Scientific research, without a doubt, contributes to the advancement and well-being of society. Research is the meeting point between people of different interests - researchers, research institutions, financial backers, government offices and the general public. At this meeting point, various conflicts arise along with some difficult questions: Is every research suitable and permitted? Is it correct or is it necessary to include everyone in the research? And so on.... This book is challenging reading for both researchers and students at institutions of higher education and for all those who is involved in research to some extent.

This book is a comprehensive and thorough presentation of contemporary knowledge in the domain of developmental psychology. The book deals with the psychological development of the child from before birth, and throughout all periods of the child's growth including his development during adolescence. The book is written clearly and is ideal for students and academics as well as professionals who work with children.

This is a platform for scholarly analysis of major issues confronting contemporary Jewish education thus reflecting the new age of examination and research emerging in that world. The list of contributors to these volumes includes experts in the different disciplines of Jewish Studies, academics that apply the scholarly tools of the Social Sciences to the study of Jewish education, scholars interested in the interdisciplinary aspects of Jewish Studies and their implications for Jewish education, educational leaders and directors of visionary educational institutions. Colleagues, students and friends have all contributed enquiries into the issues that have stood at the center of Mike's professional concerns. Languages and Literatures in Jewish Education thus invites the reader to participate in the ongoing dialogue on the key issues of Jewish existence and education today.

How did Mass Communication become an important area of research and such a popular subject at universities and colleges within such a short time scale? Here is an exhaustive and comprehensive analysis of the development of Mass Communication departments.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money is generally considered to be the masterwork of the English economist John Maynard Keynes. To a great extent it created the terminology of modern macro-economics. It was published in February 1936. The book ushered in a revolution, commonly referred to as the "Keynesian Revolution", in the way economists thought about the economy, and especially how they thought about the feasibility and wisdom of public sector management of the aggregate level of demand in the economy. In Keynes' book Essays in Persuasion he looked back on his frustrating attempts to influence public opinion during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The "General Theory" represented Keynes's attempt to shift opinion by altering the framework of thought in macro-economics. Briefly, the "General Theory" argued that the level of employment in a modern economy was determined by three factors: the marginal propensity to consume (the percentage of any increase in their income that people chose to spend on goods and services), the marginal efficiency of capital(dependent on anticipated rates of return) and the rate of interest. Keynes's key arguments included that in an economy bedevilled by weak demand (e.g. a depression), where in his terminology there was an ignition problem (a difficulty in getting the economy to move forward more vigorously), then the government (more broadly the public sector) could increase aggregate demand by increasing its expenditures, including by borrowing to finance the expenditures, and that the public-sector borrowing would not increase interest rates sufficiently to undermine the effectiveness of such a policy. Keynes forecast in the "General Theory" that his book was likely to lead to a revolution in the way men of affairs thought about public policy, and Keynesianism (government attempts to affect demand through tax, expenditure and borrowing and monetary policy) was enormously influential in the post-Second World War period. The stagflation of the 1970s made Keynes's interventionist approach less fashionable with politicians and economic theorists. In most economies it came to be believed that Keynesian demand management was difficult, and that it had subtle damaging effects including undermining the advantages of sound finance (balanced budgets) and encouraging inflation. To some extent Keynesianism suffered from its own success in that the post-war period largely avoided periods of devastating unemployment and lost production. However, Keynesianism still shows up in the form of new Keynesian economics, which attempts to merge neoclassical economics with some Keynesian policy conclusions. At his best Keynes was a wonderful craftsman of the English language and his wonderful fluency of usage is in evidence at times in the General Theory, e.g. Chapter 12 dealing with "The State of Long Term Expectation" is considered by some as an example of the best single chapters about the stock market. However, much of the book shows Keynes at his worst in terms of the English language with long complicated sentence structures uncharacteristic of his style of writing seen in previous books and articles Similar research was done earlier by economists such as Michał Kalecki, however it was Keynes work which became the most famous. Although the book made the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Nonfiction, more conservative journals have been very critical of the book. It made the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's 50 Worst Books of the Twentieth Century and was at #10 on Human Events' Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) a man of many talents, who is famous mainly as a psychologist. His works written between 1924-1934 do not belong to history. The influence of his ideas on modern psychology and education is only growing. The importance of his cultural-historical approach is widely accepted today particularly because the most influential twentieth century approaches to Psychology failed to recognize the vital role of cultural and social environment and the mediating function of adults in the learning process and cognitive development of the child. The book "Language and Thought" was published in Russian in 1934 shortly after Vygotsky's death and the first translation into English came only in 1962. Today it has been translated into more than twenty languages. In the present Hebrew complete translation from the original Russian a special effort has been made not only to precise in transmission of the content, but also to preserve the style and the distinctive thought process of the author. In this book Vygotsky gives a thorough critical analysis of the theory of Jan Piaget. The Hebrew edition includes the response of Jan Piaget, written about thirty years later. The book includes also Vygotsky's article on childhood bilingualism as this subject matter is of particular relevance and importance in the context of Israel. The book contains a preface "The Riddle of Vygotsky" by the scientific editor of the Hebrew translation Dr. Bella Kotik-Friedgut. The author explains the importance of Vygotsky's ideas for modern education. The introduction provides acquaintance with the many and varied accomplishments of Vygotsky's brief life as a man, a scientist and as a Jew.

