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This makes no sense that the military has their own capacity of employment and being stated as neither employed or unemployed. While serving we are considered employed by whatever branch of service we are serving in. We sign a contract for our employment, are paid a salary, receive health benefits, retirement, are considered employed by creditors, are eligible for unemployment benefits, file and pay employment income taxes, yet we do not fall under US labor laws. We are considered “in a job” it’s just called a military occupational skill or MOS. We receive OJT or “on the JOB training”. I think it’s just because of the hazards of duty and the fact that we are also considered “always training”, just to cover the asses of those who unjustly treat soldiers while they are serving and those who do treat soldiers unjustly are not able to be held accountable under the Labor Act. This is ridiculous and in my opinion I feel that policy and legislation needs to change to make labor laws applicable to the hardest working people in the nation. We get more done in one day than most people do in a month. Unproductive my dairyaire. This is actually insulting to say about service members. We are the most productive people you will ever meet.

It would seem that philosophy in AI is inevitable.Its certainly integrated at the fundamental level.Can it be used to dig deeper into the the fundamentals of Human Nature?Why not?It’s the lever to a leap in evolution.And it’s inevitable.The genie is out of the box.The real question here is can it be made profitable in ways that its predisesor couldn’t.Or does the payoff come from its influence on humanity and their other endevors.Either way it’s insanely exciting to experience this in my lifetime.

I accept we should study social sciences but right now in 2024 it has published nothing predictive. So no, please do not use it to inform, you will be making a bad decision.

For a recent critique of Hofstede’s work see McSweeney B (2024) Hofstede’s Imagined Cultures Chapter 8 in https://www.routledge.com/Hofstede-Matters/Magala-Erten-Bell-Claes-Yazici-Karabag/p/book/9781032518442

Two fairly recent related articles on confirmation bias: McSweeney, B., 2021. Fooling ourselves and others: confirmation bias and the trustworthiness of qualitative research–Part 1 (the threats). Journal of Organizational Change Management, 34(5), pp.1063-1075 and McSweeney, B., 2021. Fooling ourselves and others: confirmation bias and the trustworthiness of qualitative research–Part 2 (cross-examining the dismissals). Journal of Organizational Change Management, 34(5), pp.841-859.

I couldn’t help but smile while reading this article! It’s refreshing to see researchers with a sense of humor and the ability to find a playful side in their work. The Ig Nobel Prize is, after all, a celebration of quirky and offbeat scientific achievements, and your gambling research certainly fits the bill.
While the study may have involved crocodiles, a far cry from traditional human subjects in gambling research, it highlights the creativity and diversity of scientific inquiry. Sometimes, unconventional approaches lead to unexpected insights and valuable perspectives that can be applied to other fields.
The fact that your research has practical implications in understanding risk-taking behaviors, even in the animal kingdom, is a testament to the breadth and depth of scientific exploration. It’s a reminder that there’s always more to discover, even in seemingly unrelated areas.
I applaud your team’s lighthearted yet meaningful approach to research, and the Ig Nobel recognition is a testament to the importance of thinking outside the box. After all, science should be as much about curiosity and wonder as it is about serious inquiry. Thank you for sharing this delightful perspective on your work!

On the role of risk in development of childen….
I endorse the perspective of the article’s author, and Ransome, although am no fanboi of Lenin, Marx nor yet the Manchester Guardian ( as was )

Nevertheless, I was a Baby Boomer and – as were my peers – encouraged to play outside all day, and to go wherever I chose on my series of bicycles. That became weekend camping with the Boy Scouts, then mountain walking, then rock-climbing. Later still, military flying and offshore sailing.

All these required an appropriate and graduated assessment of risk. Adults monitored, often unseen. For example, a group of youngsters at an Outward Bound School would do an ‘expedition’ climbing and crossing some significant Scottish hills and ridges. They would think themselves managing alone, but would be monitored by a staff member or two from an adjacent ridge.

I believe, from my own ‘lived experience’, that such graduated exposures to risk are important to maturation.

Overall good article, ‘m using it for school research. 🙂

I have known about John Hattie since 2012. He has also influence teaching and learning in our education system in Vanuatu,

Hi Tracy,
I wanted to let you know that I’ve been reading your work on Principles of Marketing for a Digital Age. I’m truly impressed by your writing abilities. You have researched a lot and done an excellent work. If you have interest on recent digital trends, read my article here

B.S. DEI programs frequently minimize or deny antisemitism and actually foster it with the demonization of Israel. DEI = division, exclusion and indoctrination.

The podcast featuring Craig Calhoun on protest movements discusses the formation, organization, success, and failure of protest movements, as well as their commonalities. Calhoun, an American sociologist and director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has extensively studied protest movements throughout his academic career.

In the podcast, Calhoun emphasizes that protests are a tactic used by social movements to gain media attention, put issues on the public agenda, and influence policymakers. However, protests are just one aspect of a larger process of social change. Movements involve various activities and strategies beyond protests.

Calhoun provides insights into the formation and organization of protest movements by drawing on his research, including the Tiananmen Square protests in China. He highlights the role of social relationships and social organization in protests. For example, in the Tiananmen Square protests, the organizers utilized pre-existing ties among students to mobilize and coordinate the protests. They also used symbolic actions, such as camping in the square, to challenge the government’s claims about order and organization.

The podcast also touches on the different messages and interpretations of protest movements. Calhoun explains that the messages conveyed by protests can vary depending on the target audience and the specific goals of the movement. In the case of Tiananmen Square, different messages were crafted for different audiences, with some emphasizing democracy and others focusing on corruption and economic development.

Regarding the role of social science in understanding protest movements, Calhoun discusses the three registers of engagement: description, causal analysis, and normative questioning. Social science provides descriptive accounts of protest movements, explores the causes and conditions that give rise to them, and offers critical analysis and evaluation of their strategies and outcomes. Calhoun emphasizes the importance of a balanced and thorough understanding of events while acknowledging that different values and perspectives can shape the interpretation of social science research.

In terms of research methods, Calhoun shares his approach to studying the Tiananmen Square protests, which involved multiple methods. These included participant observation, survey methodology, retrospective interviews with protest leaders, and documentary research. The combination of these methods allowed Calhoun to gather comprehensive and diverse data to analyze the protests.

The conversation also briefly addresses the scientific nature of social science research. Calhoun highlights the importance of systematic data gathering, testing preliminary conclusions, and using appropriate methods that fit the research problem and context. While social science research may differ from the experimental and mathematical models often used in natural sciences, it still aims to achieve rigor and reliability in data analysis.

Finally, the podcast touches on recent criticisms of social sciences and the challenges faced by researchers in obtaining funding. Calhoun mentions attacks on political science funding and emphasizes the need to defend the rigor and value of social science research while navigating the expectations of funding sources.

I think just bringing up race on anything is racist. Black vote, Hispanic percent, white power, Asian food, ect…. All racist in my mind…. Even what I just wrote is racist!

I agree wholeheartedly that we qualitative researchers seem to be obliged to work harder to justify our findings as credible and trustworthy and contributing to the existing body of knowledge in our subject area. i have been involved in qualitative research since the early 1990s and have seen the development from having to ‘prove’ the efficacy of my data analysis, to the stage of arguing convincingly for validity through trustworthiness, dependability and various other qualities. However, our chosen research discipline enables us to perceive and understand human conditions to a depth that quantitative methods cannot. There is a place for both, either as mixed methods or separately, but we have to be persistent and thorough in the pursuit of acceptability.

Such a great episode! Thank you so much for doing this.

Research Impact: Making It Visible.

While much has been said about research impact there isn’t much real-world visibility about such impacts. I would therefore propose the following:
All theses (Bachelors, Master’s and Ph. D. ) must focus on a real world issue that is occurring within families, organization/s, the student’s place of work or an individual level. The focus of such research depends on the student’s major, that is, an engineering Ph. D. or Master’s student should do a thesis that addresses a real world engineering challenge. A graduate student in Psychology should address a real life issue like the changing psychologies of selected teenagers which will require a longitudinal qualitative or quantitative research design.

