Social Science Paradigms Research Articles

Unthinking critique: when will ‘critical’ global education policy scholarship emerge from Marx’s shadow?

ABSTRACT Most critical work on global education policy (GEP) continues to elaborate a Marxist-inspired critique reminiscent of the 1960-1980s, fixated on coercive capitalist demands on education. Within comparative and international education, these critiques trace roots to Wallerstein’s World-Systems Theory (WST), as most explicitly embraced and articulated in North American comparative education. However, beginning in the late 1980s, Wallerstein began to recognise the epistemic and ontological limits of Marxism, vigorously advocating ‘opening’ Western social science to non-Western perspectives as means of unthinking ‘European Universalism’. Instead of tracking Wallerstein’s evolution and evolving the field, most of the self-styled ‘critical’ work in comparative education remained unreflective about its allegiance to Western social science paradigms, in particular the Marxist dismissal of religion, culture, and episteme as simply epiphenomena of capitalism. The consequences are profound: contemporary GEP work reinforces a parochial nineteenth-century European worldview, and restricts the field’s potential contribution to the elaboration of ‘Universal Universalism’.

Choosing a Qualitative Research Paradigm for Social Sciences: A Literature Review for Educational Researchers.

Social science research is directed by qualitative research to gain insights into the context of participants’ lived experiences through examining the complex social and cultural process and interactions, that capture the in-depth understanding rather than breath. Human and social science researchers commonly use four qualitative designs which are phenomenological studies (that understand lived experiences), grounded theory (that develop theories based on data) ethnographies (that study cultures and communities), and case studies (that examine complex phenomena in their natural settings). The qualitative approach is immersed in the interpretative paradigm which views the world subjectively. The research design is a case study. The data is collected through the following instruments, interviews, document analysis, observations, and audio-visual materials. To avoid physical and psychological harm to participants’ human dignity, ethical considerations such as confidentiality, anonymity, consent, and privacy are observed in the study. Qualitative data collected is content and thematically analyzed, and for trustworthiness and rigor of data credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability are considered in the research. Triangulation is the use of multiple data sources or methods to validate findings, integrate member checking that involves participants in verifying findings, and prolonged engagement with participants to keep detailed records of research processes and decisions. The strengths of qualitative research are probing humanistic issues to provide a nuanced understanding of a social phenomenon that allows for the adaption of new findings as they emerge to amplify the voices and experiences of participants. It has challenges or criticisms based on subjectivity, as the researcher bias can influence the interpretation of findings, and data collection and analysis can be a lengthy process thus the findings may not be easily generalized to a larger population.

A LETTER FROM SPECIAL EDITION EDITOR IN CHIEF - DR. KHRIEREIZHÜNUO DZÜVICHÜ

Oriental College Kohima has successfully organised a One-Day Multi-Disciplinary Conference on "Emerging Paradigms in Social Sciences, Humanities & Commerce for the 21st Century" on the 7th of December 2024. Research scholars and teaching faculty from affiliated colleges of Nagaland University participated in the conference, and a total of 13 papers were selected to be published in the International Journal of Research -GRANTHAALAYAH as a special issue titled Emerging Paradigms in Social Sciences, Humanities & Commerce for the 21st Century The distinguished keynote speakers of the conference were Professor Nigamananda Das, Head, Department of English, Nagaland University and Dr. Jasojit Debnath, Associate Professor, Department of Commerce, Nagaland University. The papers were presented with active participation and interaction with topics ranging from Naga history, craftsmanship, self-reliance, and the sheer ingenuity and resilience of the Naga forefathers to topics intensely in tune with nature and surroundings and how the Naga forefathers understood the phenomena of nature and the sky to the benefit of their awareness and survival. The importance of the traditional institutions like the Morung, and social concepts like dignity of labour, work culture and ethics of the Naga forefathers were presented. The presentations shifted gear to recent trends like the changing and challenging roles and dynamic transformation in the status of women and participation of women in Naga politics; the success stories of the farmers of King Chilli in making a community economically stable and self –reliant; inclusivity in education; NEP 2020; status of higher Education in Nagaland, etc. Comparative literature studies found platform with works like ‘Spirited Away’ by Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese animator, filmmaker and manga artist and Easterine Kire’s ‘A Terrible Matriarchy’ being analysed in depth alongside with insightful and thought provoking take on psychoanalytic literary criticism and Naga folklore. Papers dealing with the essence and the allure of folk poetry and the plethora of feelings and emotions of poetry added much discourse on the metrical composition of Tenyimia lyrical poetry in an innovative manner. The conference is organized with the objective to bring together academicians, scientists, researchers, scholars and students to exchange and share their knowledge, experiences and research results on the aspects of advancements in the field of Social Sciences, Humanities and Commerce, based on a multidisciplinary approach through intradisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdiciplinary research, which would benefit the academic world. The discussions during the paper presentations proved to be a great opportunity for exchanging knowledge among great minds. I express my sincere thanks to the publisher of Granthaalayah Publications for collaborating with Oriental College Kohima to motivate researchers with due recognition. Oriental College Kohima looks forward to take this partnership to the next level with substantial research contributions to promote collaborative studies in the emerging paradigms of Social Sciences, Humanities & Commerce. Sincerely,Dr. Khriereizhünuo Dzüvichü

