Social Science Framework Research Articles

Anticipating the Psychosocial Impact of Disasters and Crises: The Need for an Interdisciplinary Social Science Framework

Anticipating the Psychosocial Impact of Disasters and Crises: The Need for an Interdisciplinary Social Science Framework

Examining the nexus of labour pain and culture using an applied social science framework

Mujeres que dan a luz pueden transmitir una reaccion cultural al dolor. Cuanto mas distancia cultural hay entre una mujer y su matrona mayor es la posibilidad de una interpretacion erronea de su experiencia del dolor de parto. Este articulo examina las creencias, influencias y practicas del parto que contribuyen al entendimiento transcultural del dolor. Se realizo una busqueda de la literatura en abril de 2013. Fueron incluidos doce estudios lo cuales tuvieron el dolor como un resultado principal y examinaron el idioma del dolor no provocado (es decir, el idioma natural que no esta obtenido por la evaluacion estandarizada del dolor) de la perspectiva materna. Los resultados linguisticos fueron presentados en otro articulo anterior. En cambio, este articulo presenta los resultados culturales usando un marco de ciencia social aplicada para reflexionar sobre el nexo del dolor y la cultura dentro de la comunicacion del dolor y el desarrollo de una practica culturalmente sensible. Los estudios representaron creencias y practicas del parto compartidos por la cultura africana, asiatica, europea, norteamericana y sudamericana que esta atribuido – en parte – a los factores fisiologicos comunes del parto. El parto puede estar impactado por los factores ‘internos’: las reacciones y actitudes del dolor, la religion y espiritualidad, las definiciones y significaciones del dolor, la ansiedad, la aceptacion y tolerancia del dolor, la conceptualizacion de la maternidad, la psicologia, y las creencias sociales; los factores externos pueden incluir el ambiente (entorno fisico u contexto del parto) y el modelo de atencion. La interpretacion de estas creencias puede estar influenciada por el desarrollo de competencia cultural de la matrona. Observar los patrones culturales ofrece a las matronas unos lentes culturales, a traves, de los modelos de atencion (ej. tecnocratico, humanista, holistico) para entender mejor la experiencia del dolor de la mujer, para reflexionar sobre la interpretacion transcultural del dolor y para desarrollar la competencia transcultural.

Overlooked and Undervalued: Women in Private Law Practice

This article examines the durability of gender inequality in private law practice since Kay & Gorman published their comprehensive review in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science in 2008. We begin with some of the changes in legal practice that intensified during the Great Recession and help to contextualize women's lack of progress. We turn next to a contemporary profile of women in private practice that demonstrates empirically where women stand. We look at some of the organizational mechanisms that seem to perpetuate inequality. The challenges of integrating work and family dominated the discussion of women's lack of progress in earlier reviews of women in the legal profession and continue to matter greatly. We assume the persistence of these challenges and instead focus on ways that the mechanisms or strategies for determining compensation systematically overlook and undervalue women's contributions. We consider the different social science frameworks that explain women as overlooked and undervalued for their contributions. We conclude with proposed suggestions for changes aimed at remedying the problems discussed here.

Normative Principles in the System of Criminal Justice

Legitimacy in the system of criminal justice can be understood,inter alia, as a moral justification of authority. In relation to legitimacy, legality means that within the legal order and legal justice of a democratic state, state bodies are only allowed to do that which is permitted through legal rules. Legitimacy and morality are broader categories than legality and legal justice. In the field of criminal justice, legitimacy is rooted in Tyler’s understanding (1990), which states that recognition of legitimacy plays a key role in obedience before the law. Bennetta-Capersa (2008) takes the view that less strict enforcement of the laws and more police work in the community can reduce the crime rate in society as a whole. This paper’s positive contribution lies more or less in the substantial applicability of terms that have been properly delineated within a social science framework.

