Methodological Matters Research Articles

What Might a Feminist Relational New Materialist and Affirmative Critique Generate in/With Early Childhood Research?

Feminist new material theories and affirmative critique is the returning point in this article. In early childhood education and research, critique and critical perspectives are given an important emphasis and might be taken for granted. Critic, criticism, critical perspectives, negation, opposite tactics, interpretation, explanation, reflection, and judgments have in education, according to Bunz, Kaiser, and Thiele, continued as analytical “tools” since Kant. Searching for complicity and rhizomatic entanglements with/in pedagogical and philosophical thinking practice might open for critical distinctions beyond subject/object, mind/body, knower/known, theory/practice, and nature/culture beyond Kant. The complicity and coemergence of any knowledge or critical assessment with what is known and with whoever knows is always already of perspectival, situated, and entangling nature. The interest of this article is complex and multifaceted. I want to elaborate on the politics of critique as well as experiment with matters of methodology. To critically address critique, I use seven previously copublished articles1as data material. Being affectively attracted to intra-actions of what all matter offers—ways of looking and cutting together-apart—I wonder what an articleassemblage might generate inventively and relationally, also as critique. Resisting an idea of (re)presenting a summary of the articles, my wish is in line with feminist materialist diffractionists (Barad, Haraway)—experimenting with what the concept symbiogenesis might offer together with critical affirmative thinking. Sympoiesis is making-with, and according to Haraway—nothing is making itself, which invites to think of evolution as coevolution opening for intra-entangling and becoming-with potentiality and change.

The naked truth about migrants’ views − user involvement as radical knowledge production

ABSTRACT This ethnographic case study examines how knowledge was produced in collaboration between a welfare organization and its target group. The study investigated the Swedish Public Employment Service (PES), which is responsible for the integration of newly arrived migrants through the ‘introduction programme’. To explore how migrants perceived its services, the PES initiated a six-month project in which three employee-researchers and four participant-researchers (migrants participating in the introduction programme) conducted an interview study together. I followed the project as an independent researcher, making observations and conducting interviews with the members of the research group on several occasions. The study shows the participant-researchers were enabled to obtain quite extensive control over the project. The study also suggests that organizational leadership on practical and methodological matters does not necessarily conflict with the user perspective of the study. The project produced knowledge that revealed the migrants’ perceptions in a relatively unedited way. The knowledge produced was ‘radical’ as it differed considerably from the typical knowledge produced by the organization, which made it unfamiliar and difficult to handle. Not until the final report of the project included an organizational perspective was it made official, and even so the PES made no efforts to publicly present or disseminate the report.

(Nie)kwestionowane granice decyzyjności pedagoga w kształtowaniu obrazu świętości wśród dzieci?

A teacher’s work with children of preschool and early school age focuses on achieving the teaching and educational objectives, as well as those related to childcare. The tasks include, among others, supporting pupils in shaping the image of the world, recognising different values and criteria,as well as methods of choosing them, obtaining basic social skills, and shaping moral and religious attitudes. The educator is obliged to show the children universal values and ethical principles. They also have to present role models and motivate their pupils to imitate them. All of this fosters an image of sanctity among children. When it comes to making decisions regarding the shaping of the image of sanctity among children, the teacher is restricted by educational law, especially the core curriculum of general education, as well as the school’s curriculum. This restriction applies mainly to the objectives and content of teaching and education. However, in matters of methodology, the teacher has many possibilities for creative action. They may exceed the methodologies suggested by educational law and design their own teaching innovations. With regard to shaping the image of sanctity among children, of particular note are All Saints’ Day balls, Angel Days, educational games and activities, family fairs, saints’ parades, competition and stage productions.

Corpus-assisted editing for doctoral students: More than just concordancing

In 2003 it was suggested that insufficient attention had been paid to methodology and pedagogy in EAP and that there had been an over-emphasis on the ‘what’ at the possible expense of the ‘how’. While conferences and other professional events have gone some way towards addressing this issue, in terms of EAP journal outputs, as a survey of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes (JEAP) shows, not very much seems to have changed. The pages of JEAP still suggest a dearth of research interest in issues related to EAP methodology. This paper argues that much greater prominence should be given to methodological matters in EAP, not least because teaching accounts for the bulk of what most EAP practitioners do. The paper further suggests that the transfer of pedagogical practices from mainstream ELT to EAP should perhaps be considered a little more critically than has hitherto been the case.