Appreciative Axiology: The Lens Through Which We Value the Appreciative Paradigm

The Appreciative Paradigm, as any paradigm in social sciences, has an original and distinctive way of valuing (Axiology) what is most important in human beings and the social and natural world in which we live.

Penegakkan Hukum terhadap Pelanggaran HAM di Papua: Diskriminasi Etnis

Racial discrimination and violence against minority communities is prohibited by law, and the protection of minority groups is guaranteed by the Constitution, national laws, as well as international laws or conventions ratified by Indonesia, such as the ICCPR and ICERD. However, cases of violence involving ethnic Papuans are often ignored by the state, even though this is a violation of human rights. This research will use a normative juridical approach by presenting and analyzing the validity of statutory provisions. The socio-legal study in this research will be carried out by analyzing social studies, multidisciplinary social science theories related to the phenomenon of racial discrimination against ethnic Papuans, such as psychology in looking at prejudice and discrimination; Communication Studies; Social Integration and Disintegration Theory; and Social Conflict Theory. The aim of this research is to examine law enforcement using a social science paradigm. This research will review the quality of law enforcement, the extent to which these rules are enforced, and the extent to which law enforcement and the government can fulfill citizens' rights not to be discriminated against. This research shows that discrimination against the Papuan people is caused by racial discrimination in various aspects, including economics, politics, education and law enforcement. The application of anti- discrimination laws must be based on the professionalism of law enforcement officials so as not to give rise to new discrimination in law enforcement. This research recommends that the Indonesian Government increase political will in enforcing anti-discrimination and violence laws in all cases, especially against the Papuan ethnic group. Maximum anti-discrimination law enforcement efforts are needed to realize human rights goals, namely the provision, enforcement and protection of human rights.

Affective Turn, or Return?

The ‘affective turn’ suggests that we pay attention to how affects create subjectivities, build communities, and shape new forms of politics in the making. It invites us to move beyond established humanities and social science paradigms and toward richer forms of contextual analysis by studying how bodies – human and otherwise – ‘act and are acted upon’ (Gregg and Seigworth 2010, 1). The ‘affective turn’ requires sensitive attention to a host of cognate terms and concepts – sentiment, emotion, reverberation, resonance, atmosphere, and far beyond, including the more specific trans-category of ‘affective politics’ as well as affective reinterpretations of the social. Music has long been recognized as a site where affective politics play out. However, existing scholarship often view Baruch Spinoza, Silvan Tomkins, Gilles Deleuze, and Brian Massumi as the founding fathers of affective thinking at the expense of related work in the broader tradition of music philosophy. We address this lacuna by discussing the relationship between music, affect, and politics in the work of Plato, Aristotle, Al-Farabi, Qian Sima, Johannes Tinctoris, René Descartes, Johann Gottfried von Herder, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Theodor Adorno, Antoine Hennion, and Tia DeNora, as we aim to broaden, nuance, sharpen, and situate contemporary understandings of affective politics in music studies. In doing so, we discuss whether the affective turn is, perhaps, better understood as a ‘return’ to cross-disciplinary music research that situates the understandings of affective politics, relational agency, and political emotions within a longer history of music philosophy that, taken together, provide a more robust theoretical argument for the social and political force of musical sounds.