Universities should build relationships to conduct action research with community groups, governmental and private sector organizations to conduct research and propose problem- solving proposals on an issue that is affecting any of these entities. The members engaged in such partnerships must remain involved from the conception of the project and throughout its implementation. The participating university should be paid for their contribution to the project. This can become a useful revenue stream for such participating universities.

All disciplinary majors, from Bachelor’s to Ph. D. should have an annual practicum for which the participating students must submit a report and credits must be given or a final mark can be awarded as part of the end-of-semester assessment of such students.

At the end of each of the above an impact assessment research exercise must be conducted by a separate committee. None of the individuals who participated in the research project should be appointed to this committee. In addition academic policies in universities should be expanded to accommodate the above suggestions and these suggestions should be taken into consideration by accreditation bodies and THES World University Rankings.

One thing that I note regarding ALL the sensible opponents of the many and varied assaults on the freedom and well-being of individuals is that so many are classed as “Emeritus”. Given that in the UK what might be classified as ‘Emeritus’ Generals, and ‘Emeritus’ Central Bankers ALL seem to change their opinion with their status. It seems that the status of ‘Emeritus’ is like a truth drug. They all seem to recant their previous beliefs and opinions. Hmm, could it be that once retired they are safe in their pensions and so are willing to say what they dared not say when still employed? Long live Emeritus Professors and any others with the same status who may finally be able to ‘speak truth to power’.

The “greedy work” concept is out of place. Factually, women pursue majors that have lower wage outcomes, pursue jobs with lower average wages (particularly jobs that are not dangerous), work fewer hours, and take off more time, and these are all facts backed by the BLS. Regardless of what Claudia Goldin says, those behaviors are real and directly connected to the matter in a deeply impactful way. They can’t just be shrugged off with a buzz term. Then there is the part where pregnancy takes women out of the workforce for an extended period of time. That directly impacts the aggregate.

With all of that, of course women are going to make less, it’s literally impossible to avoid, and it will literally never change unless women can address all of those issues, but I don’t see that ever happening. Why? Because despite all of the new age gender pseudoscience coming from college campuses, bloggers, and thinktanks these days, real science shows us that women are just different from men in a number of ways, and that’s totally okay. Our ambitions are different, our desires and how we feel we should fulfill them are different, how we see the world and how we should operate it is different, and that, again, is totally okay. That difference is a needed balance.

Pressure from woman-centered ideologies that are mostly based in (pretty blatant) misandry have for generations tried hard to turn women into female-male hybrids, and all this has done is caused misery and disconnect between the sexes. It’s unnatural, it doesn’t work, and it’s not working, that’s the key part. It’s not working. How do we know? Look at the never-ending war between men and women, the school shootings, the exploding suicide rate (which is mostly men btw), and the confusion of kids not knowing who or what they are anymore and being encouraged by ideologues to remain in the confusion said ideologues helped perpetuate.

“But losers can win – eventually. The more that workers say to their supervisors that “we want our own time” the more the labor market will change.

That’s not how real life works and this is how women and men are different. You see, men don’t think this way. Men just go to work and do the job as described, they’re not expecting industry to bend to their desires. Women in western society want to bend the workplace situation to their feelings and desires, but the worker never has the leverage in this situation. The more bending you ask for, the more employers will stop hiring you or finding ways to reduce your wages by outsourcing or automating, thereby devaluing your job industry-wide.

“The important point,” she adds, “is that both lose. Men are able to have the family and step up because women step back in terms of their jobs, but both are deprived. Men forgo time with their family and women often forgo their career.”

This ignores the critical point. Women are not stepping back, they are answering the call of nature because they have to. Pregnancy does that. It’s also best for the child, and that’s best for the family in general. Both men and women are obligated to do what’s best for the family, it’s not simply about what they want individually. And this is where the crux of the matter lies: what is more important? A “career” sitting in some dusty cubicle 5 days a week and being mostly miserable doing it? Or building a strong loving family and community that helps make the world a happier place to live in? See, the fact that latter part is so discounted now leaves no surprise as to why our communities are in ruins. There is no strong rearing base for children anymore so there is no wonder children, teens and adolescents are being raised by social media and are out of control. Communities full of single moms in rented houses and apartments, having strangers watch their kids while they work, is not yielding anything but failure and destruction.

Although providing only imperfect barriers, masks do reduce the velocity and amount of viral particles leaking therethrough, reducing the reach and and density/mass of the viral stream exchanged during conversation. Even the least effective, blood spurt resistant surgical masks shown on the cloned tee shirts will provide some reduction, albeit modest (Mona Lisa excepted as speechless).
It is well recognised by virologists that, all else considered, the less the viral load initially received the less the disease.
Clearly, although masks do not prevent transmission, they do reduce it.
In dwelling on the negatives, the author would appear determined to reject the good for the perfect.

These are principles that all qualitative researchers need to bear in mind. No harm in being reminded of them, as the field develops.

I completely agree with what you have written. I hope this post could reach more people as this was truly an interesting post.

The article mentions biased datasets causing biases in the operation of chat GPT. However, I thought the developers went to extensive measure to prevent and/or remove bias in the data and the AI itself.
For example, it’s not allowed to express its own opinions, consistently reminds users to have an open mindset, and admits that it is wrong if prompted (even when it is right, leading to some funny results such as 2+2 = 5).

Society chose a handful of words and decided they are swear words. its pretty simple.

If we want to get rid of swear words, well we need to change ourselves and maybe listen to the sage advice from our parents “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

This is an excellent summary of how classical sociology should / could be informing public policy and challenging the century-old hegemony of ‘economics’ as the dominant social science. Joan Robinson pointed out in the 1930s that competitive markets were the exception, not the rule, and subsequent critiques of post-Marshall economics have shattered the notion of homo economicus and the view that GNP growth somehow measures human welfare and the ‘development’ of poor countries. But the economists still dominate the discursive space, and it may be too late to undo the social and ecological damage that this has caused.

Good Day,
Very useful and informative reports…however it would be nice to establish and offer a reward for the best five academic contributions to the advancement of the Social Sciences across two year intervals openn to social scientists in nthe western hemisphere, that is Canada, America and the Caribbean.

since classical antiquity “Senat” consisted, alas! of the “senus” or the very old ones
can they really be responsible for the decisions that their physical bodies make? I don’t think so, thus it would be better to avoid “hubris” indeed. Trust the direction of the place to someone younger (i did not say “foolish”, alas!) , let them make a mistake or two, but they would learn gradually- the SENUS is very old and makes terrible mistakes either

Nice!

Thank you for sharing this very informative article! Keep on posting

Well written blog, explicating what really matters in scholarly research, teaching and community service cannot be adequately measured by scholarly metrics, but instead by the difference it makes to the lives of people outside academia.

Very sad to learn about Barney’s death. I have great respect for his work, and his mind! He is the icon of Classic GT

“the Vienna Congress of 1973” in your text above…is it not supposed to be 1873?

Envisiging Prof. Fletcher-Watson’s argument in the wider academic context, I agree wholeheartedly that all too often, we seem to be writing to out own academic clique. It’s too easy to attach more value to our impact factors than to the actual application of our research to the people we aim to help. Our impact on them needs to be our prime focus.

This is a fine paper and certainly true to my own experiences. Keep up the fine research though you are fighting heavy head winds from MBA land

Yes, I’ve noticed researchers undermine their findings showing the efficacy – or lack thereof – of masks often qualifying their papers with varying forms of, “although we believe masks are important….” and then proceed to show they, well, suck. To be blunt. We have decades of studies on the subject and recent studies – those properly constructed and without an agenda – only confirm past conclusions regarding the ineffectiveness of masks in both community and hospitals settings. I think it’s worth noting masks were primarily for bacteria and not viruses. This is all so magical – and tiresome – indeed at this point.

Face “masks” were once in widespread use in slave times. They were known as “muzzles” and imposed upon slaves as punishment. Rendered faceless, the slaves were
constantly reminded of their dehumanized condition.

Since all previous studies dismissed the use of facemasks for viral control, what was the reason for their compulsory worldwide use? I my view, it is the same reason they were used in the past. Our populations have become faceless, muzzled,and subservient to the
dictates of their rulers. The injection mandates which followed clearly establish that the
right of bodily autonomy is subject to the dictates of the new masters.

