a recipe or going on a job interview. The authors extrapolate from these personal but ubiquitous experiences to further explain concepts, like gathering data or social context, so students develop a deeper understanding of research and its applications outside of the classroom. Students from across the social sciences can take this new understanding into their own research, their professional lives, and their personal lives with a new sense of relevancy and urgency. This text is organized into clusters that center on major topics in social science research. The first cluster introduces concepts that are fundamental to all aspects and steps of the research process. These concepts include relationality, identity, ethics, epistemology, validity, and the sociopolitical context within which research occurs. The second and third clusters focus on data and inference. These clusters engage concretely with steps of the research process, including decisions about designing research, generating data, making inferences. Throughout the chapters, Pause and Reflect open-ended questions provide readers with the space for further inquiry into research concepts and how they apply to life. Research Scenario features in each chapter offer new perspectives on major research topics from leading and emerging voices in methods. Moving from this dialogic perspective to more actionable advice, You and Research features offer students concrete steps for engaging with research. Take your research into the world with Making Sense of Social Research Methodology: A Student and Practitioner Centered Approach.

"The Struggle For Kathy's Soul" is the story of two young social workers who meet in California in the 1970's. There is an immediate attraction between them, but Kathy's Christian background clashes with Susan's independence. Kathy wants marriage and a family. Susan wants a career. They both want a close, intimate partner. They find a common passion for the children they guide through foster care, but their relationship is more complicated. When their feelings for each other surface, they must deal with the conflicts, compromises, and choices stemming from their different backgrounds and desires. It becomes a struggle for Kathy to reconcile her faith and personal goals with the lifestyle she'd share with Susan.

Undertaker Nina Sherwood is full of good advice. For example, never wear lip gloss when you’re scattering ashes. Nina is your average 30-year-old with a steady job, a nice home – and dead bodies in her basement. As an undertaker, she often prefers the company of the dead to the living – they’re obliging, good listeners and take secrets to the grave. Nina is on a one-woman mission to persuade her peers that passing on is just another part of life. But the residents of Primrose Hill are adamant that a funeral parlour is the last thing they need… and they will stop at nothing to close down her dearly beloved shop. When Nina’s ‘big break’ funeral turns out to be a prank, it seems like it’s the final nail in the coffin for her new business. That is, until a (tall, dark and) mysterious investor shows up out of the blue, and she decides to take a leap of faith. Because, after all, it’s her funeral… The perfect antidote to all those books about weddings, this book will make you laugh until you cry, perfect for fans of Zara Stoneley’s Bridesmaids, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Good Place. What readers are saying about Five Wakes and a Wedding: ‘Uplifting with a smile’ ‘I thoroughly enjoyed reading it…a fun chick-lit with a completely different and unique premise.’ ‘This book intrigued me so much! The writing style was spot on and I really loved the pace, language, relatability and relationships throughout the book.’

As the level of distrust and alienation between Jews and Palestinians has risen over the past fif een years, the support for grassroots organizations’ attempts to bring these two groups closer has stagnated. Jewish-Palestinian youth encounter programs that flourished in the wake of the Oslo Accords now struggleto find support, as their potential to create positive social change in Israeli society is still unknown. In Youth Encounter Programs in Israel, Ross attempts to assess that potential by considering the relationship between participation in Jewish-Palestinian encounters and the long-term worldview and commitment to social change of their participants. Taking a comparative approach, Ross examines the structure and pedagogical approaches of two organizations in Israel, Peace Child Israel and Sadaka Reut. In doing so, Ross explores how these different organizations shape participants’ national identity, beliefs about social change, and motivation to continue engaging in peace-building activities. Based on more than one hundred interviews with program staff and former participants as well as more than two hundred hours of program observation, Ross’s work fills an important gap in the literature and holds significant relevance for peace education and conflict esolution practitioners.

Gender, Politics, News: A Game of Three Sides explores the role of gender in the broader processes of political communication The only contemporary book focusing on the relationships between gender, politics, and news media which takes a global perspective An analysis of political journalism as a practice and the development of the field in terms of gendered workplace culturesOffers a solid framework for understanding women’s political representation, including real world case studies of women’s campaigns for the top political job across a range of different geographies and contextsCoverage of hot-button issues, such as political scandal and the role of new and social media in politics and elections, makes this a highly relevant and current work with resonances for a wide audience

Gender, Politics, News: A Game of Three Sides explores the role of gender in the broader processes of political communication The only contemporary book focusing on the relationships between gender, politics, and news media which takes a global perspective An analysis of political journalism as a practice and the development of the field in terms of gendered workplace culturesOffers a solid framework for understanding women’s political representation, including real world case studies of women’s campaigns for the top political job across a range of different geographies and contextsCoverage of hot-button issues, such as political scandal and the role of new and social media in politics and elections, makes this a highly relevant and current work with resonances for a wide audience

"The Struggle For Kathy's Soul" is the story of two young social workers who meet in California in the 1970's. There is an immediate attraction between them, but Kathy's Christian background clashes with Susan's independence. Kathy wants marriage and a fa

'I often think my mother would prefer colonic irrigation to hanging out with me...' Beth Jackson is a national treasure, celebrated for her television shows and winning the Mother of the Year Award three times in a row. Only, her daughter just wishes that Beth would be more like a normal mum...