Re-interpreting Elián González

ABSTRACTThis article has two parts. The first part compares two Jungian interpretations of the Elián González affair in 1999 in which a family custody battle metastasized into a Cuba-U.S. international event. One interpretation is brief, simple, and integrated, and revolves around a single complex. The other interpretation, building forward on the first, is longer, complicated, fragmentary, and evokes multiple complexes. The second part of the paper poses some taxing questions around matters of epistemology and methodology: What kind of evidence is needed to construct the interpretation of an event? How does one go about gathering that evidence, and how does one spot a complex or an archetype? And, more fundamentally, how does one choose one interpretation of an event over another?

Geographical landscape: further beyond our field of vision

Although understanding Geographical Landscape as “everything that reaches our sight” is largely accepted, this conception cast some doubt on particular methodological matters. Consequently, geographical analysis on the landscape remains narrowed by the conception aforementioned. In order to illustrate these limitations, four counter-arguments to this restricted concept have been raised in this current paper, by showing how each methodological matter can impoverish its understanding. Firstly, the conception of something must target the object itself. Focusing “our sight or field of vision”, the observer is set as the reference point rather than the object to be defined: the landscape itself. Secondly, this traditional definition generates an important issue of scale, which is vital to geographers: if a simple plant or the whole sky reach our sight range, should they be considered landscapes? In other words, what is the landscape size? Is it defined merely by our field of vision? Thirdly, framing the landscape in a field of vision arbitrarily excludes everything that is out of this pictorial perspective. However, many aspects within the frame may be derived from aspects or objects that are out of the frame. Finally, going a little further, many unseen aspects can be inferred by some visible objects. The climate, for instance, which, in turn, can be implied by vegetation, landforms, types of house construction etc. Inferences are possible when we consider landscape as result of a dynamic process, rather than a picture framed by our field of vision. All of these counter-arguments are illustrated along with examples and figures in order to provide better comprehension. Thus, we have featured a conception of landscape that we consider wider, more complete and free from those methodological restrictions formerly shown.

Down The Methodological Rabbit Hole

This article surveys methodological matters that shape, drive, and plague analytic legal philosophy. Section 2 briefly explicates conceptual analysis, analytic definitions, and family resemblance concepts. It also argues that central cases are used in more than one way. Section 3 presents criticisms of those concepts and methods, and suggests that some of these difficulties are due to the lack of a shared paradigm regarding a counterexample’s impact. Section 4 explains “metatheoretical” desiderata. It contends that, to date, legal philosophical appeals to such norms have not been as helpful as some suggest. Section 5 returns to the issue of concept selection by addressing whether legal theorising is an invariably “normative” enterprise. It argues that certain “normativist” methodologies, such as Dworkin’s constructive interpretation and Finnis’ appeal to the central case of the internal point of view, are unnecessary.

On the Origin of Theories: Charles Darwin’s Vocabulary of Method

Abstract This is an essay on the origin of theories. It argues that methodology can do more than shape scientific theories—sometimes, vocabularies of method become such theories. The origin of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is a case in point: Darwin’s well-known attention to methodological matters not only framed but bled into his theory of nature. A careful student of contemporary methodology, Darwin sought guidance for using a controversial tool in the scientific world in which he came of age: the hypothesis. In the process of reading the works of John Herschel and William Whewell, Darwin turned nature itself into a man of science. The hypotheses and testing of scientific practice were mirrored in the variations and selection of the natural world. Though unintentional, Darwin’s naturalization of a vocabulary of method helped pave the way for applications of evolutionary theory to the study of the human mind and, completing the circle, to the philosophy of science. Considering the role of vocabularies of method in the origin of theories suggests new directions for the study of cognitive history and the power of language to transform the historical imagination.

Encounters with identity: reflexivity and positioning in an interdisciplinary research project

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses researcher identity, positioning, and reflexivity as they relate to the experience of a researcher on an interprofessional research project. The project collected video recordings of students and healthcare professionals in university and clinical settings. During the process of data collection, ‘conversations’ emerged between the researcher and participants. They occurred before and after recordings took place and outside of the planned methods of data collection. These unaccounted-for-encounters between the researcher and participant produced a negotiated understanding of who each other were and how it related to the research process. But dichotomous notions of insider and outsider identity seemed too fixed to examine the social construction of knowledge produced in these encounters. This paper examines the methodological reflections on those unaccounted-for-encounters, which emerged as instances of participant focussed reflexivity. It aims to demonstrate how positioning can offer a more refined means with which to highlight the processes and practices which participants and researchers undertake in interaction. These researcher–participant encounters were sites of knowledge construction transversing professional and educational territories and transient opportunities for negotiated intersubjectivity. As such, they highlight the role that positioning can play in not only individual methodological matters but for multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary research teams.