Faceless, muzzled, injected, tracked. Free or slave?

Absolutely, the fear surrounding this whole debacle is astounding. Masks are just a physical reminder to keep us obeying the status quo. A useless, planet polluting, virtue signalling piece of theatre designed to terrify the people but make money for the manufacturers. We should all be ashamed of our gullibility.

I’m afraid that’s not much of an imaginary conversation at all. I recall having almost the exact conversation with my GP a few weeks ago. 🤔

toooo much raw info needs condensation

This was so interesting! SO glad I stumbled upon this <3

Thank you for sharing this valuable information. I will definitely be implementing it in my classes from now on. I didn’t know that there are types of online education. I will be sharing this with my team.

I disagree with this only in that ‘CBT is useless rather than harmful’.
The problem is that the CBT model used is not simply to help patients with their thoughts around their symptoms.
It is explicitly to inform them and educate them to ignore their symptoms and to counsel them to push through them.

The difference between:
Explicitly telling a patient they should do more (or the same amount) and build up a tolerance level (GET).
Implicitly telling them that by counselling them and reeducating them that their symptoms are not reflective of a serious disease, and there is no risk of worsening on overexercise, only improvement. (CBT)

Is effectively null.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105319854532
This study finds that patients are not warned of any possible harms of exercise in any of the CFS clinics surveyed.
If they were warned, the argument could be made it’s harmless.
The entire model of CBT used is actively harmful and as dangerous as GET.

The article on how various laboratories used different parameters ought never to have such leeway unless specified in the results. I have noted, being once a participant in a Government investigation about a certain, need to support, deleterious effect of so-called dope smoking and driving. The test was set up at Sydney University in such a manner as to bring out the worst possible result per each little test. Nowhere was there a real driving simulation. Like in gaming arcades for instance. My first job was training as a metallurgist. This gave me some laboratory experience. I doubt that such tests, mine were at Flat Products, would be globally very different in regard to the product tested. In this article this seems to be terrible non conformist attitude by both laboratory managers and the client/payer. As for real live situations, mentioned above in the article like when I was invaded by a bacterium. Straight through my long pants. Not the mouth nor the nose and utterly isolated. A virus two years before, ditto. I asked the doctor what could be done [in 2016]. He said: nothing. Now everyone’s an expert at dissimulation and confabulating facts. A good article I am going to show to my doctor.

Superbly written – you can tell he is a Sociologist!

As a researcher into creative dance/movement and social wellbeing, I understand Dr Sinha’s view well. The subtle nuances of movement speak volumes. I included a DVD with my PhD thesis in the hope that it would aid understanding of what movement, especially creative movement, could convey about a dancer’s emotional disposition. This supplemented data from individual interviews and focus groups. They also kept diaries which some of them returned at the end of the data collection period. Movement and gestural attitude are as important in the interviews as in the dance sessions: I could have followed this up with comparisons between these two contexts for each dancer… But one has to draw it to a close at some point and submit! Qualitative research doesn’t necessarily have an obvious end point, does it?

Very interesting, Robert!!! I’ve appreciated ton article for the birth anniversary of Miss Nightingale. Thank you
Ciao
mirella

My book Racialism and the Media: Black Jesus, Black Twitter and the First Black American President should be included. It examines the normalization of images and messages that impact cultural representation. Under the umbrella of racialism, I explore stereotypes, biased frames, historical myths and traditional racism.

Usually, I purchase a few hundred rolls at the time, as my wife (88) goes through a lot. I do not bother to check why she use so many. When there was a shortage I actually gave away toilet rolls. Because of my wife’s ill health I always stock up for several weeks to ensure that if suddenly I cannot go anywhere we do not run out. I have done so for decades and often proved to be the right thing to do. It also means that when there is a shortage we do not worry as we always have ample left when I restock. it also as senior citizen means we are not depending upon anyone to get something in a hurry. It also means that we stock up when prices are down and this also means we can financial manage.

Am inerested in your shift from talking about people with narrow scientific or medical expertise to going into a lengthy exposition about the nature of viruses. I see your qualification is as a sociologist.

Hi my name is Arminda my considered ethnicity is white but I am most definitely not I’m only considered white because I identify as white but I am Portuguese, native American, German, Italian. And I don’t feel that race should have anything to do with being racist because racist could be racist against somebody being gay color doesn’t even have anything to do with racism but I do think that people use the color of their skin as an excuse to talk about racism.

This is very interesting, I had no idea this was a Social Science. You learn something everyday if you’re lucky.

Very commendable article, Professor Peters. Let us begin to propose and vigorously champion solutions even if it means establishing an international organization to do so.
Social Scientists worldwide should begin to establish regional research associations and university based research organizations with the objective of investigating real world social problems that governments clearly need help p to reduce and resolve. Financial allocations to deal with such problems are necessary but clearly insufficient. The purpose of the research thrust must not be the pursuit of self aggrandizement and citations but all such research must generate and be the basis of an action oriented implementable proposal to address the particular issue in communities in collaboration with community groups, schools, businesses, government ministries and/or other organizations. The conduct of research to resolve social problems like family life, various forms of crime and delinquency, inflation, job creation, unemployment, elimination of gender, ethnic, and social class discrimination, white collar crime must become the primary basis for research funding, university rankings and making universities more functional in the societies in which they find themselves.

really enjoyed this great overview

Yes…very well expressed Professor Falkenberg. Are you interested in us doing a joint publication on New Theoretical and Research Pathways ‘ focussing on improving current research efforts in the Social Sciences , Management Studies and Education. I already have a draft in this regard. The objective is to close the gap between research findings and the reality of what is really happening with issues under investigation and thus directly impact on the reduction/resolution of problems in the fields of education , organizational management and sociopsychological issues plaguing family life, juvenile offenders, gender and other inequalities.Through such efforts universities will certainly be able to contribute to problem solving in their societies this attracting government’s funds, collaborations with other stakeholders and directly preparing students to contribute to the future workplace.

Just noting there’s a typo in Kris Hayashi’s name!

“The problem? Evidence shows it may be the wrong way to address major problems like inequality.”

No, the problem is that there is no inequality, only difference in preferences & the Nudge Unit isn’t addressing problems, as much as they are social engineers trying to fit humans in to some perfect utopian ideal based on what you are, rather than what you bring to table.

Yes, we have to learn to live with it…as we have always done… This control culture which has arisen out of covid is abhorrent… It needs to stop now, it is no worse than influenza, another coronavirus, which is oddly not now being recorded in hospital admissions… So where has it suddenly gone?

“This brief overview already shows the wide variety of themes, ideologies, plausibilities, origins, people and potential dangers of different conspiracy theory subcultures.” – Nothing happens outside of the cause and effect law. This law occurs as a chain with no beginning and ending. We are seeing only a segment of this chain at this space time. On earth there is a root cause for every chain, and that is called money. On the universe this root cause is called the soul. If you remove money and create moneyless economy (MLE), then you will find that all conspiracies will vanish. For more details take a look at https://www.academia.edu/43619619/Truth_and_MLE_-the_only_way_for_Eternal_Global_Peace_on_Earth

I think that the most significant metric for evaluating the impact of the Social Sciences is the extent to which quantitative and qualitative social sciences are resolving problems in communities and the wider society in a manner that gives governments less work to do. This is critical because despite increases in government spending in developed and developing countries, social and economic issues continue to escalate such as crime poverty, unemployment, inflation, environmental issues.This will require much collaboration between university academics and community groups or other organizations to investigate issues affecting them, develop prime solving proposals, implement same and monitor progress across time. Funding agencies and should prioritize this feature for providing funds and accreditation bodies should also prioritize same for program and institutional accreditation purposes.

