Social Sciences And Humanities Research Council Of Canada Research Articles

Universities and Academics

TAKING STOCK: CANADIAN STUDIES IN THE NINETIES. David Cameron (Montreal: Association for Canadian Studies, 1996) 238 pp. GEORGE GRANT. SELECTED LETTERS. Edited with an introduction by William Christian (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996) 402 pp. GEORGE GRANT AND THE SUBVERSION OF MODERNITY: ART, PHILOSOPHY POLITICS, RELIGION, AND EDUCATION. Edited by Arthur Davis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996) 346 pp. THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANADA: 50 YEARS OF NATIONAL ACTIVITY BY THE SOCIAL SCIENCE FEDERATION OF CANADA. Donald Fisher (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1991) 115 pp. THE POLITICS OF COLLEGIALITY: RETRENCHMENT STRATEGIES IN CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES. Cynthia Hardy (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen's University Press, 1996) 232 pp. SOCIAL CRITICISM: THE UNSOLVED RIDDLE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND OTHER ESSAYS. Stephen Leacock. Edited and introduced by Alan Bowker (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996) 145 pp. WORKING IN ENGLISH: HISTORY, INSTITUTION, RESOURCES. Heather Murray (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996) 253 pp. OUTSIDE THE LINES: ISSUES IN INTERDISCIPLANARY RESEARCH. Liora Salter and Alison Hearn (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996) 212 pp. The eight volumes listed above cover a range of years and diverse topics, yet raise many similar issues. Donald Fisher examines the of the Social Science Federation of Canada, which brought together the several disciplines that fell under the label of social science. Liora Salter and Alison Hearn discuss the nature of disciplines and the problems of doing interdisciplinary work. David Cameron unravels the of one interdiscipline: Canadian Studies. Heather Murray uses an interdisciplinary methodology to analyse the discipline of English. In addition, she draws considerably on the work of George Grant in her discussions regarding the nature of curriculum. William Christian's collection of Grant's letters, combined with the volume of essays about Grant edited by Arthur Davis, provides access to Grant's personal writings and analysis of his work. The reprinted collection of Stephen Leacock's essays, edited by Alan Bowker, makes his non-fiction work more readily accessible. As academics, both Grant and Leacock had considerable influence on universities and on their particular disciplines. Finally, Cynthia Hardy addresses the politics of retrenchment policies in the 1980s those policies that are having an impact on universities now and that will continue to do so in the future - and the role played by collegiality in the implementation of retrenchment strategies in Canadian universities. Donald Fisher's The Social Sciences in Canada, spanning 50 years of the Social Science Federation of Canada (SSFC), takes an historical, sociological approach with the intention of creating a structural of the society. He argues that the history of this organization is probably the best barometer that we have for recording the changes that have occurred in the relation between social scientists and Canadian society (1). In charting the activities and significant events of the SSFC, he also illustrates the increasing involvement of the government in universities; in particular, its role in the setting of research agendas and the recent shift towards decreased funding. Fisher's research is divided chronologically into three chapters. Chapter I, entitled A Council of Independent Researchers, covers the period 1940 to 1958; Chapter II spans the years 1958 to 1977 and focusses on the Social Science Research Council of Canada (SSRC) and the Canada Council; and Chapter III looks at the very recent past, examining the SSFC and the Social Sciences and humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) during the period 1977 to 1990. The Canadian Social Science Research Council (CSSRC) was formally established in 1940 as the Canadian Research Council in the Social Sciences. …

