- Table View
- List View
Lesson Study as Pedagogic Transfer: A Sociological Analysis (Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects #69)
by Kanako N. KusanagiThis book examines education transfer, specifically focusing on pedagogic transfer, and analyzes what happens when lesson study is introduced into foreign contextual settings. Lesson study, a professional development approach that originated in Japan 150 years ago, has been widely considered one of the best practices for collaborative professional development. There is an underlying assumption behind education transfer that when “best practice” is transferred to another country, it will generate a similar effect and improve schooling quality. Since pedagogic practice is socially constructed, the best practice in one setting may not be meaningful in another contextual setting. This book makes a unique contribution to the field of comparative education by offering a sociological examination of why pedagogic transfer often fails to bring expected benefits. It is comprised of three parts. Part I, ”Pedagogic Transfer and Lesson study,” provides contextualized analysis of lesson study in Japan and abroad and presents how the meaning of practice is always reinterpreted against the local educational context. Part II presents a sociological analysis of Indonesian teachers’ practice based on ethnographic fieldwork. It conceptually analyses the nature of the teacher community and their practice and is presented as “teacher strategies.” The concept showed that teacher culture and practice are not fixed but constantly negotiated within the institutional setting.Part III, “Sociological Understanding of Pedagogic Transfer,” builds on the analyses in Part I and II and provides a theoretical understanding of the issue of pedagogic transfer. Professional responsibilities of teachers, collegiality, and teaching expertise in Japan and Indonesia are compared to understand how the meaning of lesson study was reconstructed in the Indonesian setting. In conclusion, recommendations for an alternative approach to professional development are offered.
COVID 19, Containment, Life, Work and Restart: Urban Studies (Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements)
by T. M. Vinod KumarThis book is about containment, life, work, and restart cities affected by COVID 19, using selected empirical case studies. This book presents the spread of coronavirus spatially and temporally, analyses containment strategies and includes recommended strategies. Further, it analyses how life and work get transformed during the lockdown, and gradual opening up, and presents the future of work and life in cities impacted by COVID-19. This book discusses the concept of smart life and works in cities post-COVID-19 such that they do not reduce the quality of work and life and cannot create adverse economic and living consequences called the restart of a city after COVID-19.Selected Cities of special interest are studied. Special interest is because Kerala and Maharashtra got the worst affected in India by COVID 19 pandemic and the book focus on that.
Poverty Reduction in China: Achievements, Experience and International Cooperation (International Research on Poverty Reduction)
by Houkai Wei Lei WangThis book provides a systematic overview of China's achievements in eliminating absolute poverty by 2020 under current standards. The book is divided into three parts: The first part is a study of major policy practices with distinctive characteristics in China's poverty alleviation practices; the second part is a study of China's international cooperation in poverty alleviation; the third part is a study of China's poverty alleviation by international scholars from the perspective of international cooperation and international comparison. These reports pay attention to China's achievements and experiences in poverty alleviation and reflect on how to strengthen cooperation with China in poverty alleviation.
**Missing**: A Sociology of the Everyday (Asia in Transition #20)
by Lian Kwen Fee Paul J. Carnegie Noor Hasharina HassanThis thoughtful and wide-ranging open access volume explores the forces and issues shaping and defining contemporary identities and everyday life in Brunei Darussalam. It is a subject that until now has received comparatively limited attention from mainstream social scientists working on Southeast Asian societies. The volume helps remedy that deficit by detailing the ways in which religion, gender, place, ethnicity, nation-state formation, migration and economic activity work their way into and reflect in the lives of ordinary Bruneians. In a first of its kind, all the lead authors of the chapter contributions are local Bruneian scholars, and the editors skilfully bring the study of Brunei into the fold of the sociology of everyday life from multiple disciplinary directions. By engaging local scholars to document everyday concerns that matter to them, the volume presents a collage of distinct but interrelated case studies that have been previously undocumented or relatively underappreciated. These interior portrayals render new angles of vision, scale and nuance to our understandings of Brunei often overlooked by mainstream inquiry. Each in its own way speaks to how structures and institutions express themselves through complex processes to influence the lives of inhabitants. Academic scholars, university students and others interested in the study of contemporary Brunei Darussalam will find this volume an invaluable resource for unravelling its diversity and textures. At the same time, it hopefully stimulates critical reflection on positionality, hierarchies of knowledge production, cultural diversity and the ways in which we approach the social science study of Brunei. ‘I wish to commend the editors for bringing this volume to fruition. It is an important book in the context of Southeast Asian sociology and even more important for the development of our social, geographical, cultural and historical knowledge of Brunei.’ —Victor T. King, University of Leeds