Very Innovative

Although I believe that all ideas deserve consideration based upon their merits, I haven’t found it particularly helpful to apply a binary left/right lens to sociological issues. Weber’s ideal of “value-free” research to try to achieve insights holds far more appeal to me than bringing partisan lenses into things. There must be a willingness to follow the evidence, regardless of what political implications are supported. There is also of course the fact that lots of research is motivated by the personal interests and group affiliations of researchers, which can indeed result in politicized research. But the solution is surely not to merely “balance” two biases as they are currently perceived at this time and place–that is the unsatisfying approach commonly taken by news journalists. Instead, greater focus and emphasis must be placed upon research methods. And greater rigor must be included in all sociology curricula from the undergraduate level upward. For example, why should it be possible to proceed through the completion of a sociology PhD without *any* specific mandate involving the study of history, or of key social science disciplines (economics and political science) that focus specifically upon the most important social institutions? The idea that each social science can stand alone, ignoring the others in favor of its own disciplinary figures (e.g. “who needs political science and economics and history when we can just substitute the theories of Wallerstein?”) has allowed tons of ridiculous ideas to proliferate and not receive the critical assessment they deserve. This is not particularly a left-right issue, but a disciplinary specialization issue. As someone who has taken deliberate efforts to study in multidisciplinary fashion, I usually find that half the published stuff I see in sociology can be readily dismissed because it demonstrates a clear ignorance of other fields. I love the idea of sociology, and the application of scientific methods where possible, and I am fascinated by the various social theories that have been developed. But the sociology curriculum currently seems to be only about one-third science, with philosophy constituting another third and politics the final third. Individual researchers will vary widely, but there probably need to be real curriculum and institutional changes to encourage a reduction in overtly political studies, research, teaching, and “applied” activities trying to bolster themselves with scientific claims. Surely the cause is partially the current rote proclamation of Marx as one of the three giants in sociology. This idea should surely become contested. Marx was a philosopher. His economics were outdated even within his own lifetime. Certainly he is foundational to “critical social science,” but critical studies should not be accepted as foundational in sociology. Comte and Marx could be presented as the initial dilemma of abstract versus applied impulses in the origins of modern social science, but the actual scholarship of the field should be assessable on its own merits. Spencer, for example, had philosophic and political ideas that are widely scorned today, but his *actual research* included a most laudable documentation effort to document and systematically compare all known societies. Something that we should have today as a core database for all sociologists to refer to, but we don’t. Comparative historical sociology is merely one specialization out of dozens today, instead of the core aspect of macrosociology! Sociology has been allowed to become a kind of “catch-all” instead of constantly reinforcing the evidential basis that is essential for grounded theories at multiple scales. The current focus upon inequality is not merely politically driven, but is convenient because it allows endless research to occur in an almost assembly-line fashion: “Find an inequality, and ascribe it to causal forces in society.” There are infinite inequalities available to be described and “explained” but what is lacking is an effective model of complete social systems and how their elements interact. No training is truly required in economics or political science, and as long as that is the case, *inferences* of power elites and oppressive dominant cultures will continue to be used as handily available concepts for theorizing. The extent to which researchers have gone beyond this rudimentary level can be expected to help explain the relative quality of their research. There is no shortage of research, however, that is lacking in its understanding of one or more major social institutions that are essential for truly understanding the topics in context, and there are tons of publications and conferences and instructors that continue to focus narrowly on specific interest groups they desire to promote. Although there is certainly a need for active ADVOCACY on behalf of those in need, it is arguably a different kind of field than one that claims an overarching scientific basis for itself. It’s a form of social work, perhaps, or political advocacy, but not necessarily a verifiable empirical framework. But then, there is probably a real question still of to what extent “social facts” are truly both sui generis *and* usefully predictable. If activism were more subject to the human subjects criteria of ordinary research, then perhaps people wouldn’t be so quick to indulge themselves in it in their official capacities–it would be difficult for example to demonstrate that organizing protests would result in no danger to its participants, or that the benefits for research would outweigh the potential harms from the political actions that had been taken. One of Marx’s most grievous errors was his imperative that “praxis” is essential, because we must first have a full and reliable understanding of our subject (society and its institutions and groups) before we can reasonably believe that we can *apply* an intervention and ensure a benefit will result. Professors, etc. must not simply presume that there are no risks from activism, or that the needs and benefits from activism necessarily outweigh the risks of harm, or the harms of the status quo. Such things cannot necessarily be actually known and calculated. And until we are able to start reasonably calculating these things, how are we to judge the ethics of either instigating action or tolerating inaction? There should not be a presumption that instigating action is automatically either beneficial or entirely harmless. And there should not be facile dismissals of others’ research disciplines (economics, political science) based upon unfalsifiable conceits such as the idea that they’ve all been co-opted by power elites as part of cultural hegemony and “false consciousness.” (Another of Marx’s great errors that took him outside of the realm of science–a key theoretical principle that is essentially unfalsifiable and has encouraged endless “conspiracy theory” styled ideas ever since.) I’m not saying the concepts have no relevance whatsoever to actual realities (i.e. power differences, ideology). I’m saying that the relevance is limited only to what is empirically verifiable, and must not be pre-judged on the basis of theoretical convenience (e.g. Andre Gunder Frank’s famous first book is stunningly devoid of factual examples that should have been necessary to demonstrate his ideas of neocolonial dependency. The book became widely accepted in sociology and is still cited a half century later, but it seems to have justifiably been ignored and forgotten by political scientists and economists. That is the kind of problem that sociology has been dealing with for at least a half century. Sociologists aren’t required to study economics, political science, history, anthropology, or geography deeply enough to be able to self-critique and readily debunk various ideas that appear blatantly, obviously untrue to those who know other disciplines. This fault probably is present in each of those other disciplines, by the way, so the solution is not to merely favor one over the other, but to make all of them more rigorous and interconnected through more collaboration and inter-disciplinary reviews of research. A random sociologist assigned as a journal reviewer is evidently not likely to catch errors that would be blatantly evident to an historian, economist, etc. but until journals adapt to this fact by adopting more rigorous and wide-ranging review policies, and until college curricula add requirements to study each relevant sister science more diligently, the problems of social complexity and change will continue to be described in ways that are too invalid to be very trustworthy or impressive.)

This is interesting, and thought-provoking reading; I am reading it as part of the content for my MA in Creative Writing at Kingston School of Art. I am interested in your example of the ‘fundamental attribution error’ where we instantly ‘frame’ someone in a negative light in traffic, and your exposition on how this feeds through into many other examples. I think it is a shame though that you framed this as ‘imagined’, and that the imagination is often blamed for instances like this. As elucidated in A Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), you will note that it is the memory that tends to categorise for expediency. The imagination is much cleverer than that. It is capable of showing multiple viewpoints through the use of multiple characters. As you point out, we are multi-faceted individuals, and it is impossible to understand why we might behave in the way we do at any given moment. I can see your point about how the social sciences contribute by identifying behaviours; but equally, and often we forget, the arts strive to illuminate what it is to be human or empathic and to imagine something less obvious than what the memory projects.

The most unkind remark made about the social sciences is that they are fuzzy science. Here in this article Ziyad Marar correctly explains that they are complex. And that they are infinitely worth pursueing. However, as Jordan Peterson and from a slightly different angle Douglas Murray might argue, there is a danger today that in this field the academic world has shifted so much to the left that University students are being misled in believing dismantelling statues for “righteous causes” is something brave and praiseworthy. I feel sure Mr. Marar would not be amongst those encouraging them, realising that different standards and practices were normal in previous centuries and that it is unreasonable to judge those once deemed worthy of remembrance by our own standards today. But I’m afraid it is from the ranks of those professionally established in his chosen subject that harm is actually being done at this moment in time. Measured voices such as Ziyad’s should counter the “Woke” movement, even if he is sufficiently politically correct to substitute the female pronoun when referring to humankind!

Interesting article thanks! I think numerical literacy and critical thinking more generally are not taught properly in our education systems and this makes it harder for vaccines to be considered carefully by the gen pop.

The most interesting comment for me from above was the Camus quote: “Come to terms with death. Thereafter anything is possible” There is a process whereby one can come to terms with death. Practicioners of Eastern disciplines encourage meditation on the inevitability of death. They opine that death and life are essentially one and the same, two sides of the same coin. The yin and the yang. Consciousness can become awakened through these disciplines and practices. One whose consciousness has been awakended knows the potential of embracing one’s own mortality. That person becomes empowered by death and life, and finds harmony in the two. Dualistic thinking fosters the disharmony and fear exposed by Dr. Solomon’s research.

