Download or read book Social Science and Policy Challenges written by Georgios Papanagnou and published by UNESCO. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Producing scientific knowledge that can inform solutions and guide policy-making is one of the most important functions of social science. Nonetheless, if social science is to become more relevant and influential so as to impact on the drawing and execution of policy, certain measures need to be taken to narrow its distance from the policy sphere. This decision is less obvious than it seems. Both research and experience have proved that policy-making is a complex, often sub-rational, interactive process that involves a wide range of actors such as decision makers, bureaucrats, researchers, organized interests, citizen and civil society representatives and research brokers. In addition, social science often needs to defend both its relevance to policy and its own scientific status. Moving away from instrumental visions of the link between social research and policy, this collective volume aims to highlight the more constructed nature of the use of social knowledge.

Download or read book How Social Science Got Better written by Matt Grossmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-05 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It seems like most of what we read about the academic social sciences in the mainstream media is negative. The field is facing mounting criticism, as canonical studies fail to replicate, questionable research practices abound, and researcher social and political biases come under fire. In response to these criticisms, Matt Grossmann, in How Social Science Got Better, provides a robust defense of the current state of the social sciences. Applying insights from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science and providing new data on research trends and scholarly views, he argues that, far from crisis, social science is undergoing an unparalleled renaissance of ever-broader understanding and application. According to Grossmann, social science research today has never been more relevant, rigorous, or self-reflective because scholars have a much better idea of their blind spots and biases. He highlights how scholars now closely analyze the impact of racial, gender, geographic, methodological, political, and ideological differences on research questions; how the incentives of academia influence our research practices; and how universal human desires to avoid uncomfortable truths and easily solve problems affect our conclusions. Though misaligned incentive structures of course remain, a messy, collective deliberation across the research community has shifted us into an unprecedented age of theoretical diversity, open and connected data, and public scholarship. Grossmann's wide-ranging account of current trends will necessarily force the academy's many critics to rethink their lazy critiques and instead acknowledge the path-breaking advances occurring in the social sciences today.

Download or read book The Impact of the Social Sciences written by Simon Bastow and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2014-01-17 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society? Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including: identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved. This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research.

Download or read book Opportunities and Challenges for Computational Social Science Methods written by Abanoz, Enes and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2022-03-18 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are living in a digital era in which most of our daily activities take place online. This has created a big data phenomenon that has been subject to scientific research with increasingly available tools and processing power. As a result, a growing number of social science scholars are using computational methods for analyzing social behavior. To further the area, these evolving methods must be made known to sociological research scholars. Opportunities and Challenges for Computational Social Science Methods focuses on the implementation of social science methods and the opportunities and challenges of these methods. This book sheds light on the infrastructure that should be built to gain required skillsets, the tools used in computational social sciences, and the methods developed and applied into computational social sciences. Covering topics like computational communication, ecological cognition, and natural language processing, this book is an essential resource for researchers, data scientists, scholars, students, professors, sociologists, and academicians.

Download or read book Applying Social Science written by David Byrne and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2011-02-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important book examines how social science is applied now and how it might be applied in the future in relation to social transformation in a time of crisis.

Download or read book Ethics and Experiments written by Scott Desposato and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For most of political science's history, discussions about professional ethics had nothing to do with human subjects. Professional ethics involved integrity in the classroom, fair tenure and promotion rule, and the careful avoidance of plagiarism. As most research was observational, there was little need for attention to how scholarly activities might directly affect the subjects of our work. Times have changed. The dramatic growth in the use of experiments in social science, especially overseas, is generating unexpected ethical controversies. The purpose of this volume is to identify, debate, and propose practical solutions to the most critical of these new ethical issues. A leading team of internationally distinguished political science scholars presents the first examination of the practical and ethical challenges of research with human subjects in social science and policy studies. Part 1 examines contextual challenges provided by experiments conducted overseas - questions of culture, religion, security, and poverty. Part 2 examines questions of legal constraints on research, focusing on questions of foreign review of international experiments. Part 3 tackles the critical issues in field experiments, including deception and consent, impact on elections and careers, the boundaries of the public officials' exemption, and the use of partner organizations to avoid Institutional Review Body (IRB) review. Part 4 considers strategies for the future, including training and education, IRB reform, institutional changes, and norm development.

Download or read book Evidence Based Policy Making in the Social Sciences written by Stoker, Gerry and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2016-09-29 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gathers an expert group of social scientists to showcase emerging forms of analysis and evaluation for public policy analysis. Each chapter highlights a different method or approach, putting it in context and highlighting its key features before illustrating its application and potential value to policy makers. Aimed at upper-level undergraduates in public policy and social work, it also has much to offer policy makers and practitioners themselves.

Download or read book Social Sciences for Knowledge and Decision Making written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2001-01-31 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This conference proceedings examines the role social sciences can play in developing sound policy.

Download or read book Identification Problems in the Social Sciences written by Charles F. Manski and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author draws on examples from a range of disciplines to provide social and behavioural scientists with a toolkit for finding bounds when predicting behaviours based upon nonexperimental and experimental data.