Gendered Media addresses the broad topic of gender and media, where "gender" is not simply a shorthand for "woman" but also embraces masculinitiy/ies, queer, lesbian and gay identities. Karen Ross provides the necessary historical context against which to read recent sex- and gender-based media phenomena such as Big Brother, Terminator, girls' use of mobile phones, women news editors, the Wonderbra generation, the Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin phenomena, and so on. The book is an overview of the various aspects of gender and media in one volume. The book provides introductory overviews to the various themes around women, men, sexuality and the ways in which these attributes are cross-cut by other demographics such as age, ethnicity and disability. In this way, the book genuinely tries to provide a broad introduction to the ways in which gender, in all its facets, engages with media, in one accessible volume.

The Media and the Public explores the ways a range of media, from the press to television to the Internet, have constructed and represented the public. Provides a new synthesis of recent research exploring the relationship between media and their publicsIdentifies ways in which different publics are subverting the gatekeeping of mainstream media in order to find a voice and communicate with othersSituates contemporary media-public discourse and relationships in an historical context in order to show the origin of contemporary public/political engagementCreates a theoretical expansion on the role of the media in accessing or denying the articulation of public voices, and the ways in which publics are harnessing new media formats to produce richer and more complex forms of political engagement

Gendered Media addresses the broad topic of gender and media, where "gender" is not simply a shorthand for "woman" but also embraces masculinitiy/ies, queer, lesbian and gay identities. Karen Ross provides the necessary historical context against which to read recent sex- and gender-based media phenomena such as Big Brother, Terminator, girls' use of mobile phones, women news editors, the Wonderbra generation, the Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin phenomena, and so on. The book is an overview of the various aspects of gender and media in one volume. The book provides introductory overviews to the various themes around women, men, sexuality and the ways in which these attributes are cross-cut by other demographics such as age, ethnicity and disability. In this way, the book genuinely tries to provide a broad introduction to the ways in which gender, in all its facets, engages with media, in one accessible volume.

Women and Media is a thoughtful cross-cultural examination of the ways in which women have worked inside and outside mainstream media organizations since the 1970s. Rooted in a series of interviews with women media workers and activists collected specifically for this book, the text provides an original insight into women’s experiences. Explains the ways that women have organized their internal and external campaigns to improve media content (or working conditions) for women, and established womenowned media to gain a public voice. Identifies key issues and developments in feminist media critiques and interventions over the last 30 years, as these relate to production, representation and consumption. Functions as both a research case study and a teaching text.

Women and Media is a thoughtful cross-cultural examination of the ways in which women have worked inside and outside mainstream media organizations since the 1970s. Rooted in a series of interviews with women media workers and activists collected specifically for this book, the text provides an original insight into women’s experiences. Explains the ways that women have organized their internal and external campaigns to improve media content (or working conditions) for women, and established womenowned media to gain a public voice. Identifies key issues and developments in feminist media critiques and interventions over the last 30 years, as these relate to production, representation and consumption. Functions as both a research case study and a teaching text.

This report seeks to identify supply-demand mismatches in the legal marketplace and assesses the need for new initiatives. The project pursued four research objectives, including: developing a profile of practising attorneys, projecting future supply and demand, and exploring upcoming trends.

“a simple yet excellent overview of the multilayered path of audience research, tracing its evolution over the last century…” European Journal of Communication*How has the concept of 'the audience' changed over the past 50 years?*How do audiences become producers and not just consumers of media texts?*How are new media affecting the ways in which audiences are researched? The audience has been a central concept in both in media and cultural studies for some considerable time, not least because there seems little point exploring forms of increasingly global communication in terms of their content if the targets of media messages are not also the focus of study. This book ranges across a wide literature, taking both a chronological as well as thematic approach, in order to explore the ways in which the audience, as an analytical concept has changed, as well as examining the relationships which audiences have with texts and the ways in which they exert their power as consumers. We also look at the political economy of audiences and the ways in which they are 'delivered' to advertisers as well as attending to the ratings war being waged by broadcasters and the development of narrowcasting and niche audiences. Finally, the book looks ahead to the future of audience research, suggesting that new genres such as 'reality TV' and new ICTs such as the internet, are already revolutionising the way in which research with audiences is taking place in the 21st century, not least because of the level of interactivity enabled by new media.

This book is part of the Images of Scotland series, which uses old photographs and archived images to show the history of various local areas in Scotland, through their streets, shops, pubs, and people.

This is a wide-ranging account of the complex relations between Black communities and popular media, analysing the ways in which Black communities have been portrayed in film and television and considering the contribution made by Black media professionals.