The Anguish of Critique/The Critique of Anguish

Jurgen Habermas. (2015). The Lure of Technocracy. Translated by Ciaran Cronin . Polity, Cambridge, 176 pp., $22.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-745-68682-0). Although there have always been political implications of Jurgen Habermas’s more philosophical arguments, since the turn of the century he has offered a more concrete form of commentary when discussing European affairs. This is his third English-language book in the past several years on Europe and/or the European Union. All are imbued with a pessimism that reads as an anguished critique of developments in the past decade—not least the Eurozone crisis and associated public disillusionment with the European integration project. Habermas is far from alone, which means that although the book is a typically thoughtful, coherent, and timely intervention that will be of interest to political theorists, Europeanists of all stripes, and students of contemporary German philosophy (see the third and final part of the book on the relationships between Jews and Germans), it also sits in a broader historical-intellectual context. By situating Habermas in this milieu, we can acknowledge that The Lure of Technocracy ranks alongside recent contributions by Crouch (2013), Gamble (2014), Offe (2014), and Streeck (2014) in despairing at the evolution of capitalist democracies in the twenty-first century. This is significant, because it enables us to identify and interrogate the increasingly crisis-ridden nature of the “critical” social science frameworks, for which these (and other) authors are justifiably lauded, that have dominated many debates since the 1970s. These approaches rejected transformative agendas such as those found in “New Left” politics and Marxist scholarship, … ian.bruff{at}manchester.ac.uk

Applying critical realism in qualitative research: methodology meets method

Critical realism (CR) is a useful philosophical framework for social science; however, little guidance is available on which precise methods – including methods of data collection, coding, and analysis – are best suited to applied CR research. This article provides a concrete example of applied qualitative research using CR as a philosophical and methodological framework. Drawing examples from a study of Canadian farm women’s experiences with agricultural policy, I suggest a flexible deductive process of coding and data analysis that is consistent with CR ontology and epistemology. The paper follows the typical stages of qualitative research while demonstrating the application of methods informed by CR at each stage. Important considerations CR ontology and epistemology raise, such as the use of existing theory and critical engagement with participants’ knowledge and experience, are discussed throughout. Ultimately, I identify two key causal mechanisms shaping the lives of farm women and suggest a future direction for feminist political economy theory to more effectively analyze women’s work in agricultural contexts.

Methods of social research in pharmaceutical marketing and management

Sociological studies occupy a central place in pharmaceutical marketing and management. Aim: The purpose of this work is to study the research methods that are developed in the framework of social science, and can be used in marketing and management. This type of research allows to get a very detailed data about behaviour, opinions, views, attitudes of very small group of individuals. The data give a good idea about the way of thinking of consumers. Qualitative research are indispensable in development of new products, advertising campaigns, studying the image of companies, brands, and solving other similar problems. Methods : Using content analysis information on the relevance and possible pre-emptive use of certain sociological methods in the formation of management software and market research in pharmacy has been analyzed. Results : The article summarizes the theoretical basis of the use of sociological methods of analysis in the pharmaceutical management and marketing. The information about main instruments which can be used in research has been analyzed. They are, first of all, the questionnaire, and also telephone and postal surveys and interviews. A comparative analysis of primary methods of data collection for collecting market information has been carried out. Their advantages and disadvantages have been identified. Conclusion : A comparative characteristic of methods of sociological research has shown that the method of anonymous questionnaire is the most appropriate for solution of research tasks in pharmacy

Interkonnektivitás, új média és digitális identitás a regionális kutatásban. Koncepcionális megközelítés ajánlásokkal

