Social Science Theory Research Articles

Building the case for a social and behaviour change approach to prevent and respond to the recruitment and use of children by armed forces and armed groups

AbstractOver the last decade, social and behaviour change strategies have increasingly been used to address human rights and child protection concerns, including harmful practices such as child marriage, female genital mutilation and violent discipline. Social and gender norms have also been recognized as key drivers of child recruitment. Nonetheless, the use of social and behaviour change strategies to prevent and respond to the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict has not yet been systematically explored or applied. Building on academic and practical sources, including findings from studies by the International Committee of the Red Cross and United Nations University, social and behavioural science theory, experiences from the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on grave violations against children, and academic literature, this article explores how social and behaviour change approaches can inform prevention of and response to the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. The article concludes that social and behaviour change approaches can effectively inform prevention and reintegration efforts and can facilitate responses that bridge the humanitarian, development and peace nexus. Using social and behaviour change approaches can help to reveal why children are recruited from the perspective of key actors and entities across the socio-ecological framework in order to prevent the practice from becoming more accepted.

Theory building from qualitative evaluation

This article argues that not only is theory building from qualitative evaluation possible, but ought to be considered as a desirable product and utilisation of evaluators’ work. Based on three case studies, the authors show how theory building can work, and why it can be important and useful. Theory building is seldom considered an impact-producing product from evaluation. Theory in evaluation is typically limited to ‘evaluation theory’ as a way of explaining why and how different approaches to evaluation work. Theory is also used to inform programme design and ‘theory of change’. The literature seldom suggests that evaluations can be used to build theory in social sciences. The argument presented in this article builds on literature of ‘theories of evaluation use’ to suggest that theorising is a form of knowledge utilisation arising from well-constructed, open-ended evaluation questions, and conceptual use of findings and recommendations.

Untimely Ecology: A Genealogy of Biosphere to Rethink Temporality in the Anthropocene

One of the critical challenges of our contemporary world is rethinking temporality to face the global catastrophe of the Anthropocene. Recent theories in social sciences and philosophy envision a new conceptualization of our biosphere in which human and non-human life forms, inert objects, and technological devices are entangled. However, these approaches present two major problems: a) they affirm that organic and inorganic processes are ontologically symmetrical and have the same type of agency; and b) they consider that technicity on planet Earth emerges in the hominization process. In this work, we will develop a genealogy of our biosphere that proposes an ecological and untimely alternative: life, from its earliest beginning, is a technical phenomenon that changes the face of the universe.

Integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior and Motivation to Explore Residential Water-Saving Behaviors

Water scarcity in the United States needs to be addressed with demand- and supply-side initiatives. Yet, water is often provided for a low cost to households in residential areas that have the potential to reduce water consumption. The theory of planned behavior (TpB) is a social science theory used to understand why volitional conservation behaviors, including water conservation, are performed by consumers. Additional predictors are included in TpB in water literature, and motivations for behavioral actions may help further explain residential water conservation behavior. This study sought to determine whether TpB and motivation predicted residential water conservation behavior. Data were collected with an online survey (n = 907) in September 2022 from residents of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama using non-probability opt-in quota sampling. The data were analyzed in R using the lavaan package. The results indicate that there was a significant direct effect of attitude and subjective norms on intention. There was a significant direct effect of intention on behavior. There was a significant negative direct effect of extrinsic motivation on behavior. Mediation was present in the model with intrinsic motivation. Perhaps the respondents had not thought about rewards or punishments in the context of water conservation because of the availability of water at a low cost and therefore were not extrinsically motivated to conserve water.

Book Review: Theda Skocpol “States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China

In “States and Social Revolutions: A comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (1979), Theda Skocpol presents a comparative-historical analysis of social revolutions by looking beyond the existing social-scientific theories that explain the causes and outcomes of successful revolutions. Skocpol presents a contrast to the prevalent theories of social revolutions from a comparative historical analysis by presenting valid associations of potential causes within a given phenomenon. The author focuses on the structuralists’- perspectives to the causes of social revolutions in agrarian society with intense focus on the influence of transnational relations in the emergence of social-revolutionary crises that lead to basic social-structural transformations and the collapse of state organizations of old regimes.