Using internet video calls in qualitative (longitudinal) interviews: some implications for rapport

Forming part of the new ‘methodological frontier’ the use of digital communication technologies has become increasingly commonplace in social research. Whilst audio-only online interviews and asynchronous means of communicating online has been discussed for over two decades, video capabilities; being able to see a participant face-to-face online (e.g. via Skype, Face Time, Google Hangouts) is a much more recent phenomenon. Discussion of such new opportunities has tended to centre on the practicalities and technicalities. Alternatively, this paper moves beyond the recent empiricist focus to reflect critically on the implications of using internet video calls on methodological matters of importance to qualitative (longitudinal) researchers. Drawing on a long-standing qualitative longitudinal study following lives of over 50 young people, the paper focuses on the potentials and pitfalls for rapport of using internet video calls for qualitative interviewing. The findings have resonance for short-term studies, and longitudinal endeavours.

Down the Methodological Rabbit Hole

This article surveys methodological matters that shape, drive, and plague Analytic Legal Philosophy. Section II briefly explicates conceptual analysis, analytic definitions, and family resemblance concepts. I also argue that central cases are used in more than one way. Section III then presents some (well- and lesser-known) criticisms of those concepts and methods, some of which are due to the lack of a shared paradigm regarding a counterexample’s impact. Section IV then briefly explains ‘meta-theoretical’ desiderata: norms by which to help construct, evaluate, and compare concepts and theories. I argue that, to date, legal philosophical appeals to such norms have not been as helpful as some suggest. Finally, Section V returns to the matter of concept selection by addressing whether legal theorising is an invariably ‘normative’ (in the sense of morally or politically evaluative) enterprise. I argue that certain ‘Normativist’ methodologies, such as Dworkin’s Constructive Interpretation and Finnis’ appeal to the central case of the internal point of view, are unnecessary.

Methodical Aspects of Organization and Carrying out of Functional-Cost Analysis on the Basis of Process Approach for the Purpose of Expenses and Quality Optimization

1. Introduction 1.1 Introduce the Problem At the present time any enterprise is being complicated economic system, which is represented with aggregate of permanently functioning business processes. Therefore there is a necessity of using of process-oriented approach to quality system and production expenses management. In such circumstances, enterprise should apply number of specific methods of its recourses' management for the purpose of adoption of effective management decisions against the background of current market changes. One of the modern methods for economic systems' functioning effective management is the functional-cost analysis. Based on assessment of significance of output products' functional features, necessary level of quality and optimal level of expenses, the functional-cost analysis allows not only introducing corrective amendments to current production process, but also developing recommendations on design of new kinds of goods and applying of modern types of production. 1.2 Importance of the Problem Recognizing importance of conducted research in considered area we should note that many theoretical and methodological matters linked to applying of functional-cost analysis at modern stage of development are studied not to the full extent and number of states bears polemical character. At the present stage of functional-cost analysis theory development there are no methodical recommendations on organization and carrying out of the type of analysis in the framework of process approach to company management. In such a way, it is quite important to search for further development of functional-cost analysis method and its practical use that will promote increase of economic effectiveness of Russian organizations' activity. 1.3 Background Theoretical, methodical and practical aspects of functional-cost analysis are the subject of research of many scientists. Thus, Soviet Italian-born aircraft designer Bartini developed a method, the basic concepts of which were functional model (perfect final result) and contradiction (Bartini, 1974). The functional approach of Bartini provided the basis of functional-cost analysis. The term of contradiction helped to form the algorithm for solution of inventive tasks being the main instrument of inventive tasks solution theory developed by Baku engineer Altschuler (Altschuler, 1979, 1985, 1989). Sobolev Y.M., the engineering designer of telephone plant of Perm, applied system analysis and element-by-element development of goods. He considered each structural component a substantive part of structure, formed its functional purpose and included into group of main or auxiliary parts. Such an analysis helped to reveal excessive expenses for production of auxiliary element and reduce them without loss of product quality. Sobolev published a number of works dedicated to the developed method (Sobolev, 1979, 1987). The substantial contribution to development of theoretical and practical principles of functional-cost analysis was made by such economist scientists as Gramp (1071, 1978), Kovalev (1986, 1988, 2000), Karpunin (1983), Kibanov (1991), Moiseeva (1982, 1984, 2006), Maydanchik (2005). In recent years researches in respect of development and applying of functional-cost analysis are carried out by Kuzmin (2005, 2006), Kuzmina (2002, 2005, 2011), Ryzhova (2009, 2013), etc. Among foreign authors made considerable contribution to development of theory and practical methodology of functional-cost analysis there are Kaplan & Cooper (2008), Miles (1972), Christensen & Raynor (2003), Zimmerman & Kessler (1982), etc. 1.4 State Hypotheses and Their Correspondence to Research Design Taking into account all the above-stated and, particularly, having defined the existing problems in methodic and practical understanding of functional-cost analysis this paper suggests the following approaches to their solution: * it is necessary to consider the stages of carrying out of functional-cost analysis in more details and distinguish specific types of works during each of them; * on the basis of process approach to define input and output data of the process of performance of works in the frameworks of functional-cost analysis; * for the purpose of description of the process of carrying out of functional-cost analysis to define control actions and management mechanism; * to develop schedule of performance of works on functional-cost analysis; * to apply method of functional-cost analysis on the basis of process approach for the purpose of production effectiveness increase; * to reflect practical importance of functional-cost analysis for industrial enterprises. …