A tanulmány átfogó javaslatokat fogalmaz meg a regionális kutatások számára az interkonnektivitás, az új média és a digitális identitás témakörében – társadalomtudományi megközelítéssel. Célom bemutatni azokat a trendeket és forrásokat, melyek együttesen szoros átfedést mutatnak a megjelölt témakörökben és kijelölni a vizsgálatokhoz szükséges alapfogalmakat, jelenségeket. A munka először az interkonnektivitás és a digitális ökoszisztéma alappilléreit vizsgálja, alkalmazva az információs és hálózati társadalom kapcsolódó forrásainak kiemelt következtetéseit, majd az új média vonatkozó, aktuális trendjeiről adok rövid betekintést, megemlítve az augmentálódó és virtualizálódó környezetek egyes feltörekvő innovációit térbeli kontextusban. A regionális és lokális digitális identitás kutatási lehetőségeit ez alapján definiálom, kiemelve a földrajzi-társadalmi (geo-social) média és az online kontextuális beágyazottság szempontjait. A kulcskérdések, a legfontosabb fogalmak és trendek összefoglalása mellett a tanulmány végül ajánlásokat fogalmaz meg a jövőbeni regionális kutatásokhoz: mely vizsgálati területek, eszközök és módszertani megfontolások váltak megkerülhetetlenné.

Stein Rokkan’s Methodology of Macro-Historical Comparison

Stein Rokkan (1921–1979) left behind him an unfinished, ambitious macro-historical research project aiming to explain mobilization sequences, democratic resilience, and party systems in 16 Western European countries. This article explicates the comparative methodology behind this project with reference to a philosophy of social science framework. The main features of the methodology are a series of intermediate, substantive, methodological elements in between formal theory (paradigms) and empirical observations. Each element is presented in detail: lists of variables, regional grid, typological-topological maps, and comparative case reconstructions. Problems due to under-specification of variables and ambiguities in Rokkan’s ideas about parsimonious systematizations are discussed, and two possible ways of revising the methodology are sketched. Among these, the contextualist option seems the most promising one.

Perennial Philology and the Ideal of the White Overall

Abstract Joining the university context in the middle of the 19th century, Philology served as a comprehensive basis for what nowadays is meant by literary and linguistic studies. Depending on the specialization tendency that would settle down in the academic context (with regard to either the formative offer or the foundation of various research fields), each of these areas followed separate or even divergent paths, losing, to a great extent, the contact with its initial basis. Despite this state of affairs, Philology has displayed a strong capacity of resistance, maintaining its traditional dimension active or going through metamorphoses that resulted from the incorporation of new technologies, as well as from the epistemological adjustment that enabled it to overcome its first positivist stages. Trying to find a new place inside the general framework of Social Sciences and Humanities, literary studies need to recover its order and credibility, two factors that the new face of Philology can inspire. The present study aims at reconstructing the most recent trajectory undergone by this field of research and education, by identifying a space of reconnection that already seems to be adequate and beneficial.

There's No T in Fair?

Abstract The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History's scholarly Making the Framework FAIR report (2014) recommends substantial revisions to California's K–12 History–Social Science Framework in order to bring it into compliance with the FAIR Education Act. The law, passed in 2011, mandates inclusion of the roles and contributions of LGBT Americans and people with disabilities in the state's primary and secondary school US history education. To date, efforts to get state agencies, school districts, and educators to fully implement the FAIR Education Act have been insufficient, particularly in relation to transgender history. As the state undergoes History–Social Science Framework revision, it should adopt the transgender-inclusive changes suggested by Making the Framework FAIR report for grades two, four, five, eight, and eleven. This represents a golden opportunity to create comprehensive and lasting change across elementary, middle, and high school, in California and beyond.

The impact of an international online accreditation system on pedagogical models and strategies in higher education

Abstract Health promotion practice is characterised by a diverse workforce drawn from a broad range of disciplines, bringing together an extensive breadth of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and values stemming from biomedical and social science frameworks. One of the goals of the CompHP Project was to ensure that higher education training would not only reach competency-based standards necessary for best practice, but also facilitate mobility within the EU and beyond through the accreditation of professional practitioners and educational courses. As a result, higher education institutions in Italy and elsewhere are requested to shift the focus from the definition of learning objectives to the identification of teaching strategies and assessment measures to guarantee that students have acquired the competencies identified. This requires reflection on the pedagogical models underpinning course curricula and teaching–learning approaches in higher education, not only to meet the competency-based standards but also to incorporate overarching transversal competencies inherent to the profession and, more specifically, to the online accreditation procedure. Professionals applying for registration require competence in foreign languages, metacognition and be digitally literate. The article provides a brief overview of the development and structure of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education online accreditation system and proposes a pedagogical reflection on course curricula.

