Abstract Latent class analysis (LCA) for categorical data is a model-based clustering and classification technique applied in a wide range of fields including the social sciences, machine learning, psychiatry, public health, and epidemiology. Its central assumption is conditional independence of the indicators given the latent class, i.e. “local independence”; violations can appear as model mis...

Test-based accountability is now the cornerstone of U.S. education policy, and it is becoming more important in many other nations as well. Educators sometimes respond to test-based accountability in ways that produce score inflation. In the past, score inflation has usually been evaluated by comparing trends in scores on a high-stakes test to trends on a lower-stakes audit test. However, separ...

The paper offers a new analysis of the difficulties involved in the construction of a general and substantive correspondence theory of truth and delineates a solution to these difficulties in the form of a new methodology. The central argument is inspired by Kant, and the proposed methodology is explained and justified both in general philosophical terms and by reference to a particular variant...

This paper examines researcher/respondent relationships in a fieldwork study of a hospital ward for the care of patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The nurses' work was the subject of study. Taking the position that verstehen is a precondition of research, and using Mead's argument that one can be an object to oneself, key aspects of the relationship between the researcher...

Kinship in Palokhi, as we have seen, is inextricably linked to systems of naming, sex categories, and customary rules on residence at marriage as well as ritual. It is a central part of social organisation in Palokhi and, as I have shown, it also possesses symbolic and ideological elements. In this chapter, I turn to a consideration of yet another important aspect of the community life of the P...