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Purpose — In this paper we describe a total design data collection method (expanding the definition of the usual “total design” terminology used in typical household travel surveys) to emphasize the need to describe individual and group behaviors embedded within their spatial, temporal, and social contexts.

Methodology/approach — We first offer an overview of recently developed modeling and simulation applications predominantly in North America followed by a summary of the data needs in typical modeling and simulation modules for statewide and regional travel demand forecasting. We then proceed to describe an ideal data collection scheme with core and satellite survey components that can inform current and future model building. Mention is also made to the currently implemented California Household Travel Survey that brings together multiple agencies, modeling goals, and data collection component surveys.

Findings — The preparation of this paper involved reviewing emerging transportation modeling approaches and paradigms, policy questions, and behavioral issues and considerations that are important in the multimodal transportation planning context. It was found that many of the questions being asked of policy makers in the transportation domain require a deep understanding of the interactions and constraints under which individuals make activity-travel choices, the learning processes at play, and the attitudes and perceptions that shape ways in which people adjust their travel behavior in response to policy interventions. Based on the work, it was found that many of the traditional travel survey designs are not able to provide the comprehensive data needed to estimate activity-based model systems that truly capture the full range of behavioral considerations and phenomena of importance.

Originality/value of paper — This paper offers a review of the emerging transportation modeling approaches and behavioral paradigms of importance in activity-based travel demand forecasting. The paper discusses how traditional travel survey designs are inadequate to meet the data needs of emerging modeling approaches. Based on a review of all of the data needs and new data collection methods that are making it possible to observe a full range of human behaviors, the paper offers a total survey data collection design that brings together many different surveys and data collection protocols. The core household travel survey is augmented by a full slate of special purpose surveys that together yield a rich behavioral database for activity-based microsimulation modeling. The paper is a valuable reference for transportation planners and modelers interested in developing data collection enterprises that will feed the next generation of transportation models.

As a fountainhead of postcolonial scholarship, Edward Said has profoundly impacted multiple disciplines. This chapter makes a case for why sociologists should (re)read Edward Said, paying specific attention to his warning about the inevitably violent interactions between knowledge and power in historic and current imperial contexts. Drawing on Said and other postcolonial theorists, we propose a threefold typology of potential violence associated with the production of knowledge: (1) the violence of essentialization, (2) epistemic violence, and (3) the violence of apprehension. While postcolonial theory and sociological and anthropological writing on reflexivity have highlighted the former two dangers, we urge social scientists to also remain wary of the last. We examine the formation of structures of authoritative knowledge during the French Empire in North Africa, the British Empire in India, and the American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan during the “Global War on Terror,” paying close attention to how synchronic instances of apprehension (more or less accurate perception or recognition of the “other”) and essentialization interact in the production of diachronic essentialist and epistemic violence. We conclude by calling for a post-orientalist form of reflexivity, namely that sociologists, whether they engage as public intellectuals or not, remain sensitive to the fact that the production and consumption of sociological knowledge within a still palpable imperial framework makes all three violences possible, or even likely.

Palestinian children have been described as targets of the Israel government’s melange of mechanisms used to control the Palestinian people and territories. In this role, Palestinian children are subjected to direct violence, bureaucratic constructs, interrogation, incarceration, and other various means of marginalisation and oppression. Simultaneously, Palestinian children have also been depicted as nationalised subjects and resources for the future of Palestine, upon which historical and ongoing national symbols are projected. Palestinian children, therefore, play a dual role within the conflict and in everyday life: both innocent and in need of protection while also embodying sites of resistance. Nowhere is this dual role more pronounced than within the Palestinian home. In order to explore the multiple roles that children represent within the physical structure of the home, this chapter draws upon the authors’ research experience using collaborative family interviews and testimony collections in home environments. The authors’ methodological engagement with children and families at the home-level has found children to be a present absence within the home, with adult family members dominating the data-gathering discourse. In other words, children are ubiquitous within Palestinian landscapes, but they are rarely heard from. However, in research, children’s voices may be acknowledged for brief moments when data-gathering methods such as drawing or neighbourhood walks are used. Children may also be cherished as a focus of family protection and future resistance against the occupation. While much research has considered children affected by political violence as both victims and actors, this chapter adds another layer by exploring the multiple roles and representations of children within the Palestinian home. The authors focus is not on how these representations are imposed upon children by adults, but rather how representations of children are enacted and negotiated within oftentimes protective home spaces.

The Traffic Safety Culture (TSC) approach has been applied primarily in high-income countries (HICs), yet the great majority of the burden of road trauma falls on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where it constitutes a humanitarian crisis. The UN Decade of Action for Road Safety established road safety in LMICs as a priority issue and launched a plan to address it. Road safety has subsequently been incorporated into the international development agenda via the Sustainable Development Goals. Characteristics of road user behavior, governance, infrastructure, enforcement, and health services in LMICs have led to assertions that many lack a “safety culture” or, more specifically, a “traffic safety culture.” While this invites the suggestion that a TSC approach would have value in LMICs, the question raised in this chapter is whether a psychosocial approach like TSC, developed and applied in HICs, is transferable to LMICs. This is first explored by examining the critique of the assumption that commonly studied psychological processes are universal, noting examples that are relevant to road safety. Cross-cultural psychology studies show that some of the psychological processes commonly studied in HICs differ in important ways in LMICs, while broader comparative research based on anthropology and sociology demonstrates the important influence of religious and cultural factors, economic and infrastructure conditions, institutional capacity and governance. The sociological construct of governmentality provides insight into why public compliance with traffic safety law may be lower in LMICs, and why this situation is likely to take a protracted period of time to change. Given the broader context of road safety in LMICs, the Road Safety Space Model (RSSM) provides a useful framework for identifying the economic, institutional, social, and cultural factors that influence a particular road safety issue in a particular country. This has implications for methodological approaches to TSC in LMICs, as less structured, more ethnographic methods are arguably more appropriate. An analysis of a typical TSC model, drawing on research from LMICs, demonstrates that the model assumes a particular hierarchy of elements (values, behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, prototypical image, control beliefs), and relationships between them, which may not be true in LMICs. It is therefore more challenging to apply TSC in LMICs, particularly making the transition from identification of the TSC values and beliefs that lead to behavior to the development of an intervention to bring about changes in behavior. TSC is undoubtedly a promising approach in LMICs; however, its first steps should incorporate qualitative approaches and recognize the wide range of factors that are relevant to TSC; use of the RSSM would facilitate such a process. There is scope for further research to refine models of TSC, to determine the best mix of methods to use, and to explore the role of governmentality and its implications for TSC. In the interim, practitioners should strive to understand and take into account the broader social and cultural factors that influence behavior in the particular LMIC where they are working.

Those who design and implement teacher professional development (TPD) in international donor-funded, low-resource environments often lack a strong foundation of evidence-based research to guide their work. This lack of a research base raises questions about the efficacy and quality of TPD in low-resource settings. Educational practitioners need, and want, quality research to improve the interventions they offer teachers. However, for reasons specific to academic research, the nature of donor funding, and the on-the-ground conditions in many developing countries, conducting evidence-based research is often fraught with difficulties. This article argues that research in donor-funded, low-resource contexts must be conceptualized, funded, and produced differently than is presently the case. Thus, the article proposes recommendations, from an educational practitioner perspective, to guide researchers in terms of framing their research, the research methods used, and communicating and disseminating findings.