The social distribution of provisioning forest ecosystem services: Evidence and insights from Odisha, India

Ecosystem services research has highlighted the importance of ecosystems for human well-being. Most of the research, however, focuses only on aggregate human well-being and disregards distributional and equity issues associated with ecosystem services. We review approaches from institutional economics, political ecology and the social sciences in order to develop an analytical framework to understand the distribution of benefits from ecosystems across different socio-cultural groups and the underlying social processes involved. We then present a case study of the distribution of provisioning ecosystem services in a forest-fringe village in Odisha, India. Our analysis shows the unequal distribution of ecosystem services and complex social processes that determine these. We identify the determining factors and processes to include: differential resource-specific needs, different cultural identities, differentiated social status and bargaining power, exclusionary and inclusionary social practices, differential access. Our analysis proves therefore that aggregation of forest ecosystem benefits obscures crucially important patterns of distribution, and the underlying social processes that determine these. This also demonstrates the necessity of applying social science frameworks in such analyses. Our study also shows that most ecosystem services are co-produced through both ecosystem processes and social actions, and so their assessment cannot be separated from the social context in which they are embedded. In conclusion we recommend that ecosystem services research engages more with process-oriented, context-specific and integrated approaches, based on a recognition of the complexity of social-ecological realities.

WHY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH OF A LECTURER IS THE «LAME HORSE» OF MODERN SCIENCE?

The aim of the article is to represent reflections on the crisis of science and logical thinking (within the framework of Social Science, Humanities and higher education) that has its local and global manifestations; the author focused own attention on the manifestations in order to understand its depth and possible ways of overcoming them. Methods . A number of theoretical methods have been used in the article: analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, comparison and classification, methods of extrapolation and modeling, as well as participant observation. Results . Local manifestations of the crisis of science and logical thinking associated with human factor in the national system of higher professional education in the era of virtualization and commercialization are expressed in reducing efforts and productivity of scientific research, due to the existing contradictions between changed requirements that enumerate professional duties of a lecturer and possibilities of combining and productive implementation of traditional and new professional roles. In particular, researches turn to promoters of themselves to solve financial and organizational issues of a scientific research and promotion of ratings. Changes in the sense of scientific activity in respect to educators and their personal attitude to new requirements will eventually face the eternal problem of attitude to knowledge and to the actual problem of change of knowledge subject in non-classical model and post-non-classical model of science. Expression of a researcher’s individuality encounters many obstacles (the author has identified 10 of them) and is complicated by new facets of this subjectivity, induced by «logistics turn point» in science. Scientific novelty. The author proves that it is necessary to change nonclassical subject knowledge model (where the corporate subject leaning for the general ways and collective norms of scientific activity dominates) for postnonclassical – individualized, wherein the subject possesses own way of thinking, own language; as it allows to create new knowledge. However, occurrence of such researcher is complicated by many obstacles. The author introduces the concept of «scientific logistics», i.e. scientific advancement of research results in virtual and real-life spaces in order to gain a dividend in material or symbolic form. When scientific logistics from a subsidiary position is moved to the center of academic life «logistics turn point» in science occurs. The meaning of learning is changing. Now it is more about search of potential consumers of the information then search of the truth. Scientific logistics measured in scientometric quantitative indexes and in their income as a calculated direct commercial effect performs the image function for a research, providing improved individual and corporate status. At the same time, these changes can turn into the veiled substitution of true scientific creativity, its transformation into formal manufacture of «a pseudoscientific spam». Practical significance. The research implementations can be useful for conceptual foresight of possible ways of improving scientific research at university, including possibility of making a new working agreement – «and effective contract», grounding its alleged advantages and objective limits on the way of increasing efforts and productivity of scientific research.

