Role Of Social Sciences Research Articles

A different interpretation of science-society relations: the socialization of scientific and technological research

Recent data delivered by Eurobarometer show how Europeans tend not to perceive science and technology as important factors for the Europe’s future. While showing the scarce development of scientific culture in Europe, these data allow to understand how science and technology are exposed to risk of social marginalization, notwithstanding the results they are attaining. In order to interpret this quite contradictory picture, an analytical framework revolving around the notion of “science and technology socialization” is proposed and developed. Implications of such an approach on research policies, on citizens’ participation and on the role of social sciences are also briefly examined.

Lab‐scale intervention

From mobile phones and laptop computers to in vitro fertilization and social networks on the Internet, technological devices, products and services are increasingly shaping the lives of people around the world. The pervasiveness of technology and the underlying science that makes it possible has led to a certain ambivalence: most people trust that ‘science’ will eventually help them to live longer, healthier and happier lives. However, they also feel increasingly uncomfortable about certain new technologies, often those that challenge or improve on ‘nature’. Genetically modified crops, gene therapy, stem cell research, cloning, renewed interest in nuclear power: the list of controversial topics involving science and technology is growing steadily and debates on these topics regularly occupy centre stage in public and political arenas. > …the research process itself constitutes a largely overlooked opportunity for addressing social concerns Policy‐makers have responded by calling for increased attention to be paid to the ethical, legal and social aspects of scientific research and technological developments. In particular, new and emerging areas of research—such as genomics, synthetic biology and nanotechnology—have been accompanied by studies of their broader societal implications as well as public‐engagement efforts, in order to guide research and development in ways that respect societal concerns. Such attempts to shape technological trajectories have traditionally occurred both before scientific research, for example, through research policy, technology assessment or public participation, and afterwards, through regulations or market mechanisms. Although these stages are crucial points at which to intervene, the research process itself constitutes a largely overlooked opportunity for addressing social concerns. Indeed, if one acknowledges the central role that scientific research has in the innovation process, this is an area well worth examining. Shaping technological trajectories will, at some point, include shaping the very research processes that help to characterize them (Fisher et al , 2006). Social and …

Going ‘tribal’: Notes on pacification in the 21st century

Few anthropologists today would consider using the term ‘tribe’ as an analytical category, yet it has become a focal point for military commanders and other leaders prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Specifically, US‐led occupation forces in both countries have begun pursuing ‘tribal’ strategies in which they have attempted to forge alliances with ‘sheiks’ and local power brokers. This article examines the reasons for the rapid rise of ‘tribal’ discourses, the role of social scientists in their propagation and the possible consequences for Iraqis and Afghans. It concludes by comparing these processes to ethnographically‐informed pacification efforts initiated in the late 1800s and early 1900s by the European powers, and by suggesting that anthropologists can potentially play a critical role by challenging persistent, damaging assumptions.

Towards a social science of drugs in sport

With the role of social science becoming more prominent in drugs in sport research, this essay sets out an agenda designed to provide a starting point for co-ordinated research in the field. The agenda is derived from efforts across the social sciences, including sports philosophy, sociology, economics, law and psychology (health and educational). These disciplinary statements are augmented by a statement on ‘cosmopolitan research’, aiming to establish collaboration as the norm for investigations of drugs in sport using social science methods. Some consideration is given to the practicalities of researching in this area, specifically sources of funding and working with national anti-doping organizations. This agenda and consideration for practicalities is the culmination of efforts from a team of social scientists seeking to promote research by posing questions and offering opinions with which to agree and disagree; that is, moving towards a vibrant social science of drugs in sport.

Ecology and the social sciences

1 The urgency and complexity of current environmental problems require ecologists to engage in cross-disciplinary research with social scientists, among others. 2 This study explores what ecologists expect from such cross-disciplinary engagements, through a review of editorial statements in key ecological journals and an empirical survey of ecologists working with social scientists. 3 Ecologists were found to have different perspectives on collaborating with social scientists depending upon whether they had an instrumental or non-instrumental outlook on the role of social sciences. 4 Ecologists are also pursuing other approaches to incorporate human dimensions into their work, including engaging end-users and stakeholders in their research; and enlarging the scope of ecology to include human subjects/objects in their research focus. 5 Synthesis and applications. Ecologists face strategic choices when incorporating human/social dimensions in their work – whether engagement with stakeholders, enlargement of ecology as a life science, or active exchange with the social sciences. The choice depends on the stance taken on the place of humans in nature. Each strategy poses specific challenges for ecologists relating respectively to: the justification of how and which stakeholders to engage; the avoidance of naïve borrowings of terms and methods from the social sciences; and the training needed for working in interdisciplinary teams.