Great idea!

My three sons, 18, 21 and 24yr, own their own company, HighKey Holdings, with several divisions: e-commerce/social media marketing/ influencer ‘giveaways’/real estate investments]. Oldest quit his marketing degree at U. of Winnipeg after 2 1/2 yrs; Middle child never attended where he was accepted into Asper School of Business at U. of Manitoba; and the youngest never even applied to a University. They are in business for themselves! As my oldest expressed it, “My marketing profs couldn’t even engage me in a conversation when I told them what I was doing [HighKey, e-commerce and social media marketing].” And for myself, 66yr? I hold three Masters degrees [Engineering/Philosophy/Theology]. Your article was preaching to the choir!

I truly think I nailed the charade still in April when I started to compare total deaths by year and cause in several countries. Each of them had an increase in the numbers due to the normal population growth. From this point I made projections of death for 2020. In none of the countries the projection is topped by the alleged numbers of death by Covid-19, which means the Excess Death DOESN’T EXIST!!.

This is most interesting and very high quality – what Mintzberg calls ‘intellectually rigorous’!

“And it’s good for the economy. Why? Because it gives young women a disposable income.”
How funny that feminists or non feminists claim to be independent when it comes to pay for dinner they suddenly become conservative and wait until the man pulls out the wallet.
Feminism only when suits the situation.
Can not wait til sh.. will hit the fan.

A crowd of people who meet for no purpose tend to behave in a childish manner and maturity doesn’t matter here. I have passion in learning psychology of crowd

I communicated with Dr. Charmaz at the end of last summer. We exchanged a few emails as I had questions about a qualitative study and thought she would be the best person to ask about this research study. I knew she was sick, but did not know how sick. Dr. Charmaz was very helpful and kind to help. I am so sorry to hear about her passing! For all she has done for the field~she loved her work, thank you!

Informative write-up. Here are some ideas to make online teaching effective and simplify delivery of your virtual lessons.

Thanks a lot!

Very good comment. Will be using from the start in teaching on sociology of health and illness this coming term

I agree that this “new” learning is going to have to be open and allow families to adjust to a schedule that works best for their household. A lot of parents are slowly heading back to work or seeking new careers because of our current situation, so expecting all students to log in at the same time is unrealistic! We as educators have to allow flexibility to encourage students and parents to stay engauge .

My deepest condolences. I used CGT in my research for my PhD and it was such a perfect fit to my research. Such a beautiful research approach. Thank you Kathy.

Dr. Canter is right on target in this article. What people notice first is “difference,” whether that be skin color, hair color and texture, and a variety of other “physical” traits. The genetic evidence certainly does not support the idea of race. Race is simply a social construction designed to keep those who have wealth and power in charge of the societies they live in.

I have 30 years of teaching and administrative experience. I have taught the social sciences on the US/Mexico border for eight years at the high school and junior high levels. 97-99% of the students were Hispanic, many came across the International Bridge daily, and did not speak English when they arrived, but they began learning English in ESL programs. I had sucess getting these students to achieve academically, to demonstrate resilience and motivation. Of course there were challenges, but test scores became good and excellent in some instances. I
am Caucasian, but I developed a rapport with the students and their families. I learned about their culture and they learned things about mine. I’ve had similar experiences teaching on campuses with 85% black or African American students. Therefore, I disagree that Hispanic and African American students should be taught by teachers of their same ethnic or racial group. In fact, it seem to me that this type of racial and ethnocentric argument is counter to Thurgood Marshall’s prevailing argument in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education-1954. Segregation is a step in the wrong direction.

Hello i am a more murture student and I enjoyed the on-line classes. And I paid attention I did not find myself drafting or being space out. I love when I can go back and listen to the recording, because I missed something the professor said and it also help me to be a better note taker by listening to the record it help me to retain better.

Too late to reach Neil but in time to reach younger students.
I am a retired Geologist, 69 years old, spent most of my working life in the area of research relating to all sort of natural and man-made catastrophes, especially from the point of view of a reinsurer. From my first semesters at University until the very last day at the Company I worked for, Stochastic and Statistics belonged to the bread and butter of my job. I had quite a hard time studying these two sciences from books at home parallel to my study and job. In this sense my life would have been much more easy had I have the opportunity to go through Prof. Neil J. Salkind’s “Statistics for People Who Hate Statistics”. In this book Neil makes “Statistics” so transparent and easy to understand.
Dear students, when you buy a brand new car and you study its Owners Manual you many know exactly the functions of each of the levers and knobs in the cockpit but you are still not in the condition to drive the car safely until you get all the knowledge necessary to get a drivers license. Same is with Statistics: you will only get trust worthy results using SPSS or other Statistics Applications until you fully understand the science of Statistics – Prof. Neil J. Salkind was a great teacher in this matter!
Many thanks, Neil!

I’ve been trying to learn this for so long but every time I try I lose interest because the content gets boring or confusing. You totally made me enjoy every bit of it! Thank you!!!
 
 
 

Yes agree, physical distancing doesn’t mean stop communicating with other. This is the time to build solidarity, cares eachother and keep communicate with friends, relatives and family.

A must read for all in this pandemic situation.

Social isolation is an unfortunate term – we need not social contact whilst we physically isolate. Also, there is a tendency to conflate loneliness and being alone…..

“The average person in the U.S. uses about 100 rolls of toilet paper each year.”

That’s two rolls a week! Where did you get that number?

awesome

May Hitler be with you…

Should I do a PhD, is it worth all the time and effort? Many people I know, who are in the process of earning their PhD, all say that embarking on the endeavor was the worst decision of their lives. What I want to know is…has anyone acquired their PhD and is really glad that they did?

Great list!! I’ve heard of several of those, but have only tried a few.

As part of your research project you need to break down your skills into what you liked. Really agree with you here!

Robert, as a sociologist of 30 years (in the Eliasian mostly) I couldn’t agree more with this assessment. Sadly it is not going to happen. And actually the more that advocacy sociology embraces identity politics and engages without restraint or reflection in the culture war, the more I find myself alienated from my own discipline (even though I grew up on the Green/Left and consider this my natural home). I just read tweets from a sociology professor at CUNY (Jessie Daniels) proclaiming that any white families perpetuate white supremacy and racism; and that whites should disinherit their kids to prove their anti-racist credentials. People like Jessie would make a good subject for a sociological investigation – but the fact that they are fairly unremarkable mainstream professors at good schools is bizarre and just a little frightening.

It does not seem clear as to the meaning of “good migrants vs. the unwanted ones.” Is the difference equating good with legal immigration and unwanted with illegal immigration; or is the reference to good law abiding vs violent/organized criminality? If the latter meaning, that is an issue anywhere.

Alison really understands how a prisoner feels and should be treated. I truly admire a person like Alison. I totally agree on “see prisoners as people first”. Prisoners deserve to be treated equally.

Ithanks Prof Dingwall for this provocative post. you’ve really made the point. In the natural sciences, so often, the detached character of theories goes with association with authors. There theory is less boring e.g Mendelian theory ; Pythagoras theorem etc. The quest for scientific identity may have driven us too far beyond even the model discipline

Reblogged this on Managementpublic.

Thanks for sharing! Really good summary and description of the principles.

Once your research is successful where are planning to sell your products?

It might be helpful to quickly clarify what was unique or particular about the exploration that added to the effects

Thanks for the interesting article about positive psychology. I had no idea that this aims to help people flourish and make the most of their lives through empirical research and theoretical models. I’m kind of interested to learn how these models are developed, especially if it could take several years to refine them for positive psychology.

Although many universities focus on scientific programs and research, social science is still sacred and the origin of other fields of study and researcg. It is a great thing to have a space whereby author can communicate their work. Bashar H. Malkawi

nice post

This is absolutely true that this was an issue when I created the new team at Microsoft Research and I didn’t find any magic solutions. Social scientists when they are being calibrated using the frameworks applied to hard scientists have a difficult time.

i gardauated with abachelors in social sciences among with many graduates and had agreat love for social sciences. i believe there is need to define social science to young scholars and also reflect its importance in shaping policy and guidance to the sociaty. i believe as SPS can start an initiative here in Uganda. thanks

Great discussion with Ann Oakley

From Dr. Michael Pak

This is a good article by Robert Timo Hannay (April 20, 2018) – congratulations on the thoughts and input.

