Sciences In Britain Research Articles

The regional survey movement and popular autoethnography in early 20th-century Britain

This article’s subject is the theory and practice of ‘regional survey’, the method of social and environmental study associated with Scottish thinker Patrick Geddes (1854–1932). Despite being overlooked or dismissed in most accounts of early 20th-century social science, regional survey had a wide influence on the development of the nascent disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and human geography. Emerging from late 19th-century field biology, the regional survey came to typify a methodological moment in the natural and social sciences that favoured the holistic analysis of geographically delimited areas. By the interwar period, the kinds of projects that went under its name can clearly be seen as forerunners of the post-Second World War tradition of community studies. Additionally, in its self-presentation as a civic, participatory exercise, the regional survey can be read as a form of popular autoethnography that contrasts with other, more familiar social-scientific ventures in the first half of the 20th century, and defies the dichotomy between ‘gentlemanly’ and ‘technical’ modes of social science. As a result, this article argues, the regional survey provides an alternative point of departure for thinking about the origins and development of the modern social sciences in Britain.

Human Nature, Free Will, and the Human SciencesRoger Smith. Free Will and the Human Sciences in Britain, 1870–1910. (Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, 17.) x + 274 pp., bibl., index. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013. $99, £60 (cloth).Roger Smith. Between Mind and Nature: A History of Psychology. 303 pp., index. London: Reaktion Books, 2013. $40, £25 (cloth).

Human Nature, Free Will, and the Human SciencesRoger Smith. <i>Free Will and the Human Sciences in Britain, 1870–1910</i>. (Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, 17.) x + 274 pp., bibl., index. London: Pickering &amp; Chatto, 2013. $99, £60 (cloth).Roger Smith. <i>Between Mind and Nature: A History of Psychology</i>. 303 pp., index. London: Reaktion Books, 2013. $40, £25 (cloth).

Recycling in early modern science

AbstractThis essay follows recent work in environmental history to explore the history of recycling in physical sciences in Britain and North America since the seventeenth century. The term ‘recycling’ is here used broadly to refer to a variety of practices that extended the life of material resources for doing science in the early modern period. These included practices associated with maintenance, repair, exchange and the adaptation or reuse of material culture. The essay argues that such practices were common in early modern science, and informed experimental spaces and techniques and the ideas that they generated. The essay considers some of the varied motivations that led to such practices, and concludes by examining the endurance of recycling in science since the end of the eighteenth century, particularly in recent efforts to create sustainable scientific research practices.

Developing greater dialogue: knowledge transfer, public engagement and learned societies in the social sciences

In recent years the British government has repeated its calls for improved transfer of research knowledge and for greater engagement of researchers with practitioners and the public. This echoes calls from Burawoy and others, in the USA and elsewhere, for greater engagement by social sciences. In the UK the national research councils have raised their investment in knowledge transfer activities, six ‘beacons for public engagement’ have been set up, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has enhanced its work in this field. In this context, the UK Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS), which includes 35 learned societies and some 550 academicians, resolved in 2007 to undertake a study of the role of learned societies in membership of the AcSS in promoting knowledge transfer and public engagement. This article outlines how the study was undertaken, the discussions around key terms, and the principal findings which were published in 2008 in a volume entitled Developing Dialogue. The article reports on the activities, capabilities, contributions and weaknesses and strengths of the learned societies that were studied. The Research Assessment Exercise, conducted in the UK in 2007–08, was found to have acted as a significant impediment to such work. The paper outlines six key points arising from the research, noting the variety of learned societies and their activities, the need for greater investment and training, and the leadership role that the Academy itself could play with increased resources. The study found that there is a long way to go before many practitioners, policy makers and members of the public are aware and engaged with much of the work and research in the social sciences in Britain.

Contextualizing Debates About Psychosocial Studies

To understand the debates about psychosocial studies that take place in this collection of papers, we need to know a little of its provenance. This introduction sets out to provide a brief background and introduction to debates that have framed the emergence of psychosocial research in the human and social sciences in Britain.