“Cognitive Linguistics: Looking back, looking forward”

AbstractSince its conception, Cognitive Linguistics as a theory of language has been enjoying ever increasing success worldwide. With quantitative growth has come qualitative diversification, and within a now heterogeneous field, different – and at times opposing – views on theoretical and methodological matters have emerged. The historical “prototype” of Cognitive Linguistics may be described as predominantly of mentalist persuasion, based on introspection, specialized in analysing language from a synchronic point of view, focused on West-European data (English in particular), and showing limited interest in the social and multimodal aspects of communication. Over the past years, many promising extensions from this prototype have emerged. The contributions selected for the Special Issue take stock of these extensions along the cognitive, social and methodological axes that expand the cognitive linguistic object of inquiry across time, space and modality.

As pesquisas em crenças no ensino aprendizagem de japonês como LE no Brasil

The aim of this study is to investigate and discuss the state of the art of the research about beliefs on the teaching-learning of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) in Brazil, especially focusing on its methodological matters. For this purpose, the researches published and/or realized in that field up to the present moment (November 2015) were collected and afterwards a qualitative meta-analysis was made by establishing six categories of analysis: (1) sort of publication, (2) authors/year of publication/institution, (3) focus of the research, (4) participants of the research, (5) method/nature of the research and (6) data collection instruments. The results have shown that most of the mentioned studies deals with students’ beliefs, and uses the qualitative method with an interpretive case study approach. Taking this state of the art into consideration, it can be concluded that research on beliefs of teachers and third agents, an action research or intervention case study approach, as well as research with a quantitative approach will be equally important.

Jesus of Nazareth: Jew from Galilee, Savior of the World by Jens Schröter

Jesus of Nazareth: Jew from Galilee, Savior of the World is divided into two parts: Part 1 (“Introduction”) consists of three chapters discussing historical, theoretical and methodological matters. Aspects of researching the historical Jesus, some key scholars, and methodology are analysed. Part 2 (“A Portrayal of Jesus”) is a presentation of Schroter’s historical Jesus in ten chapters, with a final chapter (ch. 14) discussing elements of the Wirkungsgeschichte of Jesus.