Underexplored Dimensions of Uncertainty and Risk in Human Development Policy Call for a New Paradigm

The human development paradigm like many other development policy domains, old and new, is being challenged by a fundamentally new context that has been described by many as a VUCA world meaning Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. These factors are of course not independent of each other, but interactive, thus making for a very difficult environment in which public policy must be made. The Human Development Report (HDR) made a wise and topical choice therefore in selecting uncertain unsettled lives as the theme for the 2021–2022 report. This paper first identifies some of the strengths of the current human development policy analysis but then proceeds to outline multiple concrete, though novel, ways of addressing the challenges of uncertain times and unsettled lives. These include the need for unpackaging the concept of uncertainty, highlighting both differences and linkages between risk and uncertainty, and further implications for policymaking. In addition, we discuss new and promising ways of thinking about uncertainty in policy issues around human development including complexity theory and complex adaptive systems thinking as well as quantum-like frameworks. Finally, we discuss applied spirituality which, in our opinion, can be of great value in engaging with unsettled lives. Ours is an attempt to call for a future paradigm in policy thinking, and social and human sciences as a whole.

Various Character Education Research on Baduy Indigenous People

This study aims to 1) analyze these studies from the point of view of the scientific paradigm, 2) determine the paradigm of science that has been done by previous research, and 3) Find untouched research gaps based on the paradigm of science. These three findings are useful as theoretical foundations for conducting subsequent research. Based on this objective, this research uses the method of literature study by utilizing an understanding of the philosophy of science to see the nature of the paradigm of science that underlies each research. The research process was carried out in three steps: the first began with conducting a literature review of several articles of character education research reports on the Baduy indigenous people; second, interpret by categorizing each research report based on the basic paradigm of the social sciences; and third, find a scientific paradigm that has not been done in previous studies. As a result, character education research that has been carried out has used various paradigms of social science, ranging from philosophy and psychology to sociology. However, if examined more deeply based on the perspective of the sociological paradigm, character education studies in the Baduy indigenous community are still within the scope of micro-sociology in the form of the role of the family in shaping character, no one has used the macro-sociological paradigm that considers the roles of social structures and systems in shaping community adherence to pikukuh (customary rules).

A Case Study on the Value of Humanities-Based Analysis, Modes of Presentation, and Study Designs for SoTL: Close Reading Students’ Pre-Surveys on Gender-Inclusive Language

Close reading has long been heralded as a humanities-specific methodology with significant potential for SoTL. This essay fills a gap in SoTL literature with a full case study demonstrating what, exactly, close reading shows us about our data that social science-based quantitative and qualitative analyses may not. Close reading-based analysis of first-year writing students’ pre-surveys on gender-inclusive language entails attention to the interrelated form and content of students’ self-reflections. This analysis reveals nuances and complexities that, if overlooked, would result in inadvertent misrepresentation of the data. This case study responds not only to calls for humanities-specific SoTL methodologies but also to related calls for greater legitimation of diverse forms for SoTL dissemination, some of which originate in the humanities. It is therefore cast as a reflective essay based on its author’s scholarly personal narrative (SPN) as a new, humanities-based SoTL researcher. Finally, this case study demonstrates the value of flexible, deliberately unscientific study designs that are responsive to emergent conditions but foreign to SoTL’s dominant social science paradigm. As guides to instruction, pre-surveys are necessary complements to pre-quizzes: learning what students think they know about a concept or skill, their attitudes towards it, and their contexts of prior learning about it—not just their knowledge of it, which is all pre-quizzes can tell us—is an important precursor to effective instruction. But maximizing pre-surveys’ potential to guide instruction requires flexible study designs so we can change our pedagogy, including our study’s “intervention,” if necessary, on the fly.

Facilitating fertility decline through economic development: a principal-agent analysis of local bureaucratic incentives in China’s fertility transition

Despite close associations, political science had weak explanatory power for fertility transition. It often depicts the political processes of fertility transition as direct and coercive policies and mechanical execution without consideration of indirect bureaucratic processes. Drawing on principal-agent and economic-driven theories, this study established a novel model using 1980–2000 Chinese provincial panel data: local officials facilitated fertility decline through economic development for career advancement. System generalized method moments (GMM) and ordered logistic regression (OLM) results showed: (1) gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth (OR = 0.012) and total fertility rate (TFR) decline (OR = 0.026) increased promotion odds, while excessive TFR decline (over 37% within one term) decreased it; (2) the critical age (59) and tenure year (one year before leaving office) positively associated with GDP per capita, industrialization, and lower TFR; (3) GDP per capita and industrialization negatively associated with TFR. Facilitating fertility decline via economic development was an efficient, low-risk strategy for local officials compared to radical birth control campaigns. It was the first study applying principal-agent theory to explain how bureaucratic processes enabled fertility transitions. It combined political and economic-driven theories on fertility transition, advancing political demography and refining the social science paradigm on fertility transition.

