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This study is based on research on secondary textbook and school library provision in Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Togo, as well as existing recent country reports on textbook provision and an extensive desk research. Considerable variations exist in Sub-Saharan African textbook requirements needed to meet secondary curriculum specifications just as significant differences exist between and within countries in regard to the average price of recommended textbooks. Some countries have no approved textbooks list. This World Bank Working Paper aims to discuss the textbook situation in Sub-Saharan Africa with a special focus on secondary textbook availability, cost and financing, distribution and publishing, and the status of school libraries. Its objective is to analyze the issues in secondary textbook and school library provision and to provide some options and strategies for improvement.

The author argues that the college textbook market provides a clear example of monopoly seeking as described by Tullock (1967, 1980). This behavior is also known as rent seeking. Because this market is important to students, this example of rent seeking will be of particular interest to them.

Purpose This study aims to explore gender equality in school textbooks in Georgia. Design/methodology/approach The research had the following questions: To what extent are women and men visible and represented equally in school textbooks? How do school textbooks promote gender socialization of boys and girls to be treated equally in terms of power and privileges, superiority and inferiority? Do school textbooks promote critical thinking and analysis of gender issues and problems? The content analysis of the qualitative research method was used to answer the research questions. Findings The research revealed that males remain more visible in school textbooks; however, the authors mainly attempt to balance the gender representation in textbooks quantitatively. The textbooks do not socialize girls and boys as equals in power, privileges, superiority and inferiority. The textbooks do not provide room for discussing gender and social justice issues. Originality/value The study is an original work. The study contributes to the development of the field of multicultural education, as it develops the three levels model of gender socialization based on the empirical research data. The first, detection level, implies the visibility of both boys and girls equally in school textbooks. The second, the recognition level of gender socialization, acknowledges gender equality in occupations, activities and power and privileges. The third, the affirmation level, develops a critical understanding of gender issues and gender equality in society.

This article examines the received wisdom of services marketing and challenges the validity and continued usefulness of its core paradigm, namely, the assertion that four specific characteristics—intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability—make services uniquely different from goods. An alternative paradigm is proposed, based on the premise that marketing exchanges that do not result in a transfer of ownership from seller to buyer are fundamentally different from those that do. It posits that services offer benefits through access or temporary possession, instead of ownership, with payments taking the form of rentals or access fees. This rental/access perspective offers a different lens through which to view services. Important implications include opportunities to market goods in a service format; the need for more research into how time is perceived, valued, and consumed; and the notion of services as a means of sharing resources.

This article surveys 10 introductory economics textbooks to examine whether and how economics contributed to the rise of neoliberalism. It defines neoliberalism as a political rationality characterized by market constructivism. In contrast with conventional liberal approaches that view limited government as legitimized by the failure of naturalist markets, neoliberalism constructs the market as norm and means of government. Economics textbooks overall have a liberal outlook, as exemplified by Samuelson's classic, however, with three liberal subgenres: the imperfect market view, the free market view, and an institutionalist view. While the introductory textbook cannot be construed as an instruction manual for neoliberalism, the article nevertheless identifies two important neoliberal moments: the discussion of market-based forms of government and the rise of a new genre of principles textbook that urges students to \"think like an economist.\" The article concludes with novel insights on how economics may have contributed to the spread of neoliberalism.

This article examines the presentation of West Germany’s “economic miracle” and East Germany’s planned economy in school textbooks published between 2014 and 2016. The textbooks tell a success story of the “social market economy” that hardly takes into account the academic research of the last forty years. The results furthermore show that contemporary sources were altered in the process of textbook production in order that they adhere to the German success story. These findings, however, do not only point to conscious ideology production and a lack of knowledge, but also suggest that competition among publishers is an explanatory factor. Multiperspectival and controversial presentations of the economy occur only sporadically. It is therefore questionable to what extent the textbooks benefit historical learning.

The modeling of stochastic dependence is fundamental for understanding random systems evolving in time. When measured through linear correlation, many of these systems exhibit a slow correlation decay--a phenomenon often referred to as long-memory or long-range dependence. An example of this is the absolute returns of equity data in finance. Selfsimilar stochastic processes (particularly fractional Brownian motion) have long been postulated as a means to model this behavior, and the concept of selfsimilarity for a stochastic process is now proving to be extraordinarily useful. Selfsimilarity translates into the equality in distribution between the process under a linear time change and the same process properly scaled in space, a simple scaling property that yields a remarkably rich theory with far-flung applications. After a short historical overview, this book describes the current state of knowledge about selfsimilar processes and their applications. Concepts, definitions and basic properties are emphasized, giving the reader a road map of the realm of selfsimilarity that allows for further exploration. Such topics as noncentral limit theory, long-range dependence, and operator selfsimilarity are covered alongside statistical estimation, simulation, sample path properties, and stochastic differential equations driven by selfsimilar processes. Numerous references point the reader to current applications. Though the text uses the mathematical language of the theory of stochastic processes, researchers and end-users from such diverse fields as mathematics, physics, biology, telecommunications, finance, econometrics, and environmental science will find it an ideal entry point for studying the already extensive theory and applications of selfsimilarity.

Public choice uses the tools of economics to analyze how the political process allocates resources and impacts economic activity. In this study, the authors examine twenty-three principles texts regarding coverage of public choice, market failure, and government failure. Approximately half the texts provide coverage of public choice and recognize the presence of both government and market failure. The coverage of market failure is nearly six times that of government failure. Given the size and scope of government, analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of both market and political allocation is important to student understanding of modern economies.