The role of social scientists in synthetic biology

Social scientists can adopt many different roles and responsibilities when they study scientific research: they can be advocates, intermediaries, translators, connoisseurs, critics, activists or reformers. They can reflect on the implications of a finished piece of research, or become involved at a much earlier stage. In newly emerging areas of scientific endeavour, we are seeing novel arrangements forming between natural and social scientists, whereby social scientists are becoming a required component of research programmes and are even involved in the creation of new fields. Here, we explore these developments and examine the various possible roles that social scientists may play in debates about new technologies using the example of synthetic biology. > Although there is no consensus on the definition of synthetic biology, there is a widespread conviction that it has important ethical, legal and social implications… Synthetic biology is a ‘field in the making’ that combines the expertise and knowledge of biologists and engineers. It is accompanied by both high expectations and considerable uncertainty; there are debates about its definition, its potential applications, safety considerations and how it should be institutionalized. In common with other emerging areas of technology and science, synthetic biology covers a broad and disparate set of research activities, and there is, as yet, no consensus on how the field should be defined; although the most common definitions emphasize both the building of new biological entities and the improvement of existing ones. A group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge, MA, USA), for example, defines synthetic biology as “the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems and the re‐design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes” (www.syntheticbiology.org). In practice, many different activities are pursued under the heading of synthetic biology (O'Malley et al , 2008), including the construction of interchangeable biological …

Creating survival strategies: what can be learned from a science class?

Elementary science teaching has been considered by recent researchers as a process in which students should be engaged in a variety of activities to develop science concepts, science process skills and scientific attitudes. From this perspective, hands-on activities are prominent in this approach because it leads the students to both reflect on the natural and physical world, and understand the social role of science in society. In Upadhyay’s article we follow an elementary teacher who struggles to implement a participatory method of science teaching in an environment that prioritizes high-stakes tests as the benchmarks for teachers’ and students’ success. In so doing, the teacher negotiates her identities in order to engage the students in the process of learning science even though the environment requires a teaching methodology that is against her beliefs. In our commentary on Upadhyay’s article we argue that (a) the tensions experienced by teachers create the core of the process of fluidity identity; (b) the different forms of external control over the teaching are inherent in educational systems and also a demand of parents and society; and (c) the possibility for social mobility of minority students is a complex process that goes beyond the dichotomy identified in Upadhyay’s article, namely that either the students learn to think scientifically, or the students learn tricks that enable them to succeed in the tests.

Towards more confidence: about the roles of social scientists in participatory policy making

From June 26 to 27, the workshop “Ironists, Reformers, or Rebels? The Role of the Social Sciences in Participatory Policy Making” took place at the Collegium Helveticum of the UZH/ETH in Zurich. The organisers’ motivation was the apparently missing involvement of social scientists in public engagement processes. This impression persists because, while social scientists often observe public debates or develop participatory methods for public policy-making, they rarely take part in those processes themselves. A closer look at ethics commissions, expert committees or public hearings concerned with science and technology issues shows natural scientists, physicians, lawyers and the occasional philosopher. Sociologists, anthropologists and other social scientists, on the other hand, are often not involved. Because of this imbalance, the organisers’ aim was to bring together scholars and researchers from different areas of the social sciences to consider the role of their disciplines in public policy making. This article will focus on some of the ideas about specific roles of social scientists in participatory policy-making, discussed at the workshop, and their implications and give a commentary on some future prospects of the social sciences.

The Last Musketeer of the French Revolution: Exploring the Republican Political Agenda of Pierre Bourdieu

This paper argues that Pierre Bourdieu was motivated by the frustration of the French Revolution. His work continually criticized the gap between the ideological promise of the Enlightenment and the actual persistence of inequality in modern France. This paper exposes the centrality of the failed revolution in Bourdieu's oeuvre by visiting four topics he delved into: Education, gender, globalization and the role of social science. The analysis shows that the contrast between the ideals of equality and meritocracy and their poor implementation in schools and universities has motivated his sharp critique of the French system of education. Similarly, the failure of the State to support gender equality drove him to expose the deeply embodied cultural mechanisms that guarantee the advantages men have over women. The paper further shows that Bourdieu also extended this preoccupation with the failure of the Revolution to global politics. Specifically, his recent critique of globalization and global organizations suggests that capitalist Western elites betray the cosmopolitan vision of the Revolution while using international law and global companies to exploit third world countries. Finally, the paper shows that Bourdieu's preoccupation with the Revolution reappeared in the role he projected for social science and concludes that, for Bourdieu, the French Revolution is still to come. In that sense, Bourdieu was consistently preoccupied with the Revolution, and it is thus most fitting to see him, emphatically, as the last Musketeer to fight the betrayal of the French republic. The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. (The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen,