Neither individualism nor anti‐individualism: The coevolution of social systems and psychic systems

AbstractMajor paradigms in sociology and social sciences usually embrace either individualism or anti‐individualism as fundamental worldview. This paper explores a third way between individualism and anti‐individualism developed by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann in his systems theory. Luhmann treats actors or individuals as psychic systems and he distinguishes them from social systems. In a nutshell, social systems produce communication, whereas psychic systems produce consciousness. In line with anti‐individualism, Luhmann therefore argues that social systems are irreducible to psychic systems and their actions. On the other hand, Luhmann joins ranks with individualism to assert that psychic systems are not rigorously constrained by social systems. Ultimately, Luhmann explains that social systems and psychic systems are part of each other's environment and that each type of systems provides the ecological conditions that the other type depends on to emerge and grow. To discuss this third way between individualism and anti‐individualism, the paper examines more specifically two central points in Luhmann's theory: (1) how social systems and psychic systems are separated from each other, and (2) how social systems and psychic systems are coevolving.

Reflexive structure of the conscious subject and the origin of language codes

The code paradigm in biological and social sciences arises to Aristotle. For conscious activity, Aristotle introduced the notion of reflexive self-awareness in sense perception. This reflexive process generates the codes that signify sensual perceptive events and constrain human behavior. Coding systems grow via the generation of hypertextual statements reflecting new meanings in the process defined by Marcello Barbieri as a codepoiesis. It results in the establishment of higher-level codes (metacodes) forming the semiotic screen that has a nature of the set of perceived objects internalized by the conscious subject in encoding the symbolic actions. The characteristic feature of the semiotic screen consists in its property of being shared between the communicating agents. A sufficient complexity of nervous system, through the appearance of mirror neurons that are fired both when a subject executes certain action and when he observes another subject performing a similar action, represents a prerequisite for the emergence of reflexive codes in evolution. The codes appearing as a result of reflexive awareness and establishing different sociotypes, span from the symbolic systems of art and music through the common language to the formal language of logic and mathematics. Social dynamics is based on the implementation of reflexive coding activity and results in the growth and decay of social systems and civilizations.

“This Is a Progression, Not Conversion”: Narratives of First-Generation Bahá’ís

This paper discusses the concept of religious conversion in the Bahá’í Faith through conversion narratives of first-generation Bahá’ís. Through life story interviews, the converts narrate their process of becoming Bahá’í as “not converting”, which aligns with a principle of the Bahá’í Faith called “progressive revelation”. Religious conversion has frequently been described in the literature as a radical, sudden, dramatic transformation–often following a personal crisis and seemingly entails a definite break with one’s former identity. Consequently, religious conversion studies have focused on the subjective experiences of the rapid changes in the lives and identities of individuals. However, such perspectives have, until now, focused mainly on Christianity and Christian models and have not adequately addressed religious conversion models in other Abrahamic religions, such as the Bahá’í Faith. The paradigm of conversion focuses our attention on the ways particular theologies shape life stories of conversion and what kind of narratives social scientists will include in the corpus of conversion. Therefore, this research asks to broaden the social scientific paradigms of religious conversion through the case study of the Bahá’í Faith.

Post-Covid-19 Paradigms in Social Sciences

Post-Covid-19 Paradigms in Social Sciences

Emplaced Qualities

‘Quality’ and ‘space’ were not treated jointly as a key consideration in the main social scientific paradigms. Nor were ‘experience’ and ‘place’. This paper asks what vocabulary could close this gap without falling into a trap of reductive materialism that treats emplaced qualities like reified ‘variables’, or reductive idealism that disembodies them and treats as ‘signs’ and ‘ideas’. We address this issue by jointly thematizing two important pairs of concepts: distributive and attributive quality, and lived and reflective experience, and relating them to space. Many culturalist frameworks have ignored space and prioritized reflective attribution of quality. This is an epistemological problem because as Merleau-Ponty had already showed spatial emplacement of human experience is existentially and culturally fundamental. This has been transformed into a lingering methodological problem, largely because phenomenology was marginalized in English speaking social sciences. Drawing on its over-looked classic concepts, notably the ones by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schütz, as well as congenial new conceptions, the present paper offers relational holistic definitions of space, place, quality and experience, and it situates them vis-à-vis traditional dimensions of qualitative sociological analysis. Subsequently, an outline of a phenomenological theory of ‘emplaced qualities’ is proposed. The iconic club Berghain in Berlin provides a provisional exemplification framed by Henri Lefebvre’s anti-idealist notion of “architecture of enjoyment” and Michel Foucault’s spatio-cultural notion of “heterotopia”.