Neural Computing for Advanced Applications: Third International Conference, NCAA 2022, Jinan, China, July 8–10, 2022, Proceedings, Part II (Communications in Computer and Information Science #1638)
by Haijun Zhang Yuehui Chen Xianghua Chu Zhao Zhang Tianyong Hao Zhou Wu Yimin YangThe two-volume Proceedings set CCIS 1637 and 1638 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Neural Computing for Advanced Applications, NCAA 2022, held in Jinan, China, during July 8–10, 2022. The 77 papers included in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 205 submissions. These papers were categorized into 10 technical tracks, i.e., neural network theory, and cognitive sciences, machine learning, data mining, data security & privacy protection, and data-driven applications, computational intelligence, nature-inspired optimizers, and their engineering applications, cloud/edge/fog computing, the Internet of Things/Vehicles (IoT/IoV), and their system optimization, control systems, network synchronization, system integration, and industrial artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, neuro-fuzzy systems, decision making, and their applications in management sciences, computer vision, image processing, and their industrial applications, natural language processing, machine translation, knowledge graphs, and their applications, Neural computing-based fault diagnosis, fault forecasting, prognostic management, and system modeling, and Spreading dynamics, forecasting, and other intelligent techniques against coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
COVID 19, Containment, Life, Work and Restart: Regional Studies (Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements)
by T. M. Vinod KumarThis book is about containment, life, work, and restart regions affected by COVID 19, using selected empirical case studies. This book presents the spread of coronavirus spatially and temporally, analyses containment strategies and includes recommended strategies. Further, it analyses how life and work get transformed during the lockdown, and gradual opening up, and presents the future of work and life in cities impacted by COVID-19. This book discusses the concept of smart life and works in cities post-COVID-19 such that they do not reduce the quality of work and life and cannot create adverse economic and living consequences called the restart of a city after COVID-19.Selected Regions of special interest are studied. Special interest is because Kerala and Maharashtra got the worst affected in India by COVID 19 pandemic and the book focus on that.
Placemaking and Cultural Landscapes (Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences)
by Pravin S. Rana Olimpia Niglio Rana P. B. SinghPlacemaking and cultural landscapes are worldwide multidisciplinary global concerns that cover many points of view of the common impacts of socio-economic cultural and rights jurisprudence planning, wellbeing and related advancements. Concerned with the complex interactions between the development and environment of those factors, it is important to seek ways, paths and implications for framing sustainability in all social activities. This book is mostly based on the 10th ACLA – Asian Cultural Landscape Association International Webinar Symposium that took place during September 26–27, 2020, in the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. It examines contemporary social–cultural issues in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) and associated cultural and sacred landscapes. There, the emphasis is on awakening deeper cultural sensitivity in harmonizing the world and the role of society and spiritual systems, drawing upon multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural interfaces—all within the scope of the future of the earth. The book’s chapters add a new dimension of cultural understanding in the broad domain of emerging human geoscience, considered as key policy science for contributing towards sustainability and survivability science together with future earth initiatives.
Human and Machines: Philosophical Thinking of Artificial Intelligence (Human Intelligence)
by Jun Gu Yike GuoThis book shares Chinese scholars’ philosophical views on artificial intelligence. The discussions range from the foundations of AI—the Turing test and creation of machine intelligence—to recent applications of AI, including decisions in games, natural languages, pattern recognition, prediction in economic contexts, autonomous behaviors, and collaborative intelligence, with the examples of AlphaGo, Microsoft’s Xiao Bing, medical robots, etc. The book’s closing chapter focuses on Chinese machines and explores questions on the cultural background of artificial intelligence. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for all members of the general public who are interested in the future development of artificial intelligence, especially from the perspective of respected Chinese scholars.
Delivering on the Climate Emergency: Towards a Net Zero Carbon Built Environment
by Deo Prasad Aysu Kuru Philip Oldfield Lan Ding Malay Dave Caroline Noller Baojie HeThis book focuses on the transition towards net-zero carbon built environments to deliver on the climate emergency. It provides an evidence-based roadmap and proposes guidelines to achieving targets covering emerging technologies, materials, innovative design, regulations and policies.
