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This study builds on previous investigations on the scholarship of social work faculty using h-index scores. The purpose of this paper is to compare two methods of determining the excellence of social work doctoral programs.

This study compared rankings in 75 social work doctoral programs using h-index vs the US News and World Report (USNWR) list. The accuracy of predicting scholarly productivity from USNWR rankings was determined by joint membership in the same quantile block. Information on USNWR rankings, h-index, years of experience, academic rank, and faculty gender were collected. Regression analysis was used in creating a predictive model.

Only 39 percent of USNWR rankings accurately predicted which programs had their reputation and scholarly productivity in the same rating block. Conversely, 41 percent of programs had reputations in a higher block than their scholarly productivity would suggest. The regression model showed that while h-index was a strong predictor of USNWR rank (b=0.07, 95% CI: 0.05, 0.08), additional variance was explained by the unique contributions of faculty size (b=0.01, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.02), college age (b=0.002, 95% CI: <0.001, 0.003), and location in the southeast (b=−0.22, 95% CI: −0.39, −0.06).

For many programs, reputation and scholarly productivity coincide. Other programs have markedly different results between the two ranking systems. Although mean program h-indices are the best predictor of USNWR rankings, caution should be used in making statements about inclusion in the “top 10” or “top 20” programs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of gender and faculty rank to determine their contribution to individual variance in research productivity for doctoral social work faculty in Israel.

H-index scores were used to assess research productivity. Quantitative comparisons of the h-index scores were performed for a sample (n=92) of social work faculty from Israeli universities with social work doctoral programs. Average h-index differences were assessed between genders at each tenure-track faculty rank and between faculty ranks for each gender.

Scholarly impact varied as a function of faculty rank. There was little indication of variance due to gender or the interaction of gender and rank. The average h-index of male faculty was higher than the mean h-index for women at the rank of lecturer and full professor. Women had a higher mean h-index than men at the rank of senior lecturer and associate professor. H-index means varied most at the full professor level.

Results were congruent with previous studies demonstrating that male faculty in the social sciences have higher overall h-index scores than women. However, this study was unique in its finding that this gap was reversed for Israeli social work faculty at the senior lecturer and associate professor. Further research is needed to examine the differences in publication patterns of social work faculty in different countries.

Sociology of sport in the United Kingdom is as old as the subdiscipline itself but was uniquely shaped by the prominence of football hooliganism as a major social issue in the 1970s and 1980s. While it remains a somewhat niche activity, the field has been stimulated by the growing cultural centrality of sport in UK society. This quantitative and qualitative development has been recognized in recent governmental evaluations of research expertise. Current research reflects this expanded range of social stratification and social issues in sport both domestically and on a global level, while the legacy of hooligan research is evident in the continuing concentration on studies of association football. Historically, this empirical research has largely been underpinned by figurational, Marxist/neo-Marxist, or feminist sociological theories, but there is now a greater emphasis on theoretical synthesis and exploration. As a consequence of the expansion of the field, allied to its empirical and theoretical diversity, there is a burgeoning literature produced by UK sociologists of sport that spans entry-level textbooks, research monographs, and the editorship of a significant number of specialist journals. The chapter concludes by noting the future prospects of the sociology of sport in the United Kingdom in relation to teaching, research, and relations with other sport-related subdisciplines and the sociological mainstream.

It is basically argued that, as the world economy progresses and the means of transportation and communication become increasingly available, the interdependence among means and ways of life also becomes inevitable and human relations tighten accordingly. However, though every individual tends to follow the patterns and directions of his (her) society′s way of living, he or she often conserves some peculiarities which can be identified with his or her personality. Individual and social behaviours are today becoming so interdependent that it is difficult to demarcate between “privacy” and “sociality”. This is particularly true in an advanced and complex society in which conflict between private and social interests is apparent. It is proposed that with effort this conflict can be removed or at least attenuated by adopting a more pragmatic approach to the humanistic economic system in which both private and social interests are allowed to be traded off without one necessarily impinging on the other.

As pricing has evolved as a specialty over the past 20 years, there has been increased focus on the concept of value – what it is, how to measure it, and why it is important. Value is important not only for setting prices but for establishing product and negotiating strategies and tactics. This chapter first discusses the importance of value in the price-setting process. Second, it frames how to define and measure value. Last, it explains how value tools can help salespeople in their negotiations process. It will review the application of these value measures in a business-to-business (B2B) environment and report on a technique of value measurement called Case ROI™. This measurement is particularly useful because it calculates the value of new products, technologies, and services at both the segment and the individual customer levels with a higher level of precision and relevance than other methods. It is based on a field-value-in-use technique that will be discussed in detail.

The Centre for Community and Lifelong Learning (CCLL) at the University of Wales, Newport has been offering a Summer School Scheme for community based students since August 2008. This, as an intervention strategy within a widening access framework, offers a “university experience”, whereby students and their families are given the opportunity to study and enjoy a short experience on a university campus – some families being offered residential places. The aim of the paper is to introduce data collected which shows how this summer school challenges the barriers that are often associated with campus provision.

In this paper the authors will introduce data collected through an ethnographic, mixed methods approach which shows how this summer school challenges the barriers that are often associated with campus provision, such as perception of academic institutions and personal ability.

The Summer School also offers many community students a significant opportunity to realise self potential within a campus context but within a supportive and familial framework. What continues to make this event all the more “unique” is that, from the developments of the first event, there is a growing recognition of the importance of the family dimension to the summer school.

Gorard et al. suggest that the early experiences of families can deeply imbed a reluctance to enter into post‐school learning and as such can be transmitted across the family and through generations. This is supported by Chowdry et al. who suggest that “poor attainment in secondary schools is more important in explaining lower HE participation rates amongst students from disadvantaged backgrounds than barriers arising at the point of entry into HE”.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

This paper seeks to outline four scenarios developed for the future of the South West Midlands region of England. Like many depressed regions in the UK, the foundation industries that initially developed the region have gone. Manufacturing is continuing to decline and the low‐skilled economic underpinnings of the region have all but disappeared. The population, however, has not changed with the times, but remains low‐skilled and largely unemployable to many of the industries the region is trying to attract to regenerate itself. Despite this economically depressed picture, the region is renowned for its sense of community and regional identity, and hence crime is uncharacteristically low given the economic and demographic circumstances of the region.

A range of methodologies were employed to inform scenario building for the future of the region, including a literature review, interviews with employers and community leaders, a word association exercise and questionnaire with children approaching school leaving age, and data analysis of demographic and economic trends.

Four scenarios were developed as possible futures for the region to help inform policy making, in particular educational policy to encourage more young people to remain in education for longer and gain higher qualifications.

The paper offers practical ideas for (re)engaging young people in education in a depressed region where the value of education has never really been appreciated.

This paper offers readers alternative perspectives on an area of education that might otherwise be ignored and finds positive ways forwards to further promote education in the region.