In this path breaking book, Yaron Ben-Naeh describes and analyzes for the first time in scholarly literature the Jewish Society in the urban centers of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, in Anatolia and in the Arab provinces. It focuses on the 17th century, the period which shaped and molded Ottoman Jewry as such. The book is solidly based on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, among them Ottoman documents which the author has found and deciphered. The chapters of the book deal with various aspects of communal life, family life and social dynamics, with special relation to city life and the surrounding Muslim society and acculturation processes which had made it into the core of sephardi Jewry.

Learning by inquiry is the search for answers through questions, as the pupil is active in acquiring knowledge himself, and he is active in his own understanding and in the construction of his knowledge. Teaching and learning through inquiry and the difficulties involved with implementing this inquiry are discussed in this work. The writers, who are pioneering Israeli researchers also in the international frame, illustrate theoretical and practical aspects of learning and teaching by inquiry; they present educational experiments and bring the latest research.

Literature for children written in pre-state Israel played a major role in shaping the young generation's values, experiences and conception of the world. Up until the 1940s, the hegemonic current of this literature's related the tale of the Zionist-Socialist accomplishments and presented the Hebrew generation growing up in the country as the opposite of the Diasporic Jew. During World War II, with the arrival of the news of the Holocaust transpiring in Europe, as well as at the period of conflict with the British, the story for children had changed dramatically. This shift has left a considerable mark on Hebrew culture as a whole. In her book From the School Desk We Were Taken Yael Darr describes how writers for the young committed themselves toa new story, focusing on the battle and sacrifice of youths. In this new narrative the Hebrew children were portrayed as skillful fighters serving role models even for the parents' generation. Yet, Darr also suggests that the literature for children did not ignore the news about the destruction of the European Jewry. While it might be expected of literature aimed at young readers to spare them exposure to such a catastrophe, it was in fact precisely that literature which was quick to tell the story of the disaster. Furthermore, in its varied and numerous references to the Holocaust the children's literature even preceded the Holocaust literature for adults. Darr's book recounts the military-national story as well as the tale of the devastation of the European Jewry in all its complexity. The writer also shows how some of the literary forms dealing with the Holocaust during the British Mandate were abandoned, when towards the founding of the state the children's literature fused the heroism of the country's youth and the story of the Holocaust weaving them into a pronounced national lesson. The book uncovers a wide range of literary works for children and youngsters written in the nineteen forties both by mainstream, center-stage, authors and by those in its margins. It closely analyzes several establishing works of fiction thus shedding light on the society and culture of those years while undermining conventions concerning the position of the Israeli based Jewish community concerning the Holocaust and its survivors.

Metropolitan reforms have been implemented in Canada at a scale and frequency greater than anywhere else in the democratic world. Recent Canadian metropolitan reforms are setting precedents and their fate could influence metropolitan agendas worldwide. This edited collection deals with local government reforms in major Canadian metropolitan areas and provides comparative insights from other countries. Steps undertaken by Canadian provinces have seemingly preferred in some cases 'old regionalism' territorial reforms over 'new regionalism' horizontal networks of governance. Canadian experiences indicate that both weak metropolitan mechanisms and neighborhood-level governments tend to be unstable, often not fulfilling expectations. Moreover, it seems that only old regionalism deals effectively with sharing fiscal burdens, whereas new regionalism approaches can be effective in development. The cross-national case studies provide a perspective on the role of different political systems and political cultures in determining the metropolitan governance agenda and the reforms undertaken, revealing considerable similarities in the agenda and diversity in responses.