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To outline the multiple ways in which animals are inserted into sporting practices, outline historical and contemporary approaches to studying human–animal sporting practices, and advocate for the centering of sociological problems in human–animal research in sporting contexts and cultures and for considering such problems in relation to environmental issues.

In the first part of the chapter, conceptual differentiation of animals in the animal–sport complex is presented. Subsequently, studies of interspecies sport are reviewed with reference to the “animal turn” in the literature. In the second part, a critique is presented relating to: (1) the privileging of companion animals, especially dogs and horses, which overlooks the multiple ways animals are integrated into (multispecies) sport; (2) micro-sociological and insider ethnographies of companionship displacing of sociological problems in favor of relationship perspectives; and (3) the environment as absent from analysis. The conclusion offers implications for understanding multispecies sport and the environment.

I chart a general shift in emphasis and focus from animals as an “absent presence” in pursuit of sociological knowledge toward a clearly defined focus on interspecies sport as a field of research characterized by investigations of relationships with companion animals through the “animal turn.”

The focus on companion species means other animals (i.e., noncompanions) are understudied, big picture sociological questions are often sidelined, environmental concerns marginalized, and sociological understanding of the environment more generally is either ignored or reduced to a conduit of human–animal interactions.

This chapter offers a systematic review of research into quality assurance and quality management in higher education. It begins by considering quality as theory and discusses the methodology applied. The origin and meaning of the terms quality assurance and quality management, as they are used in higher education, and their application and practice, are then discussed. The issues and critiques that have been raised concerning quality assurance and management are identified, before some conclusions are reached.

This chapter examines how the author, a teacher educator, uses self-study to reframe and reconceptualize her teaching of Emirati preservice teachers. The author describes how conducting self-study helped her shift from using monolingual approaches to teaching Emirati preservice teachers and a focus on improving their English language proficiency, to affirming their bilingual identities, and becoming more culturally responsive. Initially, the researcher posed the question, “how do I frame and reframe my teaching to support the English language learning of my Emirati preservice teachers?” then progressed to asking and answering the question “how can I affirm the bilingual identities of my Emirati preservice teachers and support their English language proficiency?”

This chapter considers the values and challenges of a highly embedded participant ethnographic methodology that has evolved over the last four years in the course of two formal ethnographic studies in higher education. The method has been developed by a practitioner-researcher in tandem with the learning design of a new programme. As such, the roots of the method lie very much within the paradigms of heuristics and action research but lend themselves equally well to more formal, extended ethnographic work. The nature of this method raises several interesting, messy and difficult issues that are further explored. The first is the nature of practitioner research and the purpose of participant ethnography in this context. What does it mean for the teacher to concurrently and contemporaneously inhabit the role of researcher? This leads neatly into an exploration of the attendant ethical considerations. Issues of power and positionality must be tackled, and the ability of the researcher to engage in fully reflexive practice and research is key to unpacking this. Who or what is being observed, and from what perspective? Whose experience is really being interrogated – that of the teacher or the student? Finally, as this method has evolved from, and shares much in common with, action research, consideration will be given to the nexus of action research, observation and formal ethnography – both in terms of the participation and contributions of the teacher-researcher to the process and the students, who in effect become auto-action researchers, investigating themselves as learners and their experiences with their peers.

This paper is an initial attempt to discuss the American institutionalist movement as it changed and developed after 1945. Institutionalism in the inter-war period was a relatively coherent movement held together by a set of general methodological, theoretical, and ideological commitments (Rutherford, 2011). Although institutionalism always had its critics, it came under increased attack in the 1940s, and faced challenges from Keynesian economics, a revived neoclassicism, econometrics, and from new methodological approaches derived from various versions of positivism. The institutionalist response to these criticisms, and particularly the criticism that institutionalism “lacked theory,” is to be found in a variety of attempts to redefine institutionalism in new theoretical or methodological terms. Perhaps the most important of these is to be found in Clarence Ayres’ The Theory of Economic Progress (1944), although there were many others. These developments were accompanied by a significant amount of debate, disagreement, and uncertainty over future directions. Some of this is reflected in the early history of The Association for Evolutionary Economics.

This paper begins by outlining the basic attitudinal differences between the elite and the rest of society. Understanding these divergent views does not require resorting to arguments that reply upon error, ignorance, manipulation, or differences in individual character. Instead, both elites and others are correct in their understanding of these processes because they overgeneralize from their own experience. The major proposition of this paper is that if we compare the economic conditions of the average American and to that of the elite, we find that they are, in important ways, the inverse of one another. During times when Americans as a whole were experiencing economic advancement and mobility, elites were comparatively stagnant. And today, as most Americans are locked in place, elites observe tremendous mobility. The counter-cyclical character of the elite has important implications for our understanding of elite culture, and elite response to inequality and redistribution.

There is a great deal of research examining the factors that lead people to start protesting in their youth, but little work has been done on first-time protesters later in life. In this research we examine these “late bloomers,” those who protest for the first time later in life, to see if and how they differ from those who protest at different periods in life. We use data from the Youth-Parent Socialization Survey, which is a panel study of people in four waves from 1965 to 1997. We find, of the people who protested later in life, half had never protested previously. Additionally, there are significant differences between people who never protested, people who only protested early in life, people who protested repeatedly throughout life, and those who protested for the first time later in life. The latter group is more likely to attend church more, never have been married, and have lower incomes than people who protested early in life and then did not protest again. Late Bloomers are also more likely less educated and to be Independents than Democrats compared to the Repeat Protesters. This research adds to contemporary research examining differential protest participation patterns.

In this chapter, I examine how religion can serve as an ideology that has the capacity to bridge people of the same faith who hold divergent political stances. Building on Williams’ work (1996), I propose that religion operates as an ideology when it diagnoses the source of social conflicts, proposes solutions, and justifies action. Yet religious ideological appeals are not always effective at bridging political divides. Thus the key question of this study is: under what social conditions are religiously-based ideological appeals effective at winning people’s support for social and political movements? To address this, I examine the relationship of religious leaders to Latin American movements that aimed to nonviolently overthrow authoritarian states. In particular, I analyze the conditions that led some religious elites to become pro-revolution while others sided with the incumbent regime. Using comparative historical methods, I analyze the different political stances of the Catholic Church hierarchy in the 1970s–1980s in Chile (where the church opposed the dictatorship), Argentina (where the church was largely supportive of the regime), and El Salvador (where the church hierarchy was divided). I argue that ideological appeals for religious leaders’ support are most effective when the religious institution receives no financial or political benefits from the regime and when leaders have relational ties to the aggrieved. Two factors had mixed effects on the decision to remain loyal to the state or not; these include the presence of an armed radical flank, and the state’s use of indiscriminate repression.