The Archive and Disciplinary Formation: A Historical Moment in Defining Mass Communications

The archive serves as a site for defining and legitimating mass communications as an area of research and, especially, in constructing a sense of history. The creation of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin's Mass Communications History Center in 1958 provides an illuminating entry point into conceptions of mass communications. Archivists grappled with the definition of mass communications in order to develop a collecting policy. They called on experts to help define mass communications, its scope, and what sorts of materials were necessary for its study. While not the job of archivists to stimulate research, they played a considerable role in shaping the contours of the discipline, particularly within social science frameworks.

Trends in global palm oil sustainability research

In the past decade, palm oil has risen to become the most produced and consumed vegetable oil in the world. Growth of commercial plantations in Southeast Asia and recent expansions in West Africa and Latin America have led to a growing call for the sustainable production of palm oil, driven to a large extent by concerns over the associated impacts of deforestation and biodiversity losses. This study investigates the academic response to the calls for the sustainable production of palm oil by identifying and analysing Thomson Reuters Institute for Scientific Information indexed palm oil sustainability related publications from 2004 to 2013. The results show that the total number of publications has increased exponentially from 11 in 2004 to 713 by 2013. However, this growth is shown to be carried mainly by research within technical aspects of palm oil residue use; publications in the categories of land use & land use change, biodiversity and socio-economic aspects have increased, but the growth has been markedly slower. It is thus argued that there is currently an imbalance in research strategies since the focus towards technical topics is at odds with the major sustainability issues raised about palm oil production. To address the current imbalance in palm oil research, this study proposes a holistic framework for palm oil sustainability research with the aim of achieving multidisciplinary studies and emphasizing collaboration between industry and academia. Research sponsors and public bodies in charge of science, social science and technology research frameworks will thus benefit from improved understanding of where research and development resources can be allocated to facilitate the transition towards improved sustainability.

The next K-Wave and the challenge of global democracy

Purpose– The aim of the project on which this paper is based is to clarify – using Kondratieff theory of long-term socio-economic cycles – how the next (sixth) wave will look like. The focus lies in the socio-political aspect of change.Design/methodology/approach– The article is a short and partial summary of a major project called “The Sixth Wave”. Workshops and surveys have been run in Finland and in Silicon Valley, California.Findings– The project coordinators have been testing the theory of Kondratieff waves with various methods and have found it to be a convincing way to identify the patterns of change. It really brings in anticipatory power to its users.Research limitations/implications– There are lots of interesting implications of using K-Wave as a framework to understand next decades. More research regarding the future technologies in the K-Wave context should be undertaken.Practical implications– The author believes that the K-Wave framework can be also regarded as anticipatory tool for business. The heavy emphasis in the author’s K-wave theory on resource productivity as a technology driver for the next wave makes it obvious that all technologies and businesses that aim at performing with greater output with less material or energy input are regarded as winners of their respective schemes in the emerging wave as the demand for these services will rise dramatically.Social implications– The author hopes the article will help people understand how fundamental the change K-Wave engenders in terms of democracy and trust, and that the article will also provide a more comprehensive view towards the transformation we are experiencing. The author anticipates that the idea of corporate social responsibility will become much more compelling in the sixth wave framework.Originality/value– The project coordinators have given a whole new interpretation to the Kondratieff theory. They approach the theory with social science framework rather than customary economic framework, and have also tested their model with the project’s industrial partners.

Schizotypy as an organizing framework for social and affective sciences.