Space and the ‘March of Mind’: Literature and the Physical Sciences in Britain, 1815-1850, by Alice Jenkins

<i>Space and the ‘March of Mind’: Literature and the Physical Sciences in Britain, 1815-1850</i>, by Alice Jenkins

Alice Jenkins. Space and the “March of Mind” - Literature and the Physical Sciences in Britain, 1815-1850

“Space and the march of mind”, is the title of Alice Jenkins’ latest captivating book and a march it most certainly is, for endurance and breadth, as much as for sagacious learning and ambition. The book is divided into two main parts, one entitled “thinking with spaces” (chapters 1-4), and the other “thinking about spaces” (5-7) in a well-balanced volume of 230 pages, followed by a substantial bibliography. The “march of mind” (or in Keats’s famous words, “the march of intellect”) in the tit...

Quakers, Jews and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650 1900

Quakers, Jews and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650 1900

What the Victorians Learned: Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Schoolbooks: Introduction

What the Victorians Learned: Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Schoolbooks Leslie Howsam (bio), Christopher Stray (bio), Alice Jenkins (bio), James A. Secord (bio), and Anna Vaninskaya (bio) Introduction Leslie Howsam (bio) Leslie Howsam Leslie Howsam is University Professor in the Department of History at University of Windsor (Canada); she was Lyell Reader in Bibliography at the University of Oxford for 2005–6; her most recent book is Old Books and New Histories (University of Toronto Press, 2006). Classics Christopher Stray (bio) Christopher Stray University of Wales, Swansea Christopher Stray Christopher Stray is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Classics at the University of Wales, Swansea. He is the author of Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities and Society in England, 1830– 1960 (OUP, 1998) and co-founder of the Textbook Colloquium. Geometry Alice Jenkins (bio) Alice Jenkins University of Glasgow Alice Jenkins Alice Jenkins is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Literature at the University of Glasgow and chair of the British Society for Literature and Science. Her most recent book is Space and the 'March of Mind': Literature and the Physical Sciences in Britain, 1815–1850 (OUP, 2007). Science James A. Secord (bio) James A. Secord University of Cambridge James A. Secord Jim Secord teaches in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University and is director of the Darwin Correspondence Project. His edition of Darwin's evolutionary writings and autobiography is scheduled for publication by Oxford World's Classics in autumn 2008. English Literature Anna Vaninskaya (bio) Anna Vaninskaya University of Cambridge Anna Vaninskaya Anna Vaninskaya is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Cambridge Victorian Studies Group Leverhulme Trust Project 'Past vs. Present in Victorian Britain' and a Junior Research Fellow in English at King's College, Cambridge. She is working on a book on the Idea of Community in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Conclusion Leslie Howsam (bio) Leslie Howsam University of Windsor Leslie Howsam Leslie Howsam is University Professor in the Department of History at University of Windsor (Canada); she was Lyell Reader in Bibliography at the University of Oxford for 2005–6; her most recent book is Old Books and New Histories (University of Toronto Press, 2006). Endnotes 1. Paradigm and the Textbook Colloquium http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/ TextCol/index.html [consulted June 29 2007]. Valerie Chancellor, History for their Masters: Opinion in the English History Textbook: 1800–1914 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970); Stephen Heathorn, For Home, Country, and Race: Constructing Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880–1914 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2000); Alexis Weedon, Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market 1836–1916 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), Chapter 5. See also John Issitt, 'Reflections on the Study of Textbooks', History of Education 33.6 (November 2004), 683–96. 2. For history see Leslie Howsam, 'Academic Discipline or Literary Genre?: The Establishment of Boundaries in Historical Writing', Victorian Literature and Culture (2004), 413–33 and 'Imperial Publishers and the Idea of Colonial History, 1870–1916', [End Page 282] History of Intellectual Culture 5.2 (2005), http://www.ucalgary.ca/hic [consulted June 29 2007]. See also Susan Walton, 'Charlotte M. Yonge and the "Historic Harem" of Edward Augustus Freeman', Journal of Victorian Culture 11.2 (2006), 226–55. 3. C.A. Stray and G. Sutherland, 'Mass Markets: Education', in Cambridge History of the Book in England: Vol. 6, 1830–1914, D.J. McKitterick (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 4. S. Eliot, Some Patterns and Trends in British Publishing, 1800–1919 (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1994). 5. C.A. Stray, 'Paper Wraps Stone: The Beginnings of Educational Lithography', Journal of the Printing Historical Society n.s. 9 (2006), 13–29. 6. See A. Warwick, Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 144. 7. On this topic, and on classical education in Victorian England in general, see C.A. Stray, Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities, and Society in England 1830–1960 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). 8. Classical Books: Scholarship and Publishing in England since 1800, C.A. Stray (ed.) (London 2007). 9. The careers and productions of the scholars mentioned above can be...