Editorial Note

Editorial Note Jing-Bao Nie (bio) and Ruth Fitzgerald (bio) Bioethics, as both an academic field and a public discourse on a global scale, has been evolving rapidly over the past several decades. The importance of cross-cultural and global bioethics as a subfield of bioethics is strongly reflected in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (KIEJ). Since 1991, KIEJ has published a number of articles and some thematic issues in this area. Among many others, it has facilitated a series of debates in the development of a cross-cultural and international bioethics, including the issues of universalism and multiculturalism (Vol. 8, No.3 & 4, 1998), the eastern and western perspectives on personhood (Vol.9 No.4, 1999), and the (im)possibility of the common morality (Vol.13 No.3, 2003) (some features of these debates will be critically discussed in the first paper of this special issue). Actually, as early as 1979, the previous format of the KIEJ—the Kennedy Institute Quarterly Report—already published a special issue on medical ethics in China when China just initiated the transformative social polices of “reform and openness” and “economic development.” Nevertheless, as also reflected in KIEJ, the existing scholarship in cross-cultural and global bioethics has paid only scant attention explicitly to methodological matters. Partly because of this, many deeply rooted but highly problematic modes of thinking have continued to prevail in this vital bioethical subfield. To help amend this inadequacy, all the papers in this thematic issue aim to investigate the following methodology-related questions in one way or another: • What are the advantages and limits of currently dominant approaches to comparative, cross-cultural and global bioethics? • What are the essential elements of new methodologies of comparative, cross-cultural and global bioethics? • How can empirical and inherently normative studies based in anthropology and other social sciences be better integrated with inquiries of bioethics and especially the development of transcultural and transglobal bioethics? [End Page ix] This issue explores a wide range of theoretical and practical bioethical issues—from indigenous voices to global justice, from ADHD to universalism. But the overall objective is to develop a transcultural and transglobal approach to bioethics. In our collaborative search for this, we have nevertheless come up with several different (not one largely unified) but highly related modes. Hopefully these alternative methods will turn out to be constructive in promoting more meaningful transcultural and transglobal conversations in the field of bioethics. At least, we hope that all together the papers will show convincingly that new methodologies are sorely needed to adequately address the pressing practical and theoretical challenges arising in cross-cultural, comparative, and global bioethics. The five papers by an international team of authors tackle the common theme from a variety of intellectual angles. Academically, these papers are operating in such disciplines as bioethics, anthropology and sociology, philosophy (European continental and Anglo-American analytic traditions), Asian and Chinese studies, indigenous studies, psychiatry and medicine, literature, and medical humanities. Geographically and culturally, the authors are from China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Canada, and South Africa. Four authors of three papers, including two guest editors, are faculty members at the Bioethics Centre and the Department of Anthropology in the University of Otago in New Zealand. Although being a very multicultural society, NZ is a small country (or better, “big village”) in the vast southern Pacific Ocean that many Chinese would call “the land of Peach Blossoms” (shiwai Taoyuan, an imagined idyllic place with beautiful landscapes and free from the world’s madness and turmoil from classical Chinese literature). Yet, New Zealanders (“Kiwis” as they would like to call themselves) have been keenly playing their due (often more than due) role in global affairs from not only their national- and self-interests but also their fostering of a renaissance of indigenous culture and their moral commitments to themselves and others in the world. The first two articles constitute a pair presenting the methodology of “transculturalism” for bioethics, one an outline of its key elements and the other its application to a practical bioethical issue. The article by Jing-Bao Nie and Ruth Fitzgerald draws attention to two troubling methodological assumptions in the extant writing...

Methodological Considerations and Challenges to Conducting Research on Interethnic Relationships: Using the Right Toolkit!

This article discusses the methodological issues and challenges associated with research examining interethnic relationships and marriage. A major focus of this article is on the identification and classification of interethnic marriages. A second aim of the article is to explore the specific challenges faced by researchers who study these types of relationships. The third and final focus of the article is on reliable and specific guidance for researchers engaged in interethnic relationships research. The article provides an overview of specific methodological matters in conducting research on interethnic relationships and marriage including research design, sampling constraints, self‐classification labels versus other labels, comfort in discussing or disclosing what may be perceived to be a sensitive issue, as well as the in‐group or out‐group status of the researcher. More generally, by presenting a discussion of both qualitative and quantitative methods for research in this area and the limitations of each, we provide a “tool kit” of helpful guidance to those engaged in this type of research.

Magnetic fields of chemically peculiar and related stars. I. Main results of 2014 and near-future prospects

We make a critical analysis of the results of studies of magnetic fields in chemically peculiar and related stars, published mostly in 2014. Methodological matters are discussed, and research results are analyzed. Most of the measurements of magnetic fields were obtained with well-known instruments. In 2014 a large observational project MiMeS was accomplished, the observations of more than 500 objects were performed, magnetic fields were found in 35 of them. Twenty new magnetic stars have been detected from the observations with the SAORAS 6-m telescope. Regular measurements of magnetic fields with an accuracy of units of gauss are conducted on a number of telescopes using the HARPS, ESPaDOnS, and NARVAL spectropolarimeters. The fields of complex topology have been studied, magnetic maps have been built, a connection with the distribution of anomalies of chemical composition has been found. The debate about the existence of a magnetic field of about 1 G in Vega and some other objects is ongoing. Apparently, the absence of a large-scale magnetic field greater than tens of gauss in the mercury-manganese and Am stars is confirmed. First CP stars were detected outside the Galaxy, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Observations of magnetic fields in solar-type stars are continued, a strong correlation between the field strength and the degree of chromospheric activity was discovered.