Schizotypy, defined in terms of commonly occurring personality traits related to the schizophrenia spectrum, has been an important construct for understanding the neurodevelopment and stress-diathesis of schizophrenia. However, as schizotypy nears its sixth decade of application, it is important to acknowledge its impressively rich literature accumulating outside of schizophrenia research. In this article, we make the case that schizotypy has considerable potential as a conceptual framework for understanding individual differences in affective and social functions beyond those directly involved in schizophrenia spectrum pathology. This case is predicated on (a) a burgeoning literature noting anomalies in a wide range of social functioning, affiliative, positive and negative emotional, expressive, and social cognitive systems, (b) practical and methodological features associated with schizotypy research that help facilitate empirical investigation, and (c) close ties to theoretical constructs of central importance to affective and social science (eg, stress diathesis, neural compensation). We highlight recent schizotypy research, ie providing insight into the nature of affective and social systems more generally. This includes current efforts to clarify the neurodevelopmental, neurobiological, and psychological underpinnings of affiliative drives, hedonic capacity, social cognition, and stress responsivity systems. Additionally, we discuss neural compensatory and resilience factors that may mitigate the expression of stress-diathesis and functional outcome, and highlight schizotypy's potential role for understanding cultural determinants of social and affective functions.

What is a human embryo? A new piece in the bioethics puzzle

The controversy surrounding the human embryo is a longstanding one. Thirty years ago, there was already an intense debate over moral and legal status of the human embryo and its moral, legal, and political implications. This controversy is still very much alive. In fact, the emergence of modern technologies in the recent years has made the debate even more complicated. Today, we not only debate how to treat the human embryo, but we are also faced with a renewed discussion about what the embryo is. The issue cannot be addressed from a purely scientific point of view since it includes elements that go far beyond biology. Moreover, the embryo has undergone a process of bio-objectification, a process “wherein life-forms or living entities are first made into objects, become possible, through scientific labor and its associated technologies, and then come to be attributed with specific identities” (1). The embryo has become an extremely polemic entity, defying the traditional boundaries as well as the traditional scientific, legal, and moral paradigms. All these paradigms were created as a consequence of the definition of the embryo, and subsequently have been based on the doubtful assumption that embryo is clearly defined. In reality we have to deal with a situation where “embryo” has different meanings, depending on the geographical scope, ideological framework, and type of social science addressing the issue.

Psychohistory Paradox and Introduction to Quantum Social Science

Why would social science need the help from quantum mechanics? First, there are many unanswerable questions in social science. Are financial markets predictable? How to predict the financial markets? These important questions are not answerable in the existing framework of finance or economics. One important paradox in social science is the psychohistory paradox proposed by Asimov. In his novels, Asimov highlighted a paradox of human society: if the future events of a human society are predictable using psychohistory, people could take the advantage of that prediction to prevent the future events from happening, and the original prediction would be proven wrong. The psychohistory paradox is very real and fundamental in the human society. Second, the existing framework of modern physics can neither explain nor predict the human behavior. It is ridiculous and totally unacceptable that the same modern physics, which often boasts about the accurate descriptions and predictions of the tinniest elementary particles to the largest structures of the universe with amazing accuracies, cannot handle the simple human behavior observed in our everyday life. The flaws of the existing framework of modern physics must be fixed. Third, it is the internal logic of science. If the human free will is a quantum phenomenon as many people believe and social science is all about human choices, social science must be a branch of quantum physics. Fourth and last, quantum social science, or psychohistory, brings powerful tools and new insights to social science. Quantum social science can answer all the previously unanswerable fundamental questions in social science, and re-frame every problem in politics, economics, and other social science to be a physics problem. This paper summarizes the logic flow from the creation of JJW interpretation of quantum mechanics and physics laws of social science (PLSS) to their impacts on economics, finance, politics, and other fields of social science, natural science, and theology. Since many applications of PLSS are still unknown, this paper serves as an introduction to quantum social science and its applications. The central ideas of PLSS are very simple, yet it has profound logic consequences on many corners of human knowledge. The primary goal of this paper is to convey the beauty and simplicity of the framework of quantum social science or psychohistory.