You are right about several issues brought up, including that people often do not have good answers or even good questions. And yet, they still have to fill in the time with some explanations and conversation that sounds good, sometimes (or often) without actually being relevant to key issues.

Some people fill in the conversation lines with relevant information, some with things that sound well, and there are people – unfortunately – who can fill in the space with many things (written text, images, sounds, etc) deliberately meant to be confounding and drown out or interfere with key information (this is sabotage).

Examples of just such activity can be found on Facebook timelines/posts and Google. As an example: under the search term DOCTOR or Dr., the drop down menu should include relevant names of deserving physicians or PhD’s, before including parodies of the title or subject.

This brings up a key issue or question: How does someone determine the relevance, value or correctness of a service or content (of a text or conversation, for example) ? It is difficult, especially without professional knowledge or experience. It often takes effort and careful attention over time. Observation of outcomes helps.

In 2003, the U.S. Patent office gave me the patent for the Three-Dimensional Model of Human Behavior – a universal system for behavior analysis and prediction. It represents to social sciences what the Quantum Physics is to physical sciences. This is not a light statement or conclusion It is based on many years of work.

More information is on my web site and the U.S. Patent 6581037.

Keep up the good work. Feel free to contact me if you would like more information or have ideas to discuss.

Best regards,

Dr. Michael Pak

Interesting. Here in Scandinavia a belief that it is “odd” or “bad practice” to promote an existing staff member to a professorship from within the same university is completely unheard of. In fact the opposite may be true, being promoted within the same university is the normal career path and applications who already work at the same university tend to be favoured when applying for permanent positions.

such an amazing read and interview is just outstanding

Agreed – however I’d like to amend that it should be the privilege of the Parents (or Guardians) to introduce them to the arts and local culture of their community. The panacea of this epidemic is more exposure – parents are the ultimate arbiters of positive or negative experiences in a child’s life – not schools.

What a lovely analysis.

I especially like the connection to Goffman, as Goffman is the most ‘aesthetic’ of sociologists: his sociological work is to see how aesthetic, dramatic, and theatrical devices play a structuring role in social life.

For Goffman, privacy and publicness are intertwined. And you latch on very well, I believe, to the way the viewer’s observation is a part of Hopper’s work.

Beautifully done.

The only reason we fear death is because we are so busy to chase the worldy live. We are so content to prepare life in the next 5 to 20 years like death will never come.

Unfortunately we FORGET to prepare the death it self and whatever might come after death.

The problem is, we dont know what will come after death and HOW to prepare for it. So we just busy and pretend like death will never come to us.

The Big question is to find out what will come after death.
And surely, someone create us humans for something.

This is a good point. At the same time, if bodies disbursing public support to scholarly research, such as the Austrian Science Fund, are to have a long-term impact on the sustainability of the entire academic ecosystem that they directly or indirectly finance, either Gold or Green Open Access can be one of the more important venues for that, since the discourse on impact factor scores reinforces the dominant position of few private, profit-oriented publishers in the paywall-based journal sector. High adoption rates of Open Access seem to indicate that slowly gains in acceptance in the academic community: http://openscience.com/the-performance-of-the-austrian-science-funds-open-access-promotion-policy/.

Hello David and Nigel

I want to thank you both for your Psychology Bites and Social Science Bites podcasts. Often fascinating, always clear. It must take a lot of work to organise and produce. They’ve introduced me to a lot of new ideas I might not have encountered otherwise. I appreciate them and feel I should say so.

This episode on social mobiltiy was interesting. It’s sometimes ideologically and dogmatically assumed that the people at the bottom of society are the same as the people at the top, but that the people at the top had a head start and other advantages. Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps not. If people were swapped at birth would the outcomes be the same? My understanding from adoption and twin studies is that genes play a huge part in what a person becomes, but whether the people at the top and bottom have different genes I don’t know.

I question whether social mobility is a good thing to aspire to. It’s mostly left unmentioned that social mobility is a zero sum game. If social mobility is about status, where there are 100 people, person 100 is at the top and person 1 is a the bottom. For someone to rise in that hierarchy, someone else must fall. In this system there will always be unhappy people who are falling and always be unhappy people who are at the bottom. In my view it would be better to have a society in which everyone can live a happy life, whether you are person 100 at the top or person 1 at the bottom. Someone might respond that people can still be happy if they are falling or at the bottom of the hierarchy, but if this is the case, why concern ourselves with social mobility at all?

It was also noticeable to me that Clark didn’t speak about racism or the social position of black people. Listeners are left to read between the lines on what he might think about that. Rather than leave it implicit, it would give more clarity and show more intellectual courage to make it explicit. If the people at the top may have superior genes, the implication seems to be that the people at the bottom may have inferior genes. If this is what he thinks, explicitly bite that bullet. In fairness, he had only had 15 minutes so he can’t cover everything. Interesting episode.

Again, thank you for your podcasts. If I had more money and was higher up the hierarchy I’d make a donation. Great work both!

Complex issue that is affected and influenced by many different factors – health is controllable to a degree…

does it mean that everything that human being could possibly do would be re-done by the machines? sounds good but does it mean that sooner or later there won’t be any work for humans to do? no jobs?

”

David Edmonds: The face behind the voice.  “I have 47 speech defects,” he joked, “so I only have to utter a few words and people instantly identify it.”. ”
I disagree that: http://truththeory.com/2016/07/23/10-reasons-why-you-should-be-proud-to-be-an-introvert/
Sincerely, Marguerita

Very entertaining and enlightening podcast. In times such as these, the theories which were discussed so elegantly here are as powerful and relevant as ever. In these uncertain times also, it was good to see Social Identify Theory presented as an idea with positive potential and not as a counsel for despair. We need hope and practical strategies at present, and as someone once said “There’s nothing so practical as a good theory”.

“Dear Sir/Madam,

I found one of my photos on your website with incorrect attribution. The original photo, (which I own the license to) is located here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/keoni101/7127698863

And the incorrectly attributed instance is on this page:

https://managementink.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/the-csr-agenda-part-5-of-5/

I truly appreciate and I’m so happy that you chose to use my image. It’s both flattering and satisfying. Producing images that can actually be used is my main goal.

I really hope you will continue to use my image, but the creative commons license for this image requires appropriate attribution. Please attribute the image to http://www.liveoncelivewild.com and link to: http://liveoncelivewild.com/Global-Perspective/

Thank you in advance for taking time out of your day to help me take care of this.

Thank you for sharing, although I graduated from a ordinary university which is not well known.

I agree that distracted driving is a big issue. I do wonder, however, if there are studies that show distracted driving because of a device and how that relates to distracted driving of having other people in the vehicle. Is a device more distracting?

Aside from laws against using devices (and actually enforcing them) I don’t see any reasonable progress toward solving the issue.

Yes, depressing. Elimination of the “excluded” category was very disappointing. Filing out an “exempt” application requires just as much work as an “expedited” one.

This a very interesting article listing valid points from an honest aspect. Also, I found the data and stats you provided unexpectedly interesting. This is a good summary of the SAGE survey. Thank you for taking time to putting it together.

It was interesting to learn that British dentists use a minimal amount of anesthetic, if any is used at all, when performing a dental procedure. Growing up in the US I have thought of a numb mouth after having a cavity filled as routine. I have always expected to be made to feel comfortable when visiting the dentist. I never really saw my experience at the dentist as something unique to my culture.

Why not this simple formula for scientific value and impact?

Average impact point of publications X average citations X number of publications

The issue of the Monarchy’s role and people’s perception of it are of real importance (I say this as someone who believes that there is no real place for a Monarchy in a modern egalitarian society) so I got excited when I saw the show’s title, but it was really disappointing to learn that research was so old! Many things have shifted in society since then that make a “read thru” on this research hard to justify.

Now, if you can find more contemporary takes on the issue, count me in!!

thanks for your efforts, I enjoy the show (for the most part!)