СОЦИАЛЬНОЕ ИЗМЕРЕНИЕ И СОЦИАЛЬНОЕ КОНСТРУИРОВАНИЕ В СОВРЕМЕННЫХ ПРИКЛАДНЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯХ

The purpose of the article is to understand the paradigmatic field of socio-political research in modern Russia. The problem field of implementing the positivist paradigm and carrying out measurement procedures within the framework of this applied research methodology is analyzed. It is proved that quantitative and qualitative research strategies do not serve as different types of research approaches, but as successive stages in the implementation of a single project. A discussion is presented about the possibility and necessity of researchers’ abandoning the principle of non-evaluation of the results of scientific analysis in the field of social knowledge. Some correspondences between the functions of social sciences and the type of research methodology are established. Using the example of applied political analysis, the ways of studying social phenomena and processes, as well as the methodological approaches, methods and tools used for this, are systematized. Particular attention is paid to the problem of unreliability of survey data and limitations of data obtained during monitoring of social media. The capabilities of the cognitive instrumentalist are presented as a means of solving these methodological problems. As a result of the study, arguments are given in favor of the need to intensify the use of the critical social science paradigm in social scientific knowledge and shift the research focus in conditions of civilizational confrontation to social construction (formation, modeling).

Aging effects in Schelling segregation model

The Schelling model has become a paradigm in social sciences to explain the emergence of residential spatial segregation, even in the presence of high tolerance to mixed neighborhoods by the side of citizens. In particular, we consider a noisy constrained version of the Schelling model, in which agents maximize its satisfaction, related to the composition of the local neighborhood, by infinite-range movements towards satisfying vacancies. We add to it an aging effect by making the probability of agents to move inversely proportional to the time they have been satisfied in their present location. This mechanism simulates the development of an emotional attachment to a location where an agent has been satisfied for a while. The introduction of aging has several major impacts on the model statics and dynamics: the phase transition between a segregated and a mixed phase of the original model disappears, and we observe segregated states with a high level of agent satisfaction even for high values of tolerance. In addition, the new segregated phase is dynamically characterized by a slow power-law coarsening process similar to a glassy-like dynamics.

Updating Scholarly Practice: Action Research for Transformations at a Time of Eco-Social Crisis

The symposium brings together global scholar-practitioners to discuss and illustrate action research as a contemporary scholarly practice. Over the past decade, action research for transformations (ART) illustrates a growing capacity for grappling with and achieving global sustainability goals. Participants will learn of its key conceptual underpinnings, namely constructivist pragmatism and adult development. These in turn are shown to animate a meta-model that combines concern for relational, conceptual and experimental spaces, guided and assessed by seven quality choicepoints. Key in the transformations support by ART is researchers’ integrating objective perspectives with subjective reflexivity. As an expression of contemporary constructivist pragmatism, action research for transformations thereby illustrates and works with a deeper emphasis and respect for the relational nature of people within change contexts. In this integration ART may offer a revitalization of social science itself. The discussion of how concepts as well as objectivity, intersubjectivity, and subjectivity combine will be brought alive with two impactful cases from worlds of i) policy makers in government in Spain and ii) work of JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion) with thousands of employees in Vancouver Canada. The symposium will be of interest to change leaders and educators concerned with transformative social change, as well as social scientists interested in new paradigms of social science.

Critical Realism: A Critical Evaluation

ABSTRACT Critical realism, championed by its proponents as the most promising post-positivist social science paradigm, has gained significant influence in the last few decades. This paper provides a critical evaluation of the critical realism movement in the hope of facilitating more fruitful dialogues between its proponents and rivalling schools of sociologists. Two concerns are raised about contemporary critical realism. First, critical realism is not the only philosophical school against positivism and not necessarily the best. Second, critical realists exaggerate the importance of critical realism to social science and conflate philosophy of science with sociological theories.

Postpositivism in the multiparadigmatic space of social and behavioral sciences

The article presents a critical review and reactualization of the results of earlier comparative studies of competing paradigms in social and behavioral sciences and metatheories in marketing research. The results of comparative studies of different paradigms in social and behavioral sciences show a predominant coincidence of paradigmatic dispositions of positivism and postpositivism in many issues of ontology, epistemology, methodology, ethics, and axiology. At the same time, postpositivism is more adaptive under the conditions of paradigmatic competition, more open to borrowing and applying fruitful research practices of competing paradigms.