Spatial Regression Analysis vs. Kriging Methods for Spatial Estimation

Due to the rapid development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in recent years, spatial data analysis has received considerable attention and played an important role in social science. Although many standard statistical techniques are attractive in traditional data analysis, they cannot be implemented uncritically for spatial data. Generally, most of the studies in spatial data analysis can be divided into two branches: the model-driven approach and the data-driven approach. The main aim of this paper is the comparison of both approaches. To carry out such a task, crime rate data in Columbus (Ohio), coming from a well-known database, have been used. The main aim of this paper is to illustrate how spatial effects can be viewed as spatial econometric models, which assess the limitations of standard techniques in a spatial context, suggesting alternative methods to deal with this problem. An application to the crime rate in Columbus (Ohio) has been carried out.

Story Skills and Hierarchies of Needs and Values: A Defence of the Humanities

Summary This article1 is a defence of the humanities that emphasises the nature and value of humanistic knowledge. I firstly outline the present negative perceptions of the humanities and the factors that constrain their development in South Africa. Chief among them is the privileging of technical rational knowledge above Bildung and self-development. Against the background of views on social dedifferentiation and the end of the book I emphasise the career value of the humanities. I try to reverse the opposition between technical rationalist knowledge and Bildung by analysing Maslow's hierarchy of needs and confronting his theory with a number of findings of our recent research into identity and literary space. Two keywords that feature strongly are centrality and narrativity. The implications of this view are explored in a brief analysis of Eben Venter's novel Foxtrot van die vleiseters (1993) [Foxtrot of the Meat-eaters]. 1The article was developed as a thought paper in the NRF's project Shifting Boundaries of Knowledge – The Role of Social Sciences, Law and Humanities. A first version was presented at a regional workshop of the project at Tshwane University of Technology on 28 May 2004.

Identity, social status, privacy and face-keeping in digital society

Digitization of society raises concerns about privacy. This article first describes privacy threats of life-logging. It gives the technically novice reader a quick overview of what information and communication technology (ICT) is currently preparing for society, based on state-of-the art research in the industry laboratories: ubiquitous computing, aware environments, the Internet of Things, and so on. We explain how geolocation systems work and how they can provide detailed accounts of personal activity that will deeply affect privacy. At present, system designers rarely implement privacy-enhancing technologies — we explain why, based on empirical research. On the other hand, users, while expressing concern, do not protect themselves in practice — we list reasons for this. The problem is complex because the very nature of identity and social relations works against protecting personal data; this is the privacy dilemma. At least two key mechanisms in the production of good interaction and in the construction of social status are based on personal data disclosure. Then we discuss the nature of privacy, based on field observation. Privacy loss can be seen as `losing face'. We detail this notion, based on a discussion of the notion of face, and especially the Asian social construct of `Chemyon'. We then propose a new, positive, definition of privacy as `keeping face'. This positive notion can be used to build constructive guidelines for enhancing privacy in systems design, compatible with the way designers perceive their role. These guidelines are presented in an annex, after a short conclusion that advocates a constructive — perhaps risky — role for social science in the construction of future information and communication technology. 1

Social Criticism and the Exclusion of Ethics

Abstract As Axel Honneth has recently noted, the critical concerns of social philosophers during the past three decades have been focused primarily on questions of justice, with ethical issues about the human good being largely excluded. In the first section I briefly explore this exclusion in both ‘Anglo-American’ political philosophy and ‘German’ critical theory. I then argue, in the main sections, that despite this commitment to their exclusion, distinctively ethical concepts and ideals can be identified both in Rawls’s Theory of Justice and in Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, taking these as exemplary, representative texts for each theoretical school. These ethical elements, and their implications for the critical evaluation of economic institutions, have gone largely unnoticed. In the final section I indicate the kinds of debates that might be generated, were these to be given the attention they arguably deserve. I focus especially on the significance of empirical issues, and hence on the role of social science in social criticism.

Food Security as a Social Movement in Neo-liberal Times: Envisaging a Role for Social Sciences

Food Security as a Social Movement in Neo-liberal Times: Envisaging a Role for Social Sciences

Explaining the growth of complementary and alternative medicine

In this analytic review, the authors consider the ‘boom’ in demand for the services of practitioners of modalities of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). The evidence for the increase in demand for these services is reviewed and explanations for this phenomenon considered and evaluated. Two particular explanations are considered: the postmodern thesis and the gendered spirituality thesis, as well as more general changes in society. Finally the paper considers the role of the social sciences in the legitimation and increasing use of CAM. The paper concludes that the trend is likely to continue, as will the role of social scientists in observing and documenting CAM.