Space and the 'March of Mind': Literature and the Physical Sciences in Britain 1815–1850 (review)

Space and the 'March of Mind': Literature and the Physical Sciences in Britain 1815–1850 (review)

Quakers, Jews, and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650–1900 By Geoffrey Cantor

<i>Quakers, Jews, and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650–1900</i> By Geoffrey Cantor

Great expectations: The social sciences in Britain

Great expectations: The social sciences in Britain

Great expectations: The social sciences in Britain

Great expectations: The social sciences in Britain

National character and public spirit in Britain and France, 1750-1914

Acknowledgements Introduction Part I. France: 1. All Montesquieu's sons: the place of esprit general, caractere national, and m/urs in French political philosophy, 1748-1789 2. After the Revolution: Stael on political morality 3. From republicanism to industrialism and national character: Melchiorre Gioja, Charles Dupin and Continental political economy, 1800-1848 4. The French Restoration dispute over mores and Tocqueville Part II. Great Britain: 5. Between Whiggism and the science of manners: Britain, 1750-1800 6. British views on Irish national character, 1800-1846 Part III: 7. The demise of John Bull: social sciences in Britain, 1850-1914 8. Durkheim's collective representation and their background 9. Socializing public spirit, 1870-1914 Conclusion Index.

Women and the Sciences in Britain: getting in?

We address here the issue of girls and women entering the sciences, both in terms of education and employment, focusing on the occupational outcomes of science, engineering and technology (SET) graduates. We observe that compared to other professions such as the law and medicine, women's and girls’ entry to the sciences has been slow, although we point out that the differences between the sciences in terms of numerical feminisation are considerable. We show that women and men SET graduates use their human capital in different ways in the labour market and that there has been rather little change in these patterns over the past 15 years. Women translate their scientific degrees into professional scientific jobs less than men do and also show higher levels of overqualification in the labour market. We consider the policy implications of our findings, arguing that labour market policies, not just education policies, need to receive attention.

'Nature' in the laboratory: domestication and discipline with the microscope in Victorian life science.

What sort of activities took place in the academic laboratories developed for teaching the natural sciences in Britain between the 1860s and 1880s? What kind of social and instrumental regimes were implemented to make them meaningful and efficient venues of experimental instruction? As humanly constructed sites of experiment how were the metropolitan institutional contexts of these laboratories engineered to make them legitimate places to study ‘Nature’? Previous studies have documented chemists' effective use of regimented quantitative analysis in their laboratory teaching from the 1820s, but less is known about how Victorian academics made other sorts of laboratories unproblematic pedagogical spaces. This paper will examine the literary, disciplinary and instrumental technologies of microscopy deployed by T. H. Huxley at his South Kensington laboratory during the early 1870s to render his biology teaching legitimate, meaningful and efficient. As such it is a response to Pickstone's recent call for a broader account of microscopy teaching in late nineteenth-century academic life science, and one localized answer to Bennett's enquiries as to what the appearance of a microscope in laboratories and other domestic settings betokened to historical actors, and how such tokens changed over time.

« Discipline History » and « Intellectual History ». Reflections on the Historiography of the Social Sciences in Britain and France

Cet article essaie de caracteriser certains des problemes qu’entraine l’etude du passe des sciences sociales comme une serie d’ « histoires de disciplines » separees, et confronte cette demarche avec celle qui, par contre, etudie aux origines des sciences sociales les activites de leurs praticiens potentiels, comme faisant partie d’une histoire intellectuelle plus large. S’appuyant sur ce contraste, il explore certaines des differences principales entre les recherches sur l’histoire des sciences sociales en France et dans les pays anglo-saxons, considerant brievement les sources intellectuelles et institutionnelles de ces differences, et il conclut sur quelques modestes suggestions pratiques.

