When Angus Deaton crafted the term ‘randomista’ to denigrate the rampant use of randomized controlled trials in development economics, Angus Leigh saw an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. In this Social Science Bites podcasts he explains how he turned randomista into a compliment and promotes the use of trials to improve social programs worldwide.
One thing has become clear to sociologist Diane Reay across her research – “It’s primarily working-class children who turn out to be losers in the educational system.” Whether it’s through the worst-funded schools, least-qualified teachers, most-temporary teaching arrangements or narrowest curricula, students from working class backgrounds in the United Kingdom (and the United States) draw the shortest educational straws.
“The brain is an association-seeking machine,” Harvard social psychologist Mahzarin R. Banaji tells interviewer David Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast. “It puts things together that repeatedly get paired in our experience. Implicit bias is just another word for capturing what those are when they concern social groups.
In this Social Science Bites podcast, social epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson lays out the case that inequality should be fought specifically because it fosters a litany of ill effects.
How did humans diverge so markedly from animals? Apart from physical things like our “physical peculiarities,” as experimental psychologist Celia Heyes puts it, or our fine motor control, there’s something even more fundamentally – and cognitively — different. hear more in our newest Social Science Bites podcast.
In determining what makes a successful prison, where would you place ‘trust’? Alison Liebling, director of the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology’s Prisons Research Centre, would place it at the top spot. As she tells interviewer David Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast, she believes what makes a prison good is the existence and the practice of trust.
While they aren’t as unpopular as politicians or journalists, people who work with statistics come in for their share of abuse. “Figures lie and liars figure,” goes one maxim. And don’t forget, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” But some people are the good guys, doing their best to combat the flawed or dishonest use of numbers. One of those good guys is the guest of this Social Science Bites podcast, David Spiegelhalter, professor of the public understanding of risk at Cambridge and current president of the Royal Statistical Society.
When online charitable appeals take off, social psychologist Sander van der Linden perks up. He studies ‘viral altruism,’ and in this Social Science Bites podcast he details to host David Edmonds how he studies this phenomenon.
Drawing on discussions with academics who have oriented their work around public engagement and social impact, Daniel Pearson suggests these academics present an opportunity to rethink the existing structures of reward and recognition in higher education. “We are, as a species, addicted to story,” says English professor Jonathan Gottschall in his book, The Storytelling Animal. “Even when the […] Tom Burns, whose combination of play — and plays – with teaching in higher education added a light, collaborative and engaging model […] A 2024 report by the National Academies explores the latest advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology and their potential effects on economic productivity, job stability, and income inequality. It also highlights key research opportunities and data needs to help workers and policymakers adapt to the evolving AI landscape. In this post, co-authors Frank T. Piller, Tucker J. Marion, and Mahdi Srour reflect on the inspiration behind their research article, “Generative […] During the final stages of editing the proofs for Artificial Intelligence and Work: Transforming Work, Organizations, and Society in an Age of Insecurity, […]
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Impact
Young Scholars Can’t Take the Field in Game of Academic Metrics
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Canada’s Storytellers Challenge Seeks Compelling Narratives About Student Research
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Tom Burns, 1959-2024: A Pioneer in Learning Development
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Innovation
NAS Report Examines Nexus of AI and Workplace
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When Do You Need to Trust a GenAI’s Input to Your Innovation Process?
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The Authors of ‘Artificial Intelligence and Work’ on Future Risk
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