Natural Social Sciences Research Articles

A szociális területen tanuló felsőoktatási hallgatók életpálya tervei egy kelet-magyarországi pilotkutatás tükrében

Our paper explores the family and career plans of social sciences students at Hungary’s second largest university based on a questionnaire-based pilot study. Nowadays, careers include more than the traditional vertical promotion within an organisation, as seen from the emergence of the self-directed “protean” career type, which prompts organisations to adapt to individuals’ values, attitudes, and own career definitions. In addition, the Kaleidoscope Career Model sets out that individuals adapt their career goals to their life stages. Thus, students’ career and family plans matter to prospective employers. Our results show that a modern self-directed career type has emerged among students, for whom it is a priority to meet their own expectations. In several cases, starting a family is preceded by career goals. Furthermore, despite the “feminine” nature of social sciences, our pilot study shows that male students in the field still tend to conform to traditional gender roles regarding the importance of family and career. Our research implies that prospective employers need to adapt their HR strategies to young people’s family and career plans. Moreover, organisations should support students in gaining relevant work experience and in achieving their subsequent career plans.

Quantum Political Science: Learning About Politics from Egypt

Abstract Mona El-Ghobashy’s Bread and Freedom: Egypt’s Revolutionary Situation makes three important contributions to political science. First, it is a sensitive and perceptive account of the years of upheaval in Egypt between the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak and the election of Abdelfattah el-Sisi in 2014. Second, in recounting this history, El-Ghobashy moves political science beyond typologizing, urging us away from assigning labels to instead examining the practices by which each government ruled, how the ruled reacted, and how these interactions shaped the trajectory of political change. In doing so, El-Ghobashy makes the case for focusing on contingency itself as an analytical frame, offering an ambitious argument about the nature of social science as it addresses uncertainty.

Gegenexpert*innen: Umwelt, Aktivismus und die regionalen Epistemologien des Widerstandes

ZusammenfassungMit der Nachfrage nach „Gegenwissen“ in den sozialen Bewegungen der 1970er und 1980er Jahre wurden „Gegenexpert*innen“ zu einem integralen Bestandteil der Umwelt- und Gesundheitspolitik. Im Umweltbereich waren sie besonders in den ökologisch stark belasteten Industrieregionen und Ballungsgebieten aktiv. Das regionalistische Problembewusstsein der Gegenexpert*innen korrelierte, so die These des Aufsatzes, mit einem Modus von Wissenschaft, der für die Umweltwissenschaften im 20. Jahrhundert insgesamt typisch war. Die Geschichte der Umweltwissenschaften war über das gesamte 20. Jahrhundert hinweg eine Geschichte regionaler Epistemologien. Die Gegenexpert*innen waren aus dem nahräumig formatierten und infrastrukturnahen Feld des Umweltwissens bald nicht mehr wegzudenken. Der Aufsatz rekonstruiert, ausgehend von jeweils einer Publikation, drei umweltpolitische Projekte von Gegenexpert*innen im Rhein-Main-Gebiet um 1980: das Engagement des Umweltpfarrers Kurt Oeser; der epistemische Aktivismus der Gründungsgrünen Jutta Ditfurth; sowie das Programm einer „sozialen Naturwissenschaft“ im Umfeld des Darmstädter Wissenschaftsphilosophen Gernot Böhme.

Roy Bhaskar on Scientific Progress and the Fallibility of Cognition: A Critique of Four Approaches

