Critical Resource Theory

Critical Resource Theory (CReT) offers an innovative critical perspective on education funding. This new conceptual lens enables school leaders and policy makers to analyze quantitatively school funding policies and practices as a catalyst to make them more equitable. It offers a useful orientation and tool to increase fairness and opportunity in a society that systemically advantages the dominant group with ample resources while it disadvantages others by withholding them. Presenting a balance between the theoretical and its practical application to improve educational outcomes for marginalized children, chapters introduce and discuss this new extension of Critical Theory, validate it as a value-added and complete theory, place it within a broader philosophical framework, and construct its historical, social, political, and educational contexts. Designed for use in school finance and educational policy courses, this book presents an analytical tool that leaders, scholars, and policy makers can use to alter how they view public funding policies and practices – to question their assumptions about funding and resource allocations, look for, identify, and assess inadequacies and inequities, share their findings, and use these data to shape policy recommendations for increased fiscal fairness and improved student outcomes.

Rather than simply asserting that all social policies in all capitalist societies exist to maintain capitalism and serve the long-term interests of the capitalist class, PRT examines the nature and impact of social policies and the level and types of social inequality in a variety of advanced capitalist nations.

This Handbook provides an essential guide to the study of resources and their role in socio-environmental change. With original contributions from more than 60 authors with expertise in a wide range of resource types and world regions, it offers a toolkit of conceptual and methodological approaches for documenting, analyzing, and reimagining resources and the worlds with which they are entangled. The volume has an introduction and four thematic sections. The introductory chapter outlines key trajectories for thinking critically with and about resources. Chapters in Section I, "(Un)knowing resources," offer distinct epistemological entry points and approaches for studying resources. Chapters in Section II, "(Un)knowing resource systems," examine the components and logics of the capitalist systems through which resources are made, circulated, consumed, and disposed of, while chapters in Section III, "Doing critical resource geography: Methods, advocacy, and teaching," focus on the practices of critical resource scholarship, exploring the opportunities and challenges of carrying out engaged forms of research and pedagogy. Chapters in Section IV, "Resource-making/world-making," use case studies to illustrate how things are made into resources and how these processes of resource-making transform socio-environmental life. This vibrant and diverse critical resource scholarship provides an indispensable reference point for researchers, students, and practitioners interested in understanding how resources matter to the world and to the systems, conflicts, and debates that make and remake it.

resource-exploitation dynamics are emphasized a single comprehensive volume that provides a systematic and rigorous overview of state-of-the-art critical-geographical scholarship on resources contributions from leading voices and emerging researchers who draw on diverse theoretical and methodological traditions and whose expertise spans a wide variety of resource sectors and world regions

Contractual and fiduciary relationships are the two primary mechanisms through which the law facilitates coordinated pursuit of our personal interests. These fields are often represented in oppositional terms, and many accept the distinction that contract law allows an individual to pursue their interests independently, while fiduciary law allows an individual to pursue their interests in a dependent or interdependent way. Relying on this distinction, however, seems to suggest that the boundaries between the fields of contract and fiduciary law are fixed rather than fluid. Bringing together leading theorists to analyse critically important philosophical questions at the intersection of contract and fiduciary law, Contract, Status, and Fiduciary Law demonstrates that popular characterizations of the relationship between contract and fiduciary law are overly simplistic. By considering how contract and fiduciary law interact, and not just how they differ, the contributors to this volume offer new insights into a range of topics, including: status relationships, voluntary undertakings, duties of loyalty, equity, employment law, tort law, the law of remedies, political theory, and the theory of the firm.

These essays, written in the 1930s and 1940s, represent a first selection in English from the major work of the founder of the famous Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Horkheimer's writings are essential to an understanding of the intellectual background of the New Left and the to much current social-philosophical thought, including the work of Herbert Marcuse. Apart from their historical significance and even from their scholarly eminence, these essays contain an immediate relevance only now becoming fully recognized.