I think that you can certainly get a lot of useful information from studying psychology, however, there is a major problem with it. 30 years ago it would have been thought that let’s say you have a trauma, that you need to work out your feelings, nowadays they say not to ruminate at all – so what happens 20 years from now, do we say that ruminating is actually natural, and necessary? The answers are constantly changing. With hard sciences, when we discover gravity, we don’t go back on that in 20 years. When we discover atoms, we don’t go back on that in 20 years. Psychology is the equivalent of looking at a computer screen, seeing some behavior, but rather than looking at the actual code, we are doing studies and making assertions about how it all works, and making some correlations to the hardware. We don’t know how the software of the mind arises from physiology, not the way we understand how software arises out of hardware in a computer system, but we are making all sorts of assertions about how it works nonetheless. If someone tried taking this approach to debugging a computer, it would be an absolute failure, and utterly wasteful, because they simply don’t actually know what’s going on.

Yes. Social Sciences is really an important aspect in a lot of things. And right now, it’s actually a good time to take advantage of these studies because Big Data and IoT are thriving, which makes the consolidation of data easier. Also, social media is a new avenue that can be incorporated in this study.

It does not matter what kind of law the goverment implement, until gun control got stricter we will not be able to control gun violence.

When someone writes an post he/she keeps the plan of a user in his/her brain that how a
user cann be aware of it. Thhus that’s why tbis post
is perfect. Thanks!

Very interesting take on this. I did see Perkins’s say something along the lines of “there’s nothing like a bit of censorship to promote a work”, and wondered myself about It being “an astute marketing ploy meant to promote the career of the book’s author and the sales of the book’s publisher.” Even more interesting was Perkins’s sudden following of Charles Murray on twitter.

Absolutely agree that “The Welfare Trait ought to be a dire warning to British sociologists. The book and the debate it has sparked amount to a hostile takeover of discursive terrain that, for many decades, used to be covered by the sociological imagination, accounts of social citizenship, and dedicated engagement with the social production of inequalities. ” But in addition to this reductive discourse, there is also the matter of the systematic political disenfranchisement of those poorest citizens, and a refusal on the part of government to engage with those marginalised groups at all. Hence the Conservative preoccupation with a positivist approach to “social research” and a dismissal of first-hand witness accounts – qualitative evidence – as merely “anecdotal” – and a dogmatic insistence that “no causal relationship is established” between the welfare “reforms” and adverse consequences, increased mortality, increased suicide and mental distress. There is, however, a well-established correlation that requires further investigation.

I felt that Perkins’s also served as a political kite-flying exercise – pushing steadily at the public’s moral boundaries. Allport’s ladder.

https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/the-importance-of-citizens-qualitative-accounts-in-democratic-inclusion-and-political-participation/

Dear Sarah-Louise Quinnell..
Greetings. In India there are 5 types of Individuals who opt for Ph. D Research 1. A teacher who needs promotion in his/her career 2. An Academically good student who is jobless and needs scholarship for survival 3. An Intellectual Idiot/ Public servant who is in habit of acquiring academic degrees just to prove his intellectual brilliancy and 4 A person who’s job is to do research 5. A person having special passion for research.
Now the next question is who cares about our research? Most Governments seldom care about these. If state wants to find out some thing it would constitute a Commission or Committee.. If it is a private company it would hire a research organization. Therefore, as such individual researcher has no importance. He /she has to work for an organization.
To my understanding, state must invest education for social transformation and development. Education and research not only enhances the logic of life but also competency. But the million dollar question is “Do state need such people”? The reality answer is NO. We want bionic persons who will work as we direct them to but will not ask any question. To day, new areas of research has emerged i.e How to con consumers and investors. How to evade taxes lawfully. How to swindle public resources in the pretext of entrepreneurship . How to evade Government Standards in legitimate way, How to blackmail a helpless patient in the name of modern diagnostics and how to buy human labour at throw away price with out the threat of Strike and How to start a war in the pretext of Human rights, democracy and religion and terminate millions of human life in most effective manner.
Gone are those days when researchers worked for humanity. To day we are more involved with NEGATIVE research.

MEXT demands that the wording of its mandate has been misjudged, with Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura issuing an announcement in late July denying any aim to pull the fitting on HSS. In September, Kan Suzuki, his exceptional counsel on advanced education, composed a long refusal in Diamond, a business magazine, recognizing that the wording was vague and that the arrangement was inadequately explained and did not include adequate interview with different partners. Suzuki says the aim is to inspire colleges to concentrate on what they improve get ready understudies for the employment market as a survival system to help hailing enlistments.

MEXT demands that the wording of its order has been misjudged, with Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura issuing an announcement in late July denying any goal to pull the fitting on HSS. In September, Kan Suzuki, his unique guide on advanced education, composed an extensive disavowal in Diamond, a business magazine, recognizing that the wording was questionable and that the strategy was ineffectively enunciated and did not include adequate discussion with different partners. Suzuki says the aim is to motivate colleges to concentrate on what they improve get ready understudies for the occupation market as a survival methodology to support hailing enlistments.

who in turn also receive their funding from the government?

Thanks for reposting this here! 🙂

Might be irrelevant to what you mentioned here; but Researchgate website does not work properly recently. They might be interested to know that there is no clear and easy way to contact when there is a problem with their website,

Reblogged this on nadine kammerlander and commented:
A ManagementInk reflection on my article on storytelling and innovation in family firms.

Some genuinely great posts on this site, thankyou for contribution.

Well, I go to university in America so I don’t know of the differences. Anyway, the way I see it is, the idea of going to college is instilled in all high schoolers. And the vast majority of them are only following what’s expected of them, they don’t know what college they want to go to. Half my school went to Penn State just because a lot of their friends went so it sounded like a good party school.
That means there’s a huge market for universities to tap into, the high school students that don’t know where they want to go, they only know they need to pick somewhere. And the marketing is the easiest way to get them. In my opinion, of course.

Also, I think there may be a typo in the last sentence of the first paragraph.
“Scholars likewise need to be market(ing)”

Cynthia,

For some reason, I’m unable to access the full review through this message (although I can do so through my library connection). ‘thought I should let you know in case there’s some kind of systemic problem. It may just be me!

We missed you in Seattle. I do enjoy your blog—lots of good references for my current research.

Happy new year!

Debby Andrews

where can i buy this?

Aristocrats like Abe do not expect the average citizen to understand or participate in governance (an interesting take on the meaning of “democracy”) nor to have the ability or temerity to express their own personal views and support them with evidence. They are instead expected to unquestioningly follow the dictates of their betters, who are in turn expected to follow the example of tradition. Those who are educated to think and who criticize the existing social and economic order foment disharmony and upset the all-important “wa” – a “wa” that serves the interests of the plutocracy.

Objective of Education is cultural upbringing of the younger generation and not employment generation only. Employment is only one component of it. There is difference between skill development and education.

1. Thank’s a lot for assistance…

That is very true. Unfortunately, some of us graduates never find the mentorship to learn these rules and get socialized.

This article nicely highlights a problem that has been too lightly dismissed by OA enthusiasts, namely that this tends to shift search and verification costs from journals to readers. The injunctions in Virginia Barbour’s last paragraph may simply be the application of common sense – but when you have to perform them for every single paper you read, they are time-consuming and costly. Traditional peer-review and quality marking by journals streamlined this process from the beginning, which is why it came to establish market dominance over exchanges of correspondence or oral presentations of papers to learned societies. It is a very Hayekian solution to the problem of the unattainability of perfect knowledge. Predatory and light-touch review OA journals may lower costs to authors but they pose serious problems for readers.

“Unfortunately, we now know that around half of all clinical trials, on the treatments we use today, are withheld from doctors, researchers, and patients”

No, we don’t know that at all. That’s a nice soundbite, but I’m afraid it’s not remotely evidence based.

It’s possible that back in the bad old days in the last century only about half of trials were published. But that’s changed very much in recent years, and recent estimates tend to show about 80-90% of trials are disclosed.

What’s the figure for the overall %, including old trials and more recent ones? No idea. No-one has ever calculated it.