So far, various approaches have been proposed to explain the progress of science. These approaches, which fall under a fourfold classification, are as follows: semantic, functional, epistemic, and noetic approaches. Each of these approaches, based on the intended purpose of science, defines progress on the same basis. The semantic approach defines progress based on the approximation to the truth, the functional approach based on problem-solving, the epistemic approach based on knowledge accumulation, and the noetic approach based on increased understanding. With a stratified description of the world, Roy Bhaskar sees science as the movement toward deeper layers aimed at discovering productive mechanisms. He also explains progress based on the layering and acquisition of knowledge of the underlying layers. But because he believes in the social nature of science and considers knowledge a social product and subject to change, he acknowledges the fallibility of cognition. Hence, it is believed that moving to a new layer does not necessarily lead to the progress of science. However, it is possible that by acquiring knowledge about the new layer, our previous knowledge will be revised and corrected. In this article, while expressing the Bhaskar theory of scientific progress and explaining its contingency with respect to the fallibility of cognition, we pursue a basic goal. This goal is summarized in the review of all four approaches in order to show their lack of attention to the fallibility of cognition and its effect on explaining progress. What has been done in this article is based on two phases: explaining the contingency of the progress of science for Bhaskar and examining the four approaches to the progress of science in order to show their inattention to the fallibility of cognition. In his philosophy, referring to the two dimensions of transitive and intransitive, Roy Bhaskar considers the purpose of science to be the acquisition of knowledge about intransitive objects, and this knowledge is achieved through a social activity. Since this cognition is a social product and belongs to the transitive dimension of science, it will be fallible and subject to change. Bhaskar concludes with philosophical arguments that the world contains generative mechanisms, but that it is the task of science to discover their nature and exactly what mechanisms are at work. This requires work in two theoretical dimensions, namely the use of conceptual tools and a practical dimension, that is, the use of experimental tools. Now, as the theoretical and technical conditions under which cognition is formed and evaluated are themselves expanding and subject to change and modification, our knowledge may also be expanded or corrected. In this study, it was found that the semantic approach is unaware of the effect of fallibility on the evidence used to estimate the approximation to the truth and, consequently, progress. The functional approach ignores this effect in solving the problems posed by theories. The epistemic approach does not take into account the fallibility of evidence used to justify and validate the evidence, and finally, the noetic approach neglects the effect of the fallibility on what the explanation and prediction are based on. These have led to these approaches, which consider the satisfaction of the criteria in question necessarily leads to progress.

Management Accounting Research Approaches: A Critical Review

The management accounting field uses three research approaches: mainstream, interpretive and critical. These paradigms involve employing distinct research methodology whilst studying topics related to management accounting. The distinction in research methodology was made based on assumptions about the nature of social science and nature of society. Various scholars had used those assumptions to categorise research prototypes. Among them, the frameworks developed by Burrell and Morgan (1979), Hopper and Powell (1985, Chua (1986) and also Rayan and Scapens (2002) are all noteworthy. Therefore, the aim of this study is to critically review these frameworks as a way to identify their similarities and differences among them. On the basis of the review, it is observed that perspectives of management accounting were originated from an extremely long means of travel, and there are lots of similarities and significant differences among the frameworks reviewed.

A Non-Naturalised Methodology for Social Sciences

At the rise of the twentieth century, armed with the success of natural sciences, the school of naturalism argued that the appropriate methodology for all disciplines, including social sciences, is that of natural science. The paper argued that social sciences cannot be naturalised and has its own appropriate methodology. The paper examined the arguments for naturalism and non-naturalism of the method of philosophy of social sciences. The paper employed both primary and secondary sources of data. Data collected were subjected to critical analysis and philosophical argumentation. The results showed that the nature of social sciences is such that it cannot be subjected to only scientific methods. The paper concludes that there is a need for a methodology that understands the subject matter of social sciences to address issues in social sciences. The paper addressed some key issues in philosophy of social sciences.
 Keywords: Methodology, Natural sciences, Naturalism, Social sciences.

From Avocation to Vocation: An Ambivalence of Professional Science (Introduction to the Special Issue)

ABSTRACTThis article is an introduction to the current thematic issue dedicated to the seminal lecture by Max Weber ‘Science as a vocation’, published in 1919. Its centenary is worth celebrating because the work discovered new trends in the social nature of science in the very making of its professional institutional structure. In fact, this Weber text was one of the first to shape the agenda for the social studies of science. The proposed overview of the contributed articles shows how Weber’s problems receive critical elaboration in concrete cases dealing with the social and technical sciences, methodological and ethical normativity, and science popularization.