Fifty Years of Economic Research: a Brief History of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research 1938-88

The National Institute was founded in 1938, after a first initiative by Sir Josiah Stamp in the early 1930s. Stamp, who was the President of the London Midland and Scottish railway, had been connected with a Rockefeller Foundation scheme to provide fellowships in the social sciences; he became convinced that a wider attack was needed on the problem of financing the social sciences in Britain and his objective became the development of a central unit, of British origin, with funds under its own control. This would supplement and replace the help given by the Rockefeller Foundation (then the main source of research funds in the British social sciences) and develop an increasingly large research effort in economics and related subjects. Stamp made known his views and with the support of a number of prominent academics, in particular William Beveridge, Director of the London School of Economics; Henry Clay, Economic Adviser to the Bank of England; and Hubert Henderson, Secretary of the Economic Advisory Panel, began to search for British financial support.

Social Science Research and Government: Comparative Essays on Britain and the United States.

Preface Contributors 1. Governments and social science: patterns of mutual influence Martin Bulmer Part I. Research in the Context of Policy-Making: 2. The governmental context: interaction between structure and influence Martin Bulmer 3. Governmental structures, social science and the development of economic social policies Theda Skocpol 4. The use of social research: myths and models Patricia Thomas 5. Networks of influence: the social sciences in Britain since the war Cyril S. Smith 6. Social science in Whitehall: two analytic perspectives Stuart S. Blume 7. Congressional committee staffs (do, do not) use analysis Carol H. Weiss 8. Social science training as related to the policy roles of US career officials and appointees: the decline of analysis Colin Campbell and Donald Naulls 9. Perhaps Minister: the messy world of 'in house' government social research Robert Walker 10. Social science in government: the case of the Home Office Research and Planning Unit Derek B. Cornish and Ronald V. Clarke 11. The work of the Commission for Economic and Social Change in Germany Lisl Klein Part II. Methodologies for Policy Research: 12. Varieties of methodology: strengthening the contribution of social science Martin Bulmer 13. The links between policy, survey research and academic social science: America and Britain compared Aubrey McKennell, John Bynner and Martin Bulmer 14. Survey research for government Barry Hedges 15. The Federal effort in developing social indicators and social reporting in the United States during the 1970s Denis F. Johnston 16. Social science analysis and congressional uses: the case of the United States General Accounting Office Ray C. Cist 17. Comparative aspects of randomised experiments for planning and evaluation Robert F. Boruch Part III. The Political Context: 18. The social sciences in an age of uncertainty Martin Bulmer 19. 'Pulling through': conspiracies, counterplots and how the SSRC escaped the axe in 1982 Paul Flather 20. Social science under siege: the political response 1981-1984 Roberta Balstad Miller Index.

One hundred years of marine research at Plymouth

The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of rapid change in the natural sciences in Britain, reflecting changes in social conditions and improvements in education. A growing number of naturalists were becoming socially conscious and aware of the need for a proper study of the sea and its products, following the success of the ‘Challenger’ Expedition of 1872–6. In 1866 the Royal Commission on the Sea Fisheries, which included among its officers Professor T. H. Huxley, one of the new breed of professional scientists, had reported that fears of over-exploitation of the sea-fisheries were unfounded, and had recommended doing away with existing laws regulating fishing grounds and closed seasons. Nevertheless, the rising trade in fresh fish carried to towns by rail or by fast boats (fleeting), and the consequent increase in size and number of registered fishing vessels, was causing widespread concern, and there were reports from all round the coasts about the scarcity of particular fish, especially soles. This concern was expressed at the International Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883, a conference called to discuss the commercial and scientific aspects of the fishing industry, attended by many active and first-rank scientists. However, in his opening address Professor Huxley discounted reports of scarcity of fish, and repeated the views of the Royal Commission of 1866: that, with existing methods of fishing, it was inconceivable that the great sea fisheries, such as those for cod, herring and mackerel, could ever be exhausted.