Identity Construction and Tourism Consumption: A Grounded Theory Approach
by Erdal Arslan İnci Oya CoşkunThis book explores how identity plays a pivotal role in tourism consumption. Almost all tourism-related consumption studies underestimate or refer inadequately to identity's relationship with tourism consumption. As identity phenomenon is considerably a new subject in the tourism literature, this book examines its relationship with the consumption theory. It is of interest to readers curious about how pre-, during, and post-consumption activities affect a person's identity and vice versa. This book contains an analysis of consumption theories and a summary of literature identifying the phenomenon's evolution through pre-modern, modern, and post-modern periods. In this context, this book aims to enlighten the interactions between identity construction and tourism consumption. The grounded theory, one of the qualitative research approaches, was applied to accomplish the relevant purpose, and in-depth interviews were recruited following the method approach stages to enable the researchers to gain new insights into the subject. By presenting the identity tended tourism consumption model, this book provides a set of profound contributions to the relevant literature and insight for practitioners/decision-makers and entrepreneurs. This book attempts to clarify the tourists' consumption process and understand how the interactions between identity construction and tourism consumption work. The qualitative methodology (grounded theory) allows in-depth analysis and insights of the participants of the study on their definitions of themselves as human beings and as tourists, decisions on their travel plans, their considerations, motivations to travel and destination preferences, interactions with others, vacation activities, evaluations on their travel experiences, et cetera. Therefore, this book appeals to readers of marketing, business operations, sociology, and economics.
International Comparison of Pension Systems: An Investigation from Consumers’ Viewpoint (Contributions to Management Science)
by Hongmu Lee Gianni Nicolini Man ChoThis book is about retirement income security. This income security is provided by national public pensions, corporate pensions, and individual and reverse mortgages. However, these systems vary greatly from country to country and, in many countries, do not provide sufficient coverage. Ensuring income security in old age is an important issue that must be resolved in the rapidly aging environment of the world.From the perspective of financial consumers, this book cross-sectionally surveys public pensions, corporate pensions, individual pensions and reverse mortgages and compares them among many important nations. This gives many implications from the perspective of designing an overall income security for each individual. In addition, it presents many of the issues needed for these sustainable and comprehensive income security.
Local Research and Glocal Perspectives in English Language Teaching: Teaching in Changing Times
by Rubina Khan Ahmed Bashir Bijoy Lal Basu Md. Elias UddinThis book provides an overview of recent trends and developments in the field of English language education. It showcases research endeavors from a heterogenous group of scholars from different parts of the world and brings together perspectives from both experienced and emerging scholars. This book provides a platform for established as well as emerging practitioners and scholars in the field of English Language Teaching to share their research. It synthesizes local expertise and culture with innovative ideas from other contexts and brings theory and practice together in one volume.
Rural Transition and Transport in China (Population, Regional Development and Transport)
by Pengjun Zhao Haoyu HuThis book examines the rural transition and transportation in China. It covers demographic change, settlement transformation, and infrastructure development in rural areas, as well as changes in transportation expenditures, travel behavior, and accessibility of basic public services among rural Chinese residents. The book contributes to the new body of knowledge from an international perspective in three ways. First, it explores the changes in travel behavior of rural residents and related factors. Second, it provides new evidence on the relationship between rural social transformation and transportation infrastructure development. Third, it discusses the impact of transportation investments on rural poverty reduction. The book enhances our understanding of the changes in travel behavior of rural residents. In particular, the results of the multi-source big data analysis will provide new evidence on the link between social transformation and changes in travel behavior in rural China. It also helps planners and politicians to develop policies aimed at improving quality of life, rural poverty, and the efficiency of transportation investments in rural areas. The book is of great interest to scholars interested in rural transformation and development, sustainable transport, regional planning, and environmental policy and is relevant to China and other developing countries.