Our lives as human beings are characterized by production and use of social resources, material (e.g., money and physical possessions) as well as immaterial (such as love, knowledge, and power). Distribution and exchange of these resources are central to individuals’ physical and mental health and quality of life. Over the past four decades, Social Resource Theory (SRT) has evolved to build vital links between social psychology and public policy, providing a valuable lens for understanding and addressing social class, inequality, and injustice. The recent conceptual and theoretical developments and future prospects of this robust field are on full display in this Handbook of Social Resource Theory. An international, interdisciplinary panel of experts expands on the pioneering work of the late Dr. Uriel Foa and his wife Edna Foa, starting with the basic structure of SRT. The Handbook includes integrations of SRT with other social scientific frameworks, analyses of organizational and cultural issues, reports of empirical research using various methods, as well as applications to different areas including: Social justice Quality of life Interpersonal relationships Social dilemmas Stress management Work satisfaction Cognitive development Consumer behavior Cross-cultural behavior Covering human social transactions from the interpersonal to the intercultural levels, the Handbook of Social Resource Theory extends this relevant line of study to enhance the work of social psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and public policy makers. “The Handbook presents the basic tenets of the social resource theory originated from the late Uriel Foa and provides an authoritative agenda for the future developments of this theory. Kjell Törnblom and Ali Kazemi have made an excellent job in gathering a global group of contributing scholars representing an outstanding mix of respected and long-standing researchers in social psychology, sociology, psychology, management, economics and marketing, political science, history, and applied ethics/philosophy. This Handbook is an ideal resource for researchers, instructors, and graduate students in all these fields with an interest in social resource theory.” Edna B. Foa Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Pennsylvania “Uriel Foa (1916-1990) developed social resource theory in the 1960s. In the next half century this theory has generated an enormous amount of new data and theory in social, cross-cultural, and educational psychology, as well as in related disciplines. It has inspired work on interpersonal relationships, attributions, the understanding of status, morality, distributive justice, procedural justice, social dilemmas, interpersonal evaluation, biosocial theory, and action construal. Applications in both organizational and educational settings and in marketing studies indicate the theory’s relevance for the “real world.” This volume edited by Kjell Törnblom and Ali Kazemi is the wonderful Festschrift that Foa did not have, because he died when he was too young by contemporary life expectancy standards. It includes chapters by many of the stars of the fields that social resource theory has influenced.” Harry C. Triandis Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois “Forty years ago Edna and Uriel Foa began to spell out the unwritten social rules by which we trade – on a daily basis – friendship, information, respect, gifts, favors and other rewards and punishments. Sociologists, psychologists, economists, and others owe the editors a tremendous debt of gratitude for reminding us of the eloquence and indispensability of the original work on social resource theory and for bringing together a distinguished roster of scholars and scientists to reflect on the theory and to exercise it in the service of addressing an astonishing number and variety of important social and organizational problems.” John T. Jost Professor of Psychology and Politics, New York University “What material and symbolic goods count as resources? How do resources relate to power? How can the exchange and distribution of resources be understood in both interpersonal and societal terms? In this outstanding volume, Törnblom and Kazemi bring together a constellation of experts from a variety of disciplines to address questions such as these. Taking as their basis the classic statement by Uriel and Edna Foa of the resource theory of social exchange, the Handbook moves through theoretical to practical analyses and presents both laboratory and field research conducted in a number of different countries. The book makes an excellent contribution to our understanding of social exchange theory in particular and of social relationships in general. The collection is both impressive and important.” Faye J Crosby Professor of Psychology, University of California Santa Cruz “A tour de force, this comprehensive volume presents cutting edge insights inspired by Foa and Foa’s social resource theory. Törnblom and Kazemi have brought together a stellar cast to address ageless questions about the cornerstones of social life and provide generative roadmaps for future theorizing and research. This volume is a rich resource for scholars as well as students and educated readers who want to know more about the complexities of social life.” Linda J. Skitka Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago

"Natural Resources and Society: Understanding the Complex Relationship Between Humans and the Environment" is a study of the dynamic interplay between humans and the natural world. The book explores the complex relationship between human societies and the environment, examining how human actions can both impact and be influenced by natural resources. The book covers a broad range of topics, including the history of human resource use, the role of natural resources in economic development, and the environmental impacts of resource extraction and consumption. It also considers the social and cultural factors that shape human interactions with the natural world, and the challenges of sustainable resource management. Overall, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between humans and the environment, emphasizing the importance of understanding this relationship in order to develop more sustainable and equitable societies.