Social Studies of Scienceand Technology: New ways to illuminate challenges in training for health information technologies utilisation.

Electronic health records (EHRs) have transformed clinical practice. They are not simply replacements for paper records but integrated systems with the potential to improve patient safety and quality of care. Training physicians in the use of EHR is a highly complex intervention that occurs in a dynamic socio-technical health system. Training in this complex space is considered a wicked problem and would benefit from different analytic approaches to the traditional linear causal relationship analysis. Social Sciences theories see technological change in relation to complex social and institutional processes and provide a useful starting point. Our aim, therefore, is to introduce the medical education scholar to a selection of theoretical approaches from the Social Studies of Science and Technology (SSST) literatures, to inform educational efforts in training for EHR use. We suggest a body of theories and frameworks that can expand the epistemological repertoire of medical education scholarship to respond to this wicked problem. Drawing from our work on EHR implementation, we discuss current limitations in framing training for EHRs use as a research problem in medical education. We then present a selection of alternative theories. Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) explains the individual adoption of new technologies in the workplace and has four key constructs: performance/effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions. Social Practice Theory (SPT), rather than focusing on individuals or institutions, starts with the activity or practice. The socio-technical model (STM) is a comprehensive theory that offers a multidimensional framework for studying the innovation and application of EHRs. Practical examples are provided. We argue that education for effective utilisation of EHRs requires moving beyond the epistemological monism often present in the field. New theoretical lenses can illuminate the complexity of research to identify the best practices for educating and training physicians.

Analisis Komunikasi Virtual Dalam Dunia Roleplayer Grup RP Palembang Platform Telegram

With the title "Analysis of Virtual Communication on the Palembang World RP Group Roleplayer Telegram Platform". This study describes how virtual communication in roleplayer games among teenagers, especially teenagers in the city of Palembang. This study aims to find out how the process of roleplayer users form virtual communication and analyze virtual communication in the telegram platform roleplayer world towards members of the RP Palembang group. The theory used in this research is social science theory and new media theory. The research method used in this study is a qualitative research method. The approach used by researchers in this study is through observation obtained by conducting observations and structured interviews to become a reference for researchers to understand in depth about virtual communication in telegram platform roleplayer games. From the research results that have been obtained from the observation and documentation of researchers, the author can explain the process of forming virtual communication between roleplayer players, the types of virtual communication that occur in roleplayer games, supporting factors and inhibiting factors for virtual communication for roleplayer players and the advantages of the telegram platform in forming virtual communication in the roleplayer world of RP Group Palembang members.

Accounting for the interplay of interpersonal and structural trauma in the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain, opioid use disorder, and mental health in urban safety-net primary care clinics

While the epidemiological literature recognizes associations between chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP), opioid use disorder (OUD), and interpersonal trauma stemming from physical, emotional, sexual abuse or neglect, the complex etiologies and interplay between interpersonal and structural traumas in CNCP populations are under-examined. Research has documented the relationship between experiencing multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the likelihood of developing an OUD as an adult. However, the ACEs framework is criticized for failing to name the social and structural contexts that shape ACE vulnerabilities in families. Social scientific theory and ethnographic methods offer useful approaches to explore how interpersonally- and structurally-produced traumas inform the experiences of co-occurring CNCP, substance use, and mental health. We report findings from a qualitative and ethnographic longitudinal cohort study of patients with CNCP (n = 48) who received care in safety-net settings and their primary care providers (n = 23). We conducted semi-structured interviews and clinical and home-based participant observation from 2018 to 2020. Here we focus our analyses on how patients and providers explained and situated the role of patient trauma in the larger clinical context of reductions in opioid prescribing to highlight the political landscape of the United States opioid overdose crisis and its impact on clinical interactions. Findings reveal the disproportionate burden structurally-produced, racialized trauma places on CNCP, substance use and mental health symptoms that shapes patients’ embodied experiences of pain and substance use, as well as their emotional experiences with their providers. Experiences of trauma impacted clinical care trajectories, yet providers and patients expressed limited options for redress. We argue for an adaptation of trauma-informed care approaches that contextualize the structural determinants of trauma and their interplay with interpersonal experiences to improve clinical care outcomes.