Artificial Neural Networks and Structural Equation Modeling: Marketing and Consumer Research Applications
by Alhamzah Alnoor Khaw Khai Wah Azizul HassanThis book goes into a detailed investigation of adapting artificial neural network (ANN) and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques in marketing and consumer research. The aim of using a dual-stage SEM and ANN approach is to obtain linear and non-compensated relationships because the ANN method captures non-compensated relationships based on the black box technology of artificial intelligence. Hence, the ANN approach validates the results of the SEM method. In addition, such the novel emerging approach increases the validity of the prediction by determining the importance of the variables. Consequently, the number of studies using SEM-ANN has increased, but the different types of study cases that show customization of different processes in ANNs method combination with SEM are still unknown, and this aspect will be affecting to the generation results. Thus, there is a need for further investigation in marketing and consumer research. This book bridges the significant gap in this research area. The adoption of SEM and ANN techniques in social commerce and consumer research is massive all over the world. Such an expansion has generated more need to learn how to capture linear and non-compensatory relationships in such area. This book would be a valuable reading companion mainly for business and management students in higher academic organizations, professionals, policy-makers, and planners in the field of marketing. This book would also be appreciated by researchers who are keenly interested in social commerce and consumer research.
Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology: Selected Papers from ICITED 2022 (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies #320)
by Anabela Mesquita António Abreu João Vidal Carvalho Cristina Helena Pinto de MelloThis book presents high-quality, peer-reviewed papers from the International Conference in Information Technology & Education (ICITED 2022), to be held at the ESPM – Higher School of Advertising and Marketing, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between July 14 – 16, 2022. This book covers a specific field of knowledge. This intends to cover not only two fields of knowledge – Education and Technology – but also the interaction among them and the impact/result in the job market and organizations. It covers the research and pedagogic component of Education and Information Technologies and also the connection with Society, addressing the three pillars of higher education. This book addresses impact of pandemic on education and use of technology in education. Finally, it also encourages companies to present their professional cases which will be discussed. These can constitute real examples of how companies are overcoming their challenges with the uncertainty of the market.
Children’s Lifeworlds in a Global City: Singapore (Global Childhoods in the Asia-Pacific #2)
by Li Mei Soo Nanthini Karthikeyan Kam Ming Lim Clare Bartholomaeus Nicola YellandThis book examines connections between policy contexts, school experiences and everyday activities of children growing up in the global city of Singapore. In particular, it explores how Singapore children’s everyday experiences inside and outside of school shape their orientations towards educational success. Alongside an analysis of school life and educational policies, it also considers children’s out-of-school activities, including leisure, homework, and enrichment activities, and connections between these and their school-based activities. The book draws on empirical data from Primary 4 classes in two Singapore schools in the form of student-completed surveys, classroom ethnographies, student responses to a learning dialogues activity, and a re-enactment of one child's out-of-school life, as well as curriculum and policy analysis. It provides readers with an in-depth understanding of Singapore Primary 4 children’s experiences inside and outside of school, including the structure of timetables and pedagogical approaches encountered in school lessons, children’s enjoyment of activities inside and outside of school, children’s engagement and wellbeing at school, and the impact of Singapore’s educational policies on children’s learning experiences. Moving beyond a simplistic focus on Singapore children’s academic performance in international high-stakes testing, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of their lives inside and outside of school. This holistic approach is unique in the Singapore context and contributes to a greater understanding of children’s everyday lives in the city.
Through the Looking-glass of Interculturality: Autocritiques (Encounters between East and West)
by Fred Dervin Hamza R'boulThis book starts from the premise that honest and constructive dialogue between scholars and educators of interculturality, especially from different geopolitical spheres, is needed more than ever. The book is about the important and yet contested notion of interculturality—a notion used in different fields of research. It was co-written by two scholars who have never met before and who got to know each other intellectually and personally in the process of writing this book, using interculturality as a looking-glass. (Re-)negotiating meanings, ideologies and their own identities in writing the chapters together, the authors enter into multifaceted dialogues and intercommunicate, sharing while accepting disagreements. The co-authors’ different profiles in terms of geography, generation, status, preferred paradigms and multilingual identity (amongst others) are put forward, confronted, and mirrored in the different chapters, leading to the joint negotiation of aspirations concerning interculturality in communication and education. While describing their current takes on interculturality they also conduct autocritiques of their past and present engagement with the notion. The following questions are also addressed: Who is talking the most about interculturality in the world today? Whose voices are not heard? How to disrupt current hegemonies around the notion for real? And how to promote epistemological plurality in the discourses and narratives shaping our understandings of the notion? Autocritiquing is proposed as a way of unthinking and rethinking interculturality ad infinitum. This book argues that engaging with the notion requires constant self-reflection, examining one’s positionality and intersectionality, listening to the voices that one projects onto the world of, e.g., research and education, and operating transformations in one’s thinking, trying out new paradigms, ideologies and methods.
