Books by R. Murray Thomas

This book traces the development of Haiti's combined Vodou-Christian religion from 1500 to the present and explains how this combination of distinct faiths coalesces in a coherent belief system.

How-and why-do humans develop as they do? This book clearly explains the key components of human development theories and describes how to compose novel theories regarding this age-old puzzle.

This book's purpose is to describe the various things banned in schools, the reasons behind attempts to ban such things, the types of people who approve of censoring those things and the types who do not, the outcome of representative cases of censorship, and suggestions for school personnel about how to cope with bans.

Conflicts over the proper role of religion in schools-and particularly in public schools supported by tax monies-are frequently featured in news reports. For example, in the United States there currently are conflicts over the teaching of evolution, inserting the word God in the pledge of allegiance, conducting school holiday celebrations, posting the biblical Ten Commandments in schools, and praying at school functions. People who are interested in such controversies often-or, perhaps, usually-fail to understand the historical backgrounds to the conflicts and therefore do not recognize the very complex factors that affect why the controversies become so heated. To help readers gain a better understanding of such matters, this book focuses on the seven major types of conflicts that have become particularly confrontational during the first decade of the twenty-first century. The cases on which the chapters focus concern issues that currently are being hotly debated in America. Controversies are described in relation to their historical origins and the author shows how the history affects current understanding of the issues. Thomas does not take sides in the arguments; rather, he lays out the arguments, their historical and cultural contexts, and the groups that debate them and their goals. Anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of the controversies surrounding religion in American schools will be happy to find here not just a review of the issues, but a deeper consideration of the causes, consequences, and future of the debates and the role of religion in our public schools.

Violence in America's Schools provides a foundation for understanding why violence occurs, preventing it from happening, and treating both offenders and victims after it takes place.

Identifies the place that education has been assigned in the national development programmes of a varied selection of nations - large and small, capitalist and socialist, industrialized and agrarian, Eastern and Western, Northern and Southern.

Manitou and God describes American Indian religions as they compare with principal features of Christian doctrine and practice.

The problem of violence in schools has not gone away despite radical reductions in violent crimes throughout the country. This work provides a foundation for understanding why the violence occurs, preventing it from happening, and treating both offenders and victims after it happens.

To help readers gain a better understanding of conflicts over the proper role of religion in American public schools, this book focuses on the seven major types of conflicts that have become particularly confrontational.

This work introduces readers to 13 secular models and 13 religious theories in a wide-ranging comparative study of the roots of moral development. The secular models include attribution theory, cognitive-structural views, social learning and social-cognition approaches.

This book is the framework for a new theory of moral development that combines components from a variety of existing theories of human development with the author's original research.

Classifying Reactions to Wrongdoing provides three comprehensive taxonomies for categorizing (1) crimes, sins, breaches of custom, and other misdeeds, (2) sanctions and treatments which people recommend perpetrators of misdeeds should experience, and (3) the aims of such sanctions and treatments.

Being aware of thesis and dissertation pitfalls can help the graduate student make efficient use of resources available to him or her and bring precision to research and writing of that important project.

Emphasizing the comparative aspects of research, this introduction to educational research traces the process through five stages-choosing what to study, including specifying the research problem;

The US No Child Left Behind Act put high-stakes testing into the educational limelight. The purpose of this book is to: describe high-stakes testing; identify types of collateral damage that have attended the testing programs; analyze methods for coping with the damage; and suggest lessons to be learned from the high-stakes-testing experience.

Offers updated references, a new section on the Internet, and information on plagiarism. Covers the entire writing process: preparation, selecting topics, collecting information, interpreting results, and final presentation.

Does a client's age affect the counselling process? This book links life-span concepts directly to the daily concerns of counsellors. It identifies key decisions that are typically made in the counselling process and determines what kinds of age-related information will positively influence the counselling process.

Using case examples and applying a uniform approach to analyzing each country's particular focus on religion and education, he is able to show what these conflicts have in common, how well solutions have worked, and what may lie ahead.