Making Up Mind: The Early Sociology of Invention

Making Up Mind: The Early Sociology of Invention DAVID MCGEE As an aside in a 1988 response to some rather odd attacks by Mi­ chael Fores over the emergence of the engineering sciences, Edwin T. Layton offered an unusual defense of a common historical prac­ tice. The practice in question was the use of the terms “empiric” and “scientific” to characterize the premodern and modern eras in technology. The thrust of Layton’s defense was that these terms had become a “conventional shorthand” for referring to complex change, comparable to the use of the term “neolithic” when referring to the millennia of prehistory. There was no danger in using such terms, according to Layton, because they are only labels and therefore do not necessarily carry the “metaphysical freight” that so worried Fores.1 Layton is probably correct in saying that the terms “empiric” and “scientific” have become little more than labels. Nevertheless, labels have a history, and it is one troublesome episode in that history that I examine in this article. Inquiry shows that much of our current usage of these two terms has its origins in an extremely problematic “sociology of invention”—to use the phrase of S. C. Gilfillan—which first emerged during the 1920s and 1930s and then enjoyed a revival in the 1950s and 1960s.2 The most prominent member of this school was sociologist William Fielding Ogburn, most famous for his theory Dr. McGee received his Ph.D. from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto in 1994 for his dissertation on design in naval architecture, “Floating Bodies, Naval Science: Science, Design, and the Captain Controversy, 1860-1870.” He currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). He would like to acknowledge the financial assistance of the SSHRC, which made this article possible, and to thank Bert Hall and Ian Hacking for their comments and support. 'Edwin T. Layton, “Science as a Form of Action: The Role of the Engineering Sciences,” Technology and Culture 29 (1988): 89. Fores’s attack is in the same volume: Michael Fores, “Transformations and the Myth of ‘Engineering Science’: Magic in a White Coat,” Technology and Culture 29 (1988): 62-81. Fores lists those who have pre­ sented the emergence of modern technology as an empiric/science split: see p. 77. 2S. Colum Gilfillan, The Sociology ofInvention (Cambridge, Mass., 1935).© 1995 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/95/3604-0002$01.00 773 774 David McGee of “cultural lag.”3 Perhaps the most influential member in the history of technology was Abbott Payson Usher, who introduced the gestalt theory of design in his 1929 A History ofMechanical Inventions. Other members of the school include Gilfillan himself, journalist and histo­ rian Waldemar Kaempffert, sociologist L. L. Bernard, and chemical engineer Joseph Rossman.4 Together these men articulated a set of ideas that have had a powerful influence on thinking about the emer­ gence of the engineering sciences, the evolution of technology, and the nature of design. Nevertheless, it was a set of ideas driven by seemingly unavoidable contradictions, all of them having to do, I argue, with making up the characteristics of mind to suit explanatory schemas. On the metahistorical level, Ogburn and others argued that inven­ tion was determined by culture, which seemed to require the invoca­ tion of a universally primitive, mechanical, habit-ridden mind of the sort that could be dictated to by outside forces. But a mechanical mind raised a question: if humans were essentially automatons, how could they ever invent anything new? The question could be an­ swered only by invoking a second kind of mind, one endowed with some degree of creativity, thereby negating the original premises about the universality of human nature as well as the argument for cultural determinism. The sociology of invention was also concerned to offer a historical explanation for the technological supremacy of the West, where the starting place was again a universally primitive mind whose unconscious “empiricism,” habit-ridden “conservatism,” and fear of change acted to retard progress. This explained the lim­ ited achievements of...

Labour Market Problems, and Psychological Well‐Being: A Panel Study of Canadian Youth in Transition From School to Work∗

Abstract Four‐year panel survey data are used to examine the effects on psychological well‐being of unemployment, underemployment, educational satisfaction, and position in the transition from school to work among Canadian youth. Controlling on social support and baseline psychological status, labour market problems are found to have small, significant negative effects on feelings of self‐esteem, powerlessness, and depression among high school graduates, but not among university graduates. The effects of educational satisfaction and transition status are less clear. ∗ Revised version of a paper presented to the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, June 1992, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Financial assistance was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), the Alberta and Ontario governments, the Solicitor General Canada, the cities of Edmonton and Toronto, the University of Alberta and Laurentian University. Useful suggestions from anonymo...

Allocation and evaluation: The approach at the social sciences and humanities research council of Canada

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is the principal source of funds for university-based research and scholarship in the social sciences and the humanities in Canada. Hence, its funding practices have a significant impact on what research is conducted and how that research is performed. At the same time, high levels of demand for research funding in the face of a limited budget accentuate the need to ensure the best use of funds available. Consequently, the SSHRC pursues a range of evaluation activities ranging from the peer-based adjudication of grant requests for operational purposes, to program evaluations for strategic purposes.

L'Unesco et le développement de l'archivistique : utilisation, diffusion et évaluation des études Ramp

Unesco and the development of archivai science : the use, dissemination and evaluation of RAMP studies. With the help of funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) the authors undertook in 1988 a research programme wich is divided in three phases (international legislation, archivai principles and functions, education and research) concerning the state of archivai science. During the second phase, they completed an analysis and evaluation of the content and use of Unesco's RAMP studies. The present article contains the resuit of their research. In it they discuss the degree of application and use of the information contained in these studies within archives and teaching institutions. After describing the methodology used in the study, they analyse the data collected concerning the RAMP studies themselves, their use and the evaluation of them by participants. Finally, the authors report on the situation and provide recommendations.

Re-orienting evaluation in a research council

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) proposed to reorient its evaluation function to move away from a programme-based, objectives-oriented system towards a more strategic approach looking at the wider and longer-term impacts. This study by the Programme of Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (PREST) recommended a combination of the development of facilitating tools for evaluation which can be used at several levels, and strategic studies. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.