Politics means self interest. Period.

james

Pakistan vs Taliban
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/pakistan-vs-taliban/

Interesting blog. But, haivng ‘left with a second prescription for a couple of days’ worth of a powerful narcotic/analgesic combination’ which gave you a severe headchae you understandably stopped taking them. Byt then you ‘threw them away’??? Where did you throw them – in the bin? into the sewer system? Should you not have returned them to the pharmacy for controlled disposal?!

Hi,

This is sandhya post doc fellow in economics, I find people how are having same feelings like me, today i have same problem that what next after my research. Though how good we are at our research they are no opportunities. I feel that I am over qualified. I feel it as a failure, I get weird thoughts in my mind. I Love teaching and Research . I get up set thinking what next ??????

The link at the top of the page doesn’t relate to the content of the page, it looks like the anchor text is incorrect. Would love to know what book you were referring to.

“Is Higher Education Losing Its Progressive Potential?” Hopefully. Hopefully the terrible legacy of the New Left is finally fading. And if you are believe that higher education is a platform for your parochial political biases, then I hope you will be leaving the academy as well. Then we can get back to work.

The problem with both unionists and separatists is a failure to objectively analyze the philosophy behind national and ethnic identities. They are ideological constructs. One isn’t born something. One learns and chooses their national identity. They are what modern anthropologists sometimes reference as “imagined communities”. One imagines a distinct special relationship between themselves and large groups of other people based on some ad-hoc criteria. Nationalists personify themselves as if they are part of a singular organism.

There is no Scottish values. No Scottish genes. And certainly not British ones either.

There are genetic differences between individuals in different regions but national identity isn’t a synonym for race or breed. Humans don’t typically procreate by the rules of dog breeders. There is genetic variation between individuals of any given national identity. As a general rule of thumb, the larger the nation, the bigger the variation between individuals. This is because the probability of two humans mating weakens proportionately with distance. Our genes know nothing about national ideologies. All they keep track of is whom we have loved.

Without a principled approach to nationalism it’s mostly incoherent gibberish and/or chest beating to argue someone is this or that. Part of the blame for this is the the inconsistent use of analogy. In the mind of a unionist… differences are trivial. In the mind of separatist they are large. They are emoting themselves to their identities by amplifying properties that appeal to them and muting properties that don’t.

The inherent dishonesty of nationalism can be quickly uncovered by asking precise questions.How many similar genes, and which specific ones, must two individuals have in common for their ethnic identity to be “real”? Which particular values must the person hold to qualify? Which ones exclude them? Asking even the most extreme nationalists these questions will result in different answers and/or vagueness.

Sadly nationalist myth spreading its not limited to extreme nationalists. Even mainstream press encourage nationalist myths. Irresponsible populist politicians are perhaps the worse. Every time I hear Cameron speak about the “British people” or “God” I cringe. We need more truthful language than this from our alleged leaders.

We humans are more advanced than our ancient ancestors but there is clearly room from growth.

I’m a Swiss who has an English wife and mother (neither of which entitle me to British nationality, which I don’t have), British children (born in Scotland) and a Scottish son-in-law and English daughter-in-law. I lived for many years in England and also twice in Scotland for a total of 17 years. I have also taught and studied at English and Scottish Universities.

One particular point that the Scots and (often) the English don’t like to recognise is how much they have in common. In fact from an outside-of-Britain perspective they are almost indistinguishable: fish and chips, beer, football, betting, good sense of humour, not very knowledgeable about the rest of the world but generally very helpful to foreigners etc etc. Even the supposed difference in accents is less than claimed or at least does not follow national boundaries. A Scot from Inverness will more easily understand an Englishman from Devon and vice versa than either will understand a Geordie or an Aberdonian. (And any Glaswegian who claims to understand the Doric is a liar.) The single most important difference I have observed is that when the Scots play football the English will cheer for them unless they are playing Scotland and when the English play football the Scots will cheer for the opposition, whoever they are.

In fact, the national differences are largely constructed and artificial. I would say that in many aspects they are analogous to the differences between football tribes. You can argue that Liverpool supporters are fundamentally different to Evertonians but the most important difference is that they have decided to be one or the other.

Those who assert an affection for their Scottish identity do so for a particular construct, itself a reflection of many confusing accidents. For example, the language Scots was never spoken by the ethnic people the Scots who settled Argyll from the 5th century onwards but is that of the northern English and in fact was referred to as such prior to about 1500. Furthermore, many of the classics of Welsh literature come from Southern Scotland and the Viking influence was maintained in the north and west for centuries with Orkney and Shetland only being acquired by Scotland from Norway at the end of the 15th century. In fact Scots nationalists take it as being beyond discussion that Scotland is and should be what it was in the 16th and 17th centuries (with Orkney and Shetland but without Berwick) rather than what it was before or what it has become since.

As someone who has taught in two Scottish universities and one English one I simply don’t recognise the differences to which Robert refers. Yes, there is some difference at the very beginning of study but it is much less than he claims and both offer specialised education in honours. For example, no Scottish University nor English one as far as I am aware makes any attempt to instill a knowledge of foreign languages in any science student. A Scottish university scientist will graduate from this or her university just as much a monoglot as his or her English counterpart.

None of this constitutes an argument against Scottish independence but most of the arguments I have seen in favour simply assume the conclusion as a premise. “Scotland is a naturally independent entity, therefore it should be.” Fair enough, but if nationalists were honest about this they would recognise that there is no reason it should stop there. Simply replace ‘Scotland’ with ‘Shetland’ in any argument you use and it works just as well.

So what it comes down to is this: 45% of the population voted for independence. I think that this is a great shame but agree it has to be dealt with. However, again, honesty is called for. If 55% is not considered an endorsement of the Union, what percentage in favour would Robert consider was an endorsement for independence and why, when almost any constitution you can think of, including that of the SNP, requires more than a simple majority to change it, was the bar set so low?

Sorry, but all I see are declarative statesments.
You claim social science generates empirical results, where is the evidence ?
Social science can not be considered science unless it adopts the null hypothesis.
Until then it is just quackery.

Great article, I strongly agree that technology improved universities, to be honest I can not imagine universities without technology today.

Your post hits on some of the core issues when studying journal peer review as a scientific object of study. The relational dynamics in post-publication open review with public participation are most likely to foster rational decision-making with non-anonymous referees (maximal accountability) and open access to all editorial judgements (transparency in judgement). Full access to the original manuscript also leads to greater author-manuscript accountability… Following are a few preprints I propose:

Socio-historical:
http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31319 – Gaudet, J. 2014. Investigating journal peer review as scientific object of study: unabridged version – Part I. uO Research. Pp. 1-24.

http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31320 – Gaudet, J. 2014. Investigating journal peer review as scientific object of study: unabridged version – Part II. uO Research. Pp. 1-20.

an abridged version http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31161 – Gaudet, J. 2014. Journal peer review as scientific object of study. uO Research. Pp. 1-11.

Contemporary shaping:
http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31238 – Gaudet, J. 2014. All that glitters is not gold: The shaping of contemporary journal peer review at scientific and medical journals. uO Research. Pp. 1-23.

http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31415 – Gaudet, J. 2014. An end to ‘God-like’ scientific knowledge? How non-anonymous referees and open review alter meanings for scientific knowledge. uO Research. Pp. 1-12.

Empirically investigating purported resistance to new ideas at journal peer review:
http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31198 – Gaudet, J. 2014. How pre- publication journal peer review (re)produces ignorance at scientific and medical journals: a case study. uO Research. Pp. 1-67.

Dear sirs,

free access to the article is not possible

Best regards
Stefan Huf

An economic developer for more than 30 years – and a proponent of small central government – I can see the argument from both sides.
Who would argue against federal seed funding for cancer research, birth defects, volcanic activity aka “hard sciences?” Perhaps those that forget the Department of Defense and space programs circa 1960 that fueled a tech boom in the 1980s and 90s that facilitated the gadgets we can’t live without today.
At the same time, our modern communication devices contribute to a continued shrinkage of the globe, nearly day-by-day.
Base-lined with widely disparate cultures, religions, and customs, count me in for a share of social science research along this lightly-trodden path.