The Paradigm of Complexity in Edgar Morin and the Latourian Epistemology

This study compares the philosophies and epistemological proposals of philosophers and sociologists Edgar Morin and Bruno Latour. To this end, we present Morin’s thought - specifically his critique of what he calls the old paradigm of simplification and his proposal of a new paradigm of complexity or complex thought. We then attempt to demonstrate, by comparison, how Latourian epistemology fits within this epistemological proposal or new paradigm as an example of a metatheory that is capable of successfully dealing with the challenges presented by Morin’s complex thought. This study seeks to contribute to the field of knowledge theory in social sciences and studies in Science, Technology, and Society through a more descriptive, comprehensive, and careful methodological and epistemological proposal concerning the various constitutive factors of any research object in the field of knowledge and technologies.

Dialogic Intentions: Social Practice and Moral Character in Contemporary Arts and Education

The decades-long surge of artistic interest in social practice finds a potential confluence in the recent rise of moral character as an object of psychological study, with both ideas filtering downstream into contemporary arts education philosophy and practices. Although much has been written about the social turn in the arts and the cultivation of character in education, few investigators have analyzed the relationship between them. This conceptual essay contributes to a possible convergence by examining the tensions and opportunities inherent in the integration of experimental art-making with the traditions of social science and moral theory. Its purpose is to take a personality-based approach to socially engaged art-making: to understand why some artists engage in social practice and the implications for arts education. This inquiry draws from a series of public interviews that examine the works and values, thoughts and feelings, practices and perspectives of contemporary artists working in higher education.

Discerning media bias within a network of political allies and opponents: Disruption by partisans

An individual’s opinions about media bias derive from their own independent assessment of media outputs combined with peer pressure from networked political allies and opponents. Here we generalize previous idealized, probabilistic models of the perception formation process, based on a network of Bayesian learners inferring the bias of a coin, by introducing obdurate agents (partisans), whose opinions stay fixed. It is found that even one partisan destabilizes an allies-only network, stopping it from achieving asymptotic learning and forcing persuadable agents to vacillate indefinitely (turbulent nonconvergence) between the true coin bias θ0 and the partisan’s belief θp. The dwell time td at the partisan’s belief increases, as the partisan fraction f increases, and decreases, when multiple partisans disagree amongst themselves. In opponents-only networks, asymptotic learning occurs, whether or not partisans are present. However, the counterintuitive tendency to reach wrong conclusions first, identified in previous work with zero partisans, does not persist in general for θ0≠θp in complete networks; it is a property of sparsely connected systems (e.g. Barabási–Albert networks with attachment parameter ≲10). In mixed networks containing allies and opponents, partisans drive counterintuitive outcomes, which depend sensitively, on where they reside. A strongly balanced triad exhibits intermittency with a partisan (sudden transitions between long intervals of static beliefs and turbulent nonconvergence) and asymptotic learning without a partisan. Counterintuitively, in an unbalanced triad, one of the persuadable agents achieves asymptotic learning at θ0, when the partisan is located favorably, but is driven away from θ0, when there is no partisan. The above results are interpreted briefly in terms of the social science theory of structural balance.

Men who hate women: The misogyny of involuntarily celibate men

This article uses computational data and social science theories to analyze the misogynistic discourse of the involuntary celibate (“incel”) community. We analyzed every comment ( N = 3,686,110) produced over 42 months on a popular incel discussion board and found that nearly all active participants use misogynistic terms. Participants used misogynistic terms nearly one million times and at a rate 2.4 times greater than their use of neutral terms for women. The majority of participants’ use of misogynistic terms does not increase or decrease with post frequency, suggesting that members arrive (rather than become) misogynistic. We discuss these findings in relation to theories of intersectionality, masculinity, and sexism. We likewise discuss potential policies for mitigating incel misogyny and similar online discourse.