Download or read book Social Science for What written by Mark Solovey and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the NSF became an important yet controversial patron for the social sciences, influencing debates over their scientific status and social relevance. In the early Cold War years, the U.S. government established the National Science Foundation (NSF), a civilian agency that soon became widely known for its dedication to supporting first-rate science. The agency's 1950 enabling legislation made no mention of the social sciences, although it included a vague reference to "other sciences." Nevertheless, as Mark Solovey shows in this book, the NSF also soon became a major--albeit controversial--source of public funding for them.

Download or read book Public Policy and Social Change written by Roque Kyros and published by . This book was released on 2017-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, the evolution of building a modern and creative society in China is explored in juxtaposition with the development of school education in China. The authors examine how music education may help initiate a policy dialogue on creativity in Chinas school music education and the challenges between contemporary cultural and social values and communist ideologies, and between collectivism and individualism. Next, the authors propose a framework for effective policy practice and detail evidence-based strategies for competent social service policy practice. The framework is drawn from research, professional experience, the experience of colleagues, and the experience of social work students. A study is presented on junior secondary school students preferred musical styles and how different social factors have fashioned their musical preferences in contemporary Hong Kong culture. This study showed that music listening functioned as an aesthetic and leisure activity, but more importantly as a means of socialization. An important chapter is included that defines powerful network actors in public policy, demonstrates the effects of their actions, and explains reasons behind different types of networking. The authors review the five stages of policy cycle: formation, formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation, placing greater emphasis on implementation. In closing, the concept of social change is examined from various angles, using differing definitions as given by many sociologists. The authors maintain that society, in conjunctio with social change, is dynamic and in a constant state of transformation.

Download or read book How Does Social Science Work written by Paul Diesing and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 1992-03-15 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The culmination of a lifetime spent in a variety of fields - sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, and philosophy of science - How Does Social Science Work? takes an innovative, sometimes iconoclastic look at social scientists at work in many disciplines. It describes how they investigate and the kinds of truth they produce, illuminating the weaknesses and dangers inherent in their research.At once an analysis, a critique, and a synthesis, this major study begins by surveying philosophical approaches to hermeneutics, to examine the question of how social science ought to work. It illustrates many of its arguments with untraditional examples, such as the reception of the work of the political biographer Robert Caro to show the hermeneutical problems of ethnographers. The major part of the book surveys sociological, political, and psychological studies of social science to get a rounded picture of how social science works,Paul Diesling warns that "social science exists between two opposite kinds of degeneration, a value-free professionalism that lives only for publications that show off the latest techniques, and a deep social concern that uses science for propaganda." He argues for greater self-awareness and humility among social scientists, although he notes that "some social scientists . . . will angrily reject the thought that their personality affects their research in any way."This profound and sometimes witty book will appeal to students and practitioners in the social sciences who are ready to take a fresh look at their field. An extensive bibliography provides a wealth of references across an array of social science disciplines.

Download or read book Contemporary Issues in Social Science written by Simon Grima and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This international exploration on different economic systems provides a comprehensive account which brings a wide range of countries to the forefront in terms of both comparability and accountability, this study shines a light on the differences in systems between states, and provides information to equip readers to minimize those differences.

Download or read book Social Science and Government written by A. B. Cherns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences. This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press. Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1972 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

Download or read book Social Problems Social Issues Social Science written by James Wright and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociology has tackled some of the most formidable problems that confront contemporary society: inequality, homelessness, violence, gender, and many more. Sociologists assert that hypotheses can be formulated and tested against empirical evidence, that faulty viewpoints can be uncovered and discarded, and that plausible theory can be distinguished from mere ideology. This collection was written over a span of forty-four years and is presented in the belief that sociology is a science.In Social Problems, Social Issues, Social Science, James D. Wright presents his research on some of the social issues that have most vexed America: homelessness, addiction, divorce, minimum wage, and gun control, among others. Starting with essays first published in the flagship journal Society, Wright offers readers a foundational look at specific social problems and the methods sociologists have used to study them. He then provides an up-to-date re-examination of each issue, analysing the changes that have occurred over time and how sociologists have responded to it.This book is both a retrospective on the field and on one scholar's life and work. Using his own experience in researching and writing about America's most trenchant social issues, Wright describes the evolution of the methods and theory used by social scientists to understand and, ultimately, to confront America's most troublesome social problems.

Download or read book Why the Social Sciences Matter written by Jonathan Michie and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published with the support of the Academy for Social Sciences, this volume provides an illuminating look at topics of concern to everyone at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Leading social scientists tackle complex questions such as immigration, unemployment, climate change, war, banks in trouble, and an ageing population.

Download or read book Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research written by Garret Christensen and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently, social science has had numerous episodes of influential research that was found invalid when placed under rigorous scrutiny. The growing sense that many published results are potentially erroneous has made those conducting social science research more determined to ensure the underlying research is sound. Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research is the first book to summarize and synthesize new approaches to combat false positives and non-reproducible findings in social science research, document the underlying problems in research practices, and teach a new generation of students and scholars how to overcome them. Understanding that social science research has real consequences for individuals when used by professionals in public policy, health, law enforcement, and other fields, the book crystallizes new insights, practices, and methods that help ensure greater research transparency, openness, and reproducibility. Readers are guided through well-known problems and are encouraged to work through new solutions and practices to improve the openness of their research. Created with both experienced and novice researchers in mind, Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research serves as an indispensable resource for the production of high quality social science research.