Editor's Letter

Editor-in-Chief Max J. Skidmore discusses Volume 7, Issue 1, of Poverty and Public Policy, the first quarterly issue of 2015. Poverty and Public Policy happily begins the new year by continuing our tradition of presenting quality research from around the world. This issue relies somewhat more heavily on methodological matters than is our custom, but it takes care to present the issues clearly, and in a manner accessible to all of our readers, not merely to those in the scholarly community. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this issue's lead article, “Aging and Health Care Costs: Narrative Versus Reality,” by David E. Kingsley. Dr. Kingsley, who retired from the University of Kansas Medical School where he conducted research and taught medical statistics, dispels the popular misconception among the American public that increasing longevity drives increasing health care costs. He criticizes popular discourse that tends to ignore important influences, such as poverty, and points out that flawed discourse encourages policymakers to act irrationally and to emphasize unwarranted benefit reduction. Turning our attention to South Asia, we next present two important studies. First, from New Delhi, Sabyasachi Tripathi of the National Institute of Urban Affairs points to a gap in the literature on Indian slums in “Determinants of Large City Slum Incidence in India: A Cross-Sectional Study.” Second, also from India, “Poverty Estimates in India: Old and New Methods, 2004–2005” presents the findings of Durgesh C. Pathak (Assistant Professor at BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad) and Srijit Mishra (Associate Professor at IGIDR), which resulted from their seminal work on poverty and income inequality. Next, we turn our attention to Africa. From Tanzania, Abel Kinyondo, of REPOA, and Riccardo Pelizzo, of Nazarbayev University, present their study of “Tourism, Development, and Inequality: The Case of Tanzania,” in which they investigate the extent to which tourism-induced development contributes to lowering income inequality. This issue includes a review essay, in which Victoria A. Redd, of the University of Florida's Levin College of Law, reviews Poverty and Insecurity: Life in Low-Pay, No-Pay Britain, by Tracy Shildrick and others. Redd adds her conclusions based upon their work in “Where Are the Better Jobs? The United Kingdom Has an Emerging Underclass That Needs to Be Helped.” Her essay illustrates how a review can go beyond scrutiny of the work under consideration and make its own contribution. Regarding book reviews, in this issue we offer reviews of three works pertaining to poverty: Serena Romano, of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research of the University of London, reviews Social Policies and Social Control: New Perspectives on the “Not-So-Big Society,” edited by Malcolm Harrison and Teela Sanders; Nikolaos Zahariadis, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, reviews Globalization and Competition: Why Some Emergent Countries Succeed While Others Fall Behind, by Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira; Shweta Singh, of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Delhi, reviews Development, Poverty of Culture, and Social Policy, by Brij Mohan. We are proud to note that Dr. Mohan, as a contributor, reviewer, and Board Member of Poverty and Public Policy, is a key supporter of this journal. As always, we seek thoughtful reviews of relevant books, and we invite those who are interested in becoming reviewers to communicate with our Book Review Editor, Dr. Virginia Beard, at [email protected]. Max J. Skidmore Editor-in-Chief University of Missouri-Kansas City

Rethinking Inequality in a Cross-national Comparison - Methodological Matters in an Entropic Perspective

Contemporary inequality is progressively shifting to a “classless” form of discrimination (Pakulsky and Waters, 1996; Wright, 2007), not only deriving from individual and collective differences in economic dimension, but more and more relying on multiple, hybrid and cross-cutting generators (social networks, education, gender, age, ethnicity), rather than on traditional class stratification structures. However, the social system still produces structural effects reflecting typical class advantages or disadvantages between individuals (Sørensen, 1996). Exploring such complexity, this article focuses both on methodological matters regarding the exploration of contemporary inequality and provides a cross-national comparison on such topics through the application of the Theil index as an entropic measure of inequality.