Teaching beginner-level computational social science: interactive open education resources with learnr and shiny apps

The article presents the use of open, inclusive pedagogical frameworks to develop a series of open education resources (OERs), specifically, interactive shiny web applications for teaching beginner-level computational social science (CSS) in undergraduate social science education. CSS is an emerging discipline that integrates data science methods with social science theories and research designs. However, undergraduate social science students could face a lack of a sense of STEM identity or belonging. Also, compared to STEM majors in natural science or engineering, average undergraduate social science students come in with limited mathematical or statistical knowledge. The OERs developed and tested in this article are designed with pedagogical frameworks that help overcome these barriers faced by students from diverse backgrounds and offer students a jump-start in learning CSS. This article presents the details of the tools, classroom implementation (in the form of a 6-week workshop series), the pedagogy frameworks applied, and the assessment methods and outcomes.

Artificial intelligence and the future of evaluation education: Possibilities and prototypes

AbstractAdvancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) signal a paradigmatic shift with the potential for transforming many various aspects of society, including evaluation education, with implications for subsequent evaluation practice. This article explores the potential implications of AI for evaluator and evaluation education. Specifically, the article discusses key issues in evaluation education including equitable language access to evaluation education, navigating program, social science, and evaluation theory, understanding evaluation theorists and their philosophies, and case studies and simulations. The paper then considers how chatbots might address these issues, and documents efforts to prototype chatbots for three use cases in evaluation education, including a guidance counselor, teaching assistant, and mentor chatbot for young and emerging evaluations or anyone who wants to use it. The paper concludes with ruminations on additional research and activities on evaluation education topics such as how to best integrate evaluation literacy training into existing programs, making strategic linkages for practitioners, and evaluation educators.

Medical Aid in Dying: New Frontiers in Medicine, Law, and Culture

Medical aid in dying (MAID) has been a productive target for social scientific inquiry at the intersections of law and medicine over the past two decades. Insofar as MAID crystallizes and reflects personal and cultural understandings of key concepts such as individualism, dependency, dignity, and care, it is a rich site for social scientific theorizing. This article reviews and assesses the contributions of social scientific perspectives to research on MAID. We propose that social scientific research on MAID offers four distinctive contributions: its descriptive (rather than normative) orientation, its focus on cultural meanings, its insights into processes of knowledge production, and its comparative lens. The article's major sections describe ( a) attitudes toward MAID, ( b) MAID-related social movements, ( c) legalization approaches, and ( d) lived experiences of MAID in permissive jurisdictions. We conclude by reflecting on how MAID scholarship can inform social inquiry into other areas in which law and medicine converge.

STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING THE COMPANY'S POTENTIAL TO INCREASE THE ENTERPRISE'S INVESTMENT ATTRACTIVENESS

The subject of the study is a complex of theoretical and methodological provisions and practical recommendations on increasing the effectiveness of the formation and use of the potential of enterprise management strategies through the creation and implementation of organizational and economic principles to increase their investment attractiveness. Currently, there is no objective method of managing the investment potential of an enterprise, which is capable of reliably reflecting possible problems of functioning and risks of investing funds in the enterprise. Existing methods of managing the investment potential of a company consider either an insufficient number of factors necessary for evaluation, or an excessive number of factors to be evaluated, as a result of which it is quite difficult for the investor to isolate the necessary information and make the right decision. For such enterprises the increase of investment attractiveness is possible only by qualitative changes in the management and production system, in particular by reorientation of the production process to the needs of the market, which will improve the image of the enterprises on the market and create new or develop existing competitive advantages. Methodology. The theoretical and methodological basis of the article consists of general scientific methods: comparison, dialectical development of economic systems, methodology of normative-legal and information-analytical support of the functioning of enterprises, formation and use of the strategy of potential management of the enterprise, creation and implementation of organizational and economic principles to increase their investment attractiveness. The research was based on the synthesis of social science theories, organizational systems theory and corporate finance theory. According to the system approach, the potential of the enterprise was considered as the potential of the financial system of the enterprise. The purpose of the article is the development of theoretical, methodological provisions and practical recommendations for the creation and implementation of the strategy of managing the financial potential of the enterprise in order to increase the investment attractiveness of the enterprise. Conclusion. The research carried out in the article consists in modernization and optimization of the considered strategies of financial potential management of the enterprise in order to increase the investment attractiveness of the enterprise, identification of an evaluation method that would meet the needs of investors, taking into account the factors significant for the assessment of the investment attractiveness of the enterprise, capable to objectively characterize its advantages and disadvantages and investment risks for investors.