Democracy: Development and Ethnicity

Let me begin with brief comment about the history of democracies, their sustainabil- ity, and the drivers of their existence. Then I shall comment on some of the questions posed to the panel. I will end with some commentary about the role of social sciences in the development of democracies and the role that government and agencies such as the World Bank play in the process. For me it seems like yesterday, but for many of you, it is so old you can't even remember it. However, it was early in 1974 that the stunning wave of the new dem- ocratic expansion in the world began. It was then that Portugal became democracy. At that time, there were only forty democracies in the world, and they were mainly in the advanced industrial countries (Diamond 2003). There were few other democracies scattered around the world, e.g., India, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Venezuela — but only few. Since that time, democracy has expanded dramatically. By 1992 over half of all the countries in the world were democracies, and by 1995 just under two-thirds of the countries could be considered democracies. However, in the last decade and half, the number has remained remarkably stable, so that today, as in 1995, only about 120 countries in the world are democratic in nature. During the same period (1974-2007) only fourteen nations became authoritarian, including countries such as Peru, Zambia, Russia, and Pakistan, and during this same period, some of these reverted to democracies, e.g., Turkey, India, Thailand (Freedom House 2003). For purposes of this paper, I define democracy as a system of government in which the people choose their leaders at regular intervals through free, fair, and compet- itive elections. Certainly this definition can be viewed as continuum from those which are clearly democratic to those which are lacking in certain elements. In other words, it is not an either-or situation. It is also the case that electoral democracies can exist in countries with significant violations of human rights, massive corrup- tion, and weak rule of law. As such, this definition is the minimal criteria that I would suggest characterizes democratic society. A truly, ideal democratic system requires three components:

Special education, inclusion and democracy

Initially, it is pointed out that adherents of a psycho‐medical perspective often suggest exclusive solutions to special educational dilemmas and that such theorizing has been heavily attacked in past decades. However, it is argued that opposition of the psycho‐medical understanding of special education runs the risk of blurring differences between researchers and practitioners who are more positive about inclusion. One aim of this paper is to disentangle different perspectives on special education and different notions of inclusion among those positive to the idea of inclusion. A second aim is to argue for the necessity of situating the discussion about inclusion and special education within a discussion about democracy and the role of social science within it. Such a discussion seems even more important, given the range of positions discerned in the first part of the paper. In the concluding section of the paper, a proposal is presented for how special education, democracy and inclusion could be related to one another and for the role of research within these relationships. An important argument advanced is that the issue of who is to decide is analytically prior to what is to be decided with regard to inclusive practices.

Putting women on the research agenda: the 1980 women and employment survey

This paper describes the background and history of the 1980 Women and Employment Survey (WES) and, 25 years on, assesses the role the survey played both in the social science community and for policy and practice as a result of its important key findings and methodological innovations. By the end of the 1970s there had been not only an increase in women's employment but more especially an increased interest in women's equality and employment issues. WES is thus set against the background of labour market and legislative change as well as the rapidly developing role of social science in government. We describe the drivers for the survey and show how WES broke new ground in a number of areas. In particular WES collected complete retrospective life and work histories providing a lifetime perspective of women's employment and allowing employment patterns for different cohorts of women to be compared. This paper illustrates some of the key findings of the main methodological developments.

Exorcising Ghosts in the Age of Automation: United Nations Experts and Atoms for Peace

This paper evaluates the outlooks and goals of those who helped to put Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" into action at the international level, as experts working with the United Nations, particularly through the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It highlights of the failure of UNESCO to play a leading role in the scientific assessments of Atoms for Peace, and focuses upon the role of social scientists in the formation of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The social scientists believed that the major challenges to society would come from industrial automation, of which atomic technology was only one part. They downplayed negative effects of atomic technology, embraced the Eisenhower administration's drive to export the peaceful atom, and tried to prepare the lay public for it by reducing its fear. The paper discusses the concepts of public irrationality and technological accommodation.

A passion for environmental sociology. Exploring links between social environmental sciences, interdisciplinary integration and sustainability with Professor Riley E. Dunlap

Professor Riley E. has been one of the «founding fathers» and still is one of the most outstanding academics of contemporary environmental sociology. In fact, it is not possible to understand the development of this discipline, which now extends over three decades, without understanding his contribution. In this research note, we use an approach which combines biographical, historical and personal aspects to underline some of the most important hallmarks of his professional career and we transcribe the content of an interview carried out in May 2004 at IEST-UAB, Barcelona. We use this dialogical narrative tool to further understand broader critical issues such as the role of social science in sustainability science and the possible evolution of environmental sociology towards an ecological sociology. The difficulties encountered by environmental sociology in its process of institutionalisation are to a large extent also representative of the power inequalities, dysfunctions and resistances of the existing systems of the production of environmental and sustainability knowledge with «scientific authority» that limit the emergence of innovative interdisciplinary and integrative approaches which include the insights from social sciences.