The Philosophy and Methodology of Islam-Science Integration: Unravelling the Transformation of Indonesian Islamic Higher Institutions

The transformation of Islamic higher education into State Islamic University (Universities Islam Negeri/UIN) necessitates the changing of scientific thoughts. Before this transformation, Islamic higher education 's core business is commonly concerned with the teaching of Islamic sciences, while UIN includes the instruction of general sciences, e.g., natural and social Sciences. In fact, the two (Islamic and natural-social science) should be integrated into the Islamic high education to establish a new integrated scientific paradigm. This study focuses mainly on the philosophy and the integration of science and Islamic methodologies in Indonesia. Based on the phenomenological qualitative approach, the current study critically examines Islam and science integration. Grounded on the study of three UINs, the article shows a novel paradigm that enables the integration of science and religion in those universities. Each university offers a specific character of the integration. UIN of Malang, for example, initiates the integration which is reflected in “tree of science”. UIN of Yogyakarta offers the metaphor of “spider web” for its interconnected and integrated Islam and science project while UIN of Surabaya proposes multidisciplinary-integration with the metaphor of integrated twin towers.

Representations of nature of science in U.S. science standards: A historical account with contemporary implications

AbstractThis study evaluated the representations of nature of science (NOS) in U.S. state science standards, and examined the changes in these representations from documents advanced in the 1980s through 2016. Drawing from the consensus perspective on NOS and prior studies focusing on the analysis of textual content, documents were inspected for 10 target NOS aspects: the empirical, tentative, inferential, creative, theory‐driven, and social NOS, in addition to the myth of “The Scientific Method,” the nature of scientific theories and laws, and the social and cultural embeddedness of science. Ninety‐eight state documents from 48 states were analyzed and multiple editions were collected from 34 states. Additionally, relevant materials from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were assessed for their coverage of the same NOS aspects. Collected materials were scored as whole documents, including over 11,000 pages of text in total, on each target aspect, which reflected the treatment (naïve vs. informed) of NOS in text and the manner of presentation (explicit vs. implicit). Overall, surprisingly, state standards documents have improved very little with respect to their NOS coverage over the last 30 years. NOS standards documents remain silent on a majority of key aspects of NOS, and the number of aspects showing explicit, informed representations has held constant. The NGSS performed well compared to many contemporary documents, but they failed to address all target NOS aspects in a desirable manner. Further analysis raised concerns with the degree that states fully adopt and disseminate standards in manner consistent with the NGSS despite stated intentions, which may negatively impact NOS coverage in instructional resources and classroom enactments. To improve NOS representations in standards, recognizing the role these documents play in shaping instructional materials and teaching in the science classroom, exemplars from analyzed materials were highlighted with informed and explicit representations of multiple aspects.

PRAGMATIC UTOPIANISM AND RACE: H. G. WELLS AS SOCIAL SCIENTIST

H. G. Wells was one of the most celebrated writers in the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Famed for his innovative fiction, he was also an influential advocate of socialism and the world-state. What is much less well known is that he was a significant contributor to debates about the nature of social science. This article argues that Wells's account of social science in general, and sociology in particular, was shaped by an idiosyncratic philosophical pragmatism. In order to demonstrate how his philosophical arguments inflected his social thought, it explores his attack on prevailing theories of race, while also highlighting the limits of his analysis. The article concludes by tracing the reception of Wells's ideas among social scientists and political thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic. Although his program for utopian sociology attracted few disciples, his arguments about the dynamics of modern societies found a large audience.

Pragmatic Utopianism and Race: H. G. Wells as Social Scientist

H. G. Wells was one of the most celebrated writers in the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Famed for his innovative fiction, he was also an influential advocate of socialism and the world-state. What is much less well known is that he was a significant contributor to debates about the nature of social science. This article argues that Wells's account of social science in general, and sociology in particular, was shaped by an idiosyncratic philosophical pragmatism. In order to demonstrate how his philosophical arguments inflected his social thought, it explores his attack on prevailing theories of race, while also highlighting the limits of his analysis. The article concludes by tracing the reception of Wells's ideas among social scientists and political thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic. Although his program for utopian sociology attracted few disciples, his arguments about the dynamics of modern societies found a large audience.