Improving the Creation of Social Science Theory in Journalism and Mass Communication Scholarship

Research into journalism and mass communication (JMC) theory use and creation suggests that scholars fall short of standards required for the scientific method to perform properly. Sociologist Gerald Hage said this reflects inconsistency among scholars in the use of language and a lack of tools used to create social science theory. To address these conditions, this essay draws on three books to provide a glossary of terms about social science theory and to develop a format for presenting such theory. The aim is to improve consistency and precision in the creation of JMC social science theory.

Advances in AI for web integrity, equity, and well-being.

My research develops data mining, AI, and applied machine learning methods to combat malicious actors (sockpuppets, ban evaders, etc.) and dangerous content (misinformation, hate, etc.) on web platforms. My vision is to create a trustworthy online ecosystem for everyone and the next generation of socially-aware methods that promote health, equity, and integrity of users, communities, and platforms online. Broadly, in my research, I create novel graph, content (NLP, multimodality), and adversarial machine learning methods leveraging terabytes of data to detect, predict, and mitigate online threats. My interdisciplinary research innovates socio-technical solutions that I achieve by amalgamating computer science with social science theories. My research seeks to start a paradigm shift from the current slow and reactive approach against online harms to agile, proactive, and whole-of-society solutions. In this article, I shall describe my research efforts along four thrusts to achieve my goals: (1) Detection of harmful content and malicious actors across platforms, languages, and modalities; (2) Robust detection models against adversarial actors by predicting future malicious activities; (3) Attribution of the impact of harmful content in online and real world; and (4) Mitigation techniques to counter misinformation by professionals and non-expert crowds. Together, these thrusts give a set of holistic solutions to combat cyberharms. I am also passionate about putting my research into practice-my lab's models have been deployed on Flipkart, influenced Twitter's Birdwatch, and now being deployed on Wikipedia.

Logic and Economics II: Pure Neoclassicism, Part A

ABSTRACT This paper investigates Pure Neoclassical economics from a logical standpoint. After discussing validity criteria, it focuses on theoretical individualism, a core foundation of Neoclassical theorizing in all its variants. Careful analysis of this doctrine reveals that, while mathematically valid, it generates many propositional contradictions in all economic and social science theories grounded upon it.

Urban vernacular landscapes: toward a visual pedagogy of the ordinary

ABSTRACT Although many social scientists employ visual media in their research and teaching, the connection between the ‘visual’ and the ‘social science’ is often tenuous. Photographs often are reserved for illustrating textual concepts, or making standard findings more interesting to readers than the normal textual exposition in tables, pie charts, graphs, or other methods of data visualization. In my research about urban lives and cultures, I have extensively photographed what John Brinckerhoff Jackson called ‘vernacular landscapes.’ Although photojournalists, as well as documentary and street photographers, have also engaged in similar image capturing practices, as opposed to their more aesthetic and artistic accomplishments, I have tried to firmly connect my images to normal social science theories and methods. This visually enhanced essay will describe, discuss, and give examples from my own photographic studies of urban vernacular landscapes over several decades and across the globe. It is hoped that in this autobiographical process, the difference between artistic and scientific photography as to theories of class, globalization, race, and other social issues will be made clearer.