Translation and Interpreting in the Age of COVID-19 (Corpora and Intercultural Studies #9)
by Kanglong Liu Andrew K. F. CheungThis book presents the latest developments in translation and interpreting (T&I), which has been at the forefront to face the challenges brought by COVID-19. The contributions in the book contain both quantitative and qualitative empirical studies as well as personal accounts of the impact and opportunities T&I has faced in the global pandemic, covering topics including metaphor translation, delivery of and access to T&I services during COVID-19, renewed perspectives on T&I practice and profession, and technological applications in the T&I classroom. The various themes in the book, through examining the role and many facets of T&I against the backdrop of COVID-19, have demonstrated that T&I as a vital means of intercultural communication is assuming immense importance at a time of uncertainties and disruptions.As one of the books addressing crucial issues of T&I at a time of global crisis, this edited book is of interest to many T&I professionals, researchers, teachers, and students who have been impacted by the pandemic and yet showed a continued interest in T&I and its future emerging practice in the post-pandemic era.
Identity, Reasonableness and Being One Among Others: Dialogue, Community, Education
by Laurance Joseph SplitterThis book brings the tools and ideas of Anglo-American analytic philosophy to bear on how we think about issues of contemporary significance, in a way that is accessible to a broad audience. While acknowledging empirical findings within the social sciences, it takes on the prescriptive task of imagining a better world, in which being citizens in a democracy means actively engaging with others. We cling to tribal affiliations which incline us to look inward and spurn those whom we deem to be “other.” And we observe the mind-numbing, herd-like impact of social (and other) media on our capacity – and that of our children – to distinguish truth and good sense from falsehood and nonsense. Such problems demand our attention as reasonable persons who both think for themselves, and deliberate in good faith with others with whom they may well disagree. The good news is that while reasonableness cannot be taken for granted, it can – indeed, it must – be nurtured and it must be taught. This book both articulates a conception of reasonableness and exemplifies a clear standard of reasonableness, with respect to the questions it raises and the author's responses to them.
Goethe in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Enlightened Solutions for a Modern Hubris
by Malte EbachInside you lies a precise scientific instrument – the ability to observe Nature and recall past experiences. You were born with it and you use it every day. You can be trained to use it more effectively to, for example, compare and discover new species of organisms or new minerals. Our senses do have limitations, and we often use microscopes, telescopes and other tools to aid our observation. However, we benefit from knowing their limitations and the impact they have on our ability to combine our observations and our experience to make decisions. Once these tools replace our direct observation and our experience we ourselves become disconnected from Nature. Scientific practice turns into well-meant opinions out-weighing empirical evidence. This is happening now in the current age of big data and artificial intelligence. The author calls this the Modern Hubris and it is slowly corroding science. To combat the Modern Hubris and to reconnect with Nature, scientists need to change the way they practise observation. To do so may require the scientist to transform themself. One person who successfully did this was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His journey demonstrates how one man attempted to take on the Modern Hubris by transforming his life and how he saw Nature. Following Goethe’s transformation teaches us how we can also reconnect ourselves with Nature and Natural science.
Science, Technology and Innovation Diplomacy in Developing Countries: Perceptions and Practice (Research for Development)
by Venugopalan Ittekkot Jasmeet Kaur BawejaThis book provides a developing country perspective on the internationalization of science and the role of Science, Technology and Innovation Diplomacy (STID) in leveraging scientific cooperation for sustainable development. In articles by individuals from government departments and academic & research institutions in nine developing countries, it provides a conceptual understanding of the subject and reveals the prevailing perceptions on its praxis/practices. The articles highlight the significance of international cooperation at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels and the need for strengthening the role of STID in foreign policy and strategies of governments. The book is a useful reference material to government officials, diplomats,academicians, researchers, science counsellors, international relations experts, science and technology professionals and other stakeholders from the developing countries and transition economies, dealing with economic and developmental policy issues and/or science, technology and innovation (STI) issues in understanding the praxis and prospects of STID. The book is also useful for scholars and international relations experts from developed countries in understanding STI and related issues that affect the relationship of developing countries and transition economies with their partners from the developed world.