Grounding and anchoring: on the structure of Epstein’s social ontology

ABSTRACTBrian Epstein’s The Ant Trap is a praiseworthy addition to literature on social ontology and the philosophy of social sciences. Its central aim is to challenge received views about the social world – views with which social scientists and philosophers have aimed to answer questions about the nature of social science and about those things that social sciences aim to model and explain, like social facts, objects and phenomena. The received views that Epstein critiques deal with these issues in an overly people-centered manner. After all, even though social facts and phenomena clearly involve individual people arranged in certain ways, we must still spell out how people are involved in social facts and phenomena. There are many metaphysical questions about social properties, relations, dependence, constitution, causation, and facts that cannot be answered (for instance) just be looking at individual people alone. In order to answer questions about (e.g.) how one social entity depends for its existence on another, we need different metaphysical tools. Epstein thus holds that social ontological explanations would greatly benefit from making use of the theoretical toolkit that contemporary analytical metaphysics has to offer. He focuses specifically on two metaphysical instruments: grounding and anchoring. This paper examines Epstein’s understanding and use of these tools. I contend that Epstein is exactly right to say that contemporary metaphysics contains many theoretical instruments that can be fruitfully applied to social ontological analyses. However, I am unconvinced that Epstein’s tools achieve what they set out to do. In particular, I will address two issues: (1) How is grounding for Epstein meant to work? (2) Is anchoring distinct from grounding, and a relation that we need in social ontology?

Problematizing Fragmentation of Environment Governance in Cambodia -Revisiting Weber’s ‘Objectivity’-

This theoretical study problematizes fragmented policies and governances of environment in Cambodia, drawing on some case studies of decentralization policy. The analysis through extensive literature review ascribes the cause of fragmentation to international aid dependence, which allows scientists to intervene in developing governance reform and policy-making process under the name of Technical-Assistance. The nature of social science will be examined by detailing Max Weber’s proposition that signals a limitation of science methodology in developing social policy. The exploration distinguishes two modes of human thinking to explain the cause of fragmentation: ‘analytical/calculative thinking’ and ‘reflective thinking’. Through the above theoretical investigation, the result indicates a need of a new educational program that fosters ‘reflective thinking’ and dialogue among different disciplines and sectors for adaptive policy-governance assistance.

Filozoficzne ramy i przesłanki zróżnicowania podejścia interpretacjonistycznego

Philosophical frames and premises of diversification of the interpretive approachThe interpretive approach seems to be one of those umbrella terms that cover a multitude of extremely diversified research strategiesAt first sight they seem to have nothing in common except the blurred term interpretation and skepticism about naturalism in social sciences. Nonetheless they have solid common philosophical underpinnings that constitute the peculiarity as well as pluralism of the interpretationist approachThe first one — apriorism — defines its ontology, the second one — anti-Cartesianism — specifies epistemology. Both create distinctiveness toward the objective and empirical standards of scientific investigation that deserve to be called not a mere approach but a paradigm.

A longitudinal analysis of the extent and manner of representations of nature of science in U.S. high school biology and physics textbooks

AbstractThis study assessed the (i) ways in which, and extent to which, several aspects of nature of science (NOS) are represented in high school biology and physics textbooks in the United States (U.S.); (ii) extent to which these representations have changed over the course of several decades; and (iii) relative impact of discipline, and textbook publishers versus authors on the observed patterns. NOS aspects included the empirical, tentative, inferential, creative, theory‐laden, and social NOS; myth of “The Scientific Method”; nature of theories and laws; and social and cultural embeddedness of science. The sample included 34 (16 biology and 18 physics) textbooks, which commanded significant shares of the U.S. science textbook market. Textbooks were selected from seven “connected series” (three in biology and four in physics), which spanned 1–5 decades, with five series spanning, at least, 3 decades. Textbooks were scored for the accuracy and manner in which, as well as the extent (in textbook pages) to which, the target NOS aspects were represented. Analyses indicated that, on average, only less than 2.5% of the analyzed textbook pages were dedicated to addressing NOS constructs. Overall, representations of NOS in the textbooks did not differ by content area, were discernibly less than favorable, and did not improve substantially over the past several decades. These trends are incommensurate with the emphasis placed in U.S. reform efforts on helping precollege students develop informed NOS conceptions. Finally, the data strongly suggested that textbook authors have a relatively greater impact on the observed patterns when compared to textbook publishers. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 82–120, 2017

