The Social Life Of Achievement

Download or read book The Social Life of Achievement written by Nicholas J. Long and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when people “achieve”? Why do reactions to “achievement” vary so profoundly? And how might an anthropological study of achievement and its consequences allow us to develop a more nuanced model of the motivated agency that operates in the social world? These questions lie at the heart of this volume. Drawing on research from Southeast Asia, Europe, the United States, and Latin America, this collection develops an innovative framework for explaining achievement’s multiple effects—one which brings together cutting-edge theoretical insights into politics, psychology, ethics, materiality, aurality, embodiment, affect and narrative. In doing so, the volume advances a new agenda for the study of achievement within anthropology, emphasizing the significance of achievement as a moment of cultural invention, and the complexity of “the achiever” as a subject position.

Download or read book The Social Life of Books written by Abigail Williams and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A lively survey…her research and insights make us conscious of how we, today, use books.”—John Sutherland, The New York Times Book Review Two centuries before the advent of radio, television, and motion pictures, books were a cherished form of popular entertainment and an integral component of domestic social life. In this fascinating and vivid history, Abigail Williams explores the ways in which shared reading shaped the lives and literary culture of the eighteenth century, offering new perspectives on how books have been used by their readers, and the part they have played in middle-class homes and families. Drawing on marginalia, letters and diaries, library catalogues, elocution manuals, subscription lists, and more, Williams offers fresh and fascinating insights into reading, performance, and the history of middle-class home life. “Williams’s charming pageant of anecdotes…conjures a world strikingly different from our own but surprisingly similar in many ways, a time when reading was on the rise and whole worlds sprang up around it.”—TheWashington Post

Download or read book Sociality written by Nicholas J. Long and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of 'sociality' is now widely used within the social sciences and humanities. However, what is meant by the term varies radically, and the contributors here, through compelling and wide ranging essays, identify the strengths and weaknesses of current definitions and their deployment in the social sciences. By developing their own rigorous and innovative theory of human sociality, they re-set the framework of the debate and open up new possibilities for conceptualizing other forms of sociality, such as that of animals or materials. Cases from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe explore the new directions of human sociality, illuminating how and why it is transformed when human beings engage with such major issues as economic downturn, climate change, new regimes of occupational and psychological therapy, technological innovations in robotics and the creation of new online, 'virtual' environments. This book is an invaluable resource, not only for research and teaching, but for anyone interested in the question of what makes us social.

Download or read book The Myth of Achievement Tests written by James J. Heckman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Achievement tests play an important role in modern societies. They are used to evaluate schools, to assign students to tracks within schools, and to identify weaknesses in student knowledge. The GED is an achievement test used to grant the status of high school graduate to anyone who passes it. GED recipients currently account for 12 percent of all high school credentials issued each year in the United States. But do achievement tests predict success in life? The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught. Using the GED as a case study, the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue. Contributors Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin–Madison Andrew Halpern-Manners, Indiana University Bloomington Paul A. LaFontaine, Federal Communications Commission Janice H. Laurence, Temple University Lois M. Quinn, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Pedro L. Rodríguez, Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration John Robert Warren, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Download or read book Music as Social Life written by Thomas Turino and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-10-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 'Music as Social Life', Thomas Turino explores why it is that music and dance are so often at the centre of our most profound personal and social experiences.

Download or read book Family life and school achievement : why poor black children succeed or fail written by Reginald M.. Clark and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Achievement written by Gwen Bradford and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the magisterial to the mundane, achievements play a role in the best kind of human life, and many people think that they are of such importance that they are worth pursuing at the expense of serious sacrifices. Yet for all that, no philosophers have devoted more than a few short passages to discerning what makes achievements valuable, or even what makes something an achievement to begin with. Gwen Bradford presents the first systematic account of what achievements are, and what it is about them that makes them worth doing. It turns out that more things count as achievements than we might have thought, and that what makes them valuable isn't something we usually think of as good. It turns out that difficulty, perhaps surprisingly, plays a central part in characterizing achievements and their value: achievements are worth the effort. But just what does it mean for something to be difficult, and why is it valuable? A thorough analysis of the nature of difficulty is given, and ultimately, the best account of the value of achievements taps into perfectionist axiology. But not just any perfectionist theory of value will do, and in this book we see a new perfectionist theory developed that succeeds in capturing the value of achievement better than its predecessors.