Sports Management in an Uncertain Environment (Sports Economics, Management and Policy #21)
by Bhaskar Basu Michel Desbordes Soumya SarkarThis edited book delves into several aspects of sports and sports management from a vantage of uncertainty and turbulence unleashed initially by COVID-19. The book, divided into three broad sections, deals in strategy and governance of sports organizations, use and evolution of technology in sports, and sports consumption and media. It starts from the backdrop of how sport assumed a new-found importance in people's lives while reeling under several phases of pandemic-induced lockdowns. Consumers felt how integral sports was in their lives when there were no live games to watch and bond on. Players, leagues, organizers, and media are still recovering, along with viewers, as sports makes a tentative comeback in our lives. COVID-19 was a precursor of the disruptions to come. Both the supply and demand sides have taken note of those disturbances to prepare themselves for any such potential derailments. The organizations, franchises, athletes, media, health care, logistics on sports have been reworking their strategies to keep coping with uncertainties. On the other hand, the consumers have transformed their sports consumption behavior over these two years, aided by the enormous technological changes. Such a backdrop paved the way for researchers to understand how the sports industry has dealt with this impact and has rediscovered itself to take its coveted spot. This book is a snapshot of several global sports changes and how they continue to evolve in an increasingly turbulent and uncertain world. It will be a rich resource not only for academics studying sports management, but also event management organizations, administrators, and policymakers.
The Nursing Profession and the Marriage Bar: Crisp White Uniform
by Breda McTaggartThis book explores Ireland's Marriage Bar, examining its impact on women's lives and the predominantly feminised nursing profession. Information on the history of nursing and the evolution of the nursing profession tends to focus on critical events or key persons who shaped the profession. What is less known and explored is the women nurses' work experiences or how the world outside the ward affected the nurse and the nursing profession at moments in time. This book takes one of these moments in time, the period of the Marriage Bar, and examines the women nurses' lives and the nursing profession during this period of Ireland's history. It does so by adopting a historical perspective and a lived experience perspective of women who had to negotiate this practice. Fifty years on from the Bar removal, as remnants of this time in Ireland's history remain, legislative and constitutional change are required to right the wrongs of the past.
Sexuality Reimagined: MSM in Modern India
by Shailja TandonThe book examines how medical knowledge is produced around bodies that do not fit in the heteronormative framework of the state’s rationale and processes. The marginal bodies studied in this research are termed MSM, men who have sex with men, categorized as a high-risk group in the backdrop of HIV/AIDS. These Queer bodies entered the registers of epidemiology and governmentality. This classification is the point of departure for the book. The book interrogates and asks how does a sexual subject become a political question? To answer this political trajectory, the book analyses the category of risk in biomedicine. It investigates how the category of risk becomes critical to the Indian state’s rationale and policies wherein, through the ambit of health and population, sexuality is managed. Unearthing the sexual politics in South Asia, the book, based on rich empirical evidence derived from the lived experiences of MSM, narrates the construction of sexual subjectivity and masculinity. The process of construction occurs in negotiation with the Indian state, bringing forth the dimension of the Indian state as a medico-legal governmentality regime and how MSM takes on the identity of a medicalized subject.
A Sociotheological Approach to Catholic Social Teaching: The Role of Religion in Moral Responsibility During COVID-19
by Vivencio O. BallanoThis book introduces Catholic social teaching (CST) and its teaching on the common good to the reader and applies them in the realm of public health to critically analyze the major global issues of COVID-19 that undermine public interest. It uses the sociotheological approach that combines the moral principles of CST and the holistic analysis of modern sociology and also utilizes the secondary literature as the main source of textual data. Specifically, it investigates the corporate moral irresponsibility and some unethical business practices of Big Pharma in the sale and distribution of its anti-COVID vaccines and medicines, the injustice in the inequitable global vaccine distribution, the weakening of the United States Congress’s legislative regulation against the pharmaceutical industry’s overpricing and profiteering, the inadequacy of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) law enforcement system against corruption, and the lack of social monitoring in the current public health surveillance system to safeguard the public good from corporate fraud and white-collar crime. This book highlights the contribution of sociology in providing the empirical foundation of CST’s moral analysis and in crafting appropriate Catholic social action during the pandemic. It is hoped that through this book, secular scholars, social scientists, religious leaders, moral theologians, religious educators, and Catholic lay leaders would be more appreciative of the sociotheological approach to understanding religion and COVID-19. “This book brings into dialogue two bodies of literature: documents of Catholic social teaching, and modern sociology and its core thinkers and texts...The author does especially well to describe how taking ‘the sociotheological turn’...will benefit the credibility and dissemination of Catholic social thought.”- Rev. Fr. Thomas Massaro, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University, Berkeley, California.