Understanding globalization: a multi-dimensional approach

This book discusses eight dimensions of globalization-world order, culture, the state, information technology, economics, production, development, and Bretton Woods Institutions-from the perspective of four diverse sociological paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. This multi-perspective approach forces readers to abandon their preconceived assumptions and allows them the opportunity to view globalization through new eyes. Kavous Ardalan argues that social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of these four key paradigms because each one is founded upon different assumptions about the nature of social science and each one generates useful theories, concepts, and analytical tools. This method facilitates distancing from one's favored paradigm and appreciating other available approaches to better understand social phenomena. The knowledge of paradigms increases awareness of the boundaries and limitations of each individual paradigm. While most books on the topic focus on particular aspects of globalization from specific viewpoints, this fair and unbiased volume provides readers with a balanced understanding of globalization.

Staying with the system: theoretical consistency and change in Danish geographical work on the Sahel

Scholars have studied the Sahel intensely since major droughts hit the region in the early 1970s. One of the most persistent of these in terms of both volume and time span is Anette Reenberg. In this paper we explore her studies of the Sahel published in peer-reviewed journals and their impact over the last three decades. Reenberg has had a remarkably stable theoretical agenda concerned with the importance of understanding the social and biophysical systems as one coupled human-environmental system. This agenda has influenced contemporary as well as subsequent Danish scholars publishing on the Sahel. Taking papers published in Geografisk Tidsskrift-Danish Journal of Geography as an example we show how scholars have moved from treating aspects of the Sahelian droughts according to the traditional natural-social science divide towards a much more coupled manner. This rise of the coupled human-environmental system framework in the journal may be attributed to Reenberg’s theoretical agenda as well as a new international stream of research joining the human and environmental sciences in an interdisciplinary effort. Hence, it is also shown how Reenberg’s theoretical agenda have influenced scholars trying to grasp contemporary global change. This is especially evident in the land science community.

Reflexivity, complexity, and the nature of social science

In 1987, George Soros introduced his concepts of reflexivity and fallibility and has further developed and applied these concepts over subsequent decades. This paper attempts to build on Soros's framework, provide his concepts with a more precise definition, and put them in the context of recent thinking on complex adaptive systems. The paper proposes that systems can be classified along a ‘spectrum of complexity’ and that under specific conditions not only social systems but also natural and artificial systems can be considered ‘complex reflexive.’ The epistemological challenges associated with scientifically understanding a phenomenon stem not from whether its domain is social, natural, or artificial, but where it falls along this spectrum. Reflexive systems present particular challenges; however, evolutionary model-dependent realism provides a bridge between Soros and Popper and a potential path forward for economics.

This is social science: A ‘patterned activity’ oriented to attaining objective knowledge of human society

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that approaching social science as a ‘patterned activity’ draws attention both to the distinctive nature of social science and to its central subject matter – meaningful (symbolically oriented) behavior and theoretical entities based on it – enabling therefore a constructive perspective on the major debate regarding social science’s organizing principles. A patterned activity is defined as a cluster of behavior oriented to a basic (that is, characteristic or defining) goal or aim accorded value; the goal or aim, by which the norms of the patterned activity are bounded, is the satisfaction of a certain appetite, desire, or need. The concept of a patterned activity is rooted in and developed from elements of Max Weber’s methodological writings. This concept is evaluated against Clifford Geertz’s ‘cultural systems’ approach and Robert K. Merton’s view of the norms of science, and the article then addresses the legacy of Talcott Parsons more generally. Lastly, Émile Durkheim’s and Weber’s respective approaches to social science are assessed so as to illuminate their views regarding its central subject matter and to demonstrate a convergence of their views.

The many layers of social in our science

The many layers of social in our science