Sociology Of Science Research Articles

Embracing Liminality and "Staying with the Trouble" on (and off) Screen

Embracing Liminality and "Staying with the Trouble" on (and off) Screen

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Systems of Socio-Humanitarian Expertise in Technoscience: Global Experience in Review

Introduction. This article is dedicated to the highly relevant philosophical and methodological problem of organising effective social oversight for developing and implementation innovative technoscientific projects. The fundamental transformations that science has induced in matters of production and its associated technological/socio-administrative functions have made this topic all the more relevant, to the detriment of its humanistic component. The intensive expansion of technosciences into all spheres of human existence accentuates the risks typically associated with it. The nature of the technoscience thus requires transdisciplinary comprehension and reorientation towards traditional human values — those of truth and common good. An effective mechanism for social reflection on the achievements of technoscience falls under the purview of socio-humanitarian expertise. This expertise dictates that we must attract not only the elite scientific community but also social institutions, public organisations and broad masses of volunteers — non-professional experts who possess the ability for creative self-organisation and can provide useful insights. Methods. We have employed comparative analytical methods of real experiences to establish the relevance of the main provisions of the Russian socio-humanitarian expertise to foreign approaches and programmes, such as Responsible Research and Innovation, Social Assessment of Technology, among others, defining the ethically acceptable contours of modern technoscience. Results and Discussion. To accomplish this task, we researched American, Western European and Russian philosophers of science and technology and the empirical materials of domestic and foreign sociology of science, in which the results of public reflection on techno-scientific achievements are recorded. We also analysed opinion polls and expert interviews on the problems of socio-humanitarian expertise. Conclusion. Based on an analysis of studies devoted to the ethical aspects of modern technoscience, gaps and shortcomings of the existing methods and techniques of socio-humanitarian expertise are identified, and examples of successful communication between science and society are demonstrated in order to increase social trust in modern technoscience and reduce potential risks.

Social inequality and youth: key trends of 2020

The paper deals with the analysis of one of the most important and always relevant social phenomena called social inequality, which is viewed through the prism of youth ideas about the forms of its manifestation and features. The authors present the results of a sociological study aimed at identifying the attitude of modern Russian youth to the problem of social inequality in general, as well as the diversification of its forms in the modern world and in Russia. The study was conducted in 2020 by professors of the Sociological Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University under the direction of Doctor of Sociological Sciences Professor N.G. Osipova and Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor S.O. Elishev with the Financial support of the RFBR, within the framework of the project No. 18-011-01106 “New forms of social inequality and the peculiarities of their manifestation in modern Russia”.In the course of the study in the summer of 2020, 628 young people (aged 16 to 30) from different regions of Russia were interviewed using the online questionnaire survey method. The distribution of respondents by gender and occupation corresponds to the parameters of graduates of humanitarian universities. 28% of young people surveyed were males, and 72% were females. 9% of the respondents (that is, more than half of them) were young people aged 20 to 24 years, 24,84% — from 16 to 19 years old, 12,26% — from 25 to 30 years old.The research methodology (which is based on the questionnaire) was in many ways similar to the methodology used by the authors in 2019 to analyze the value orientations and perceptions of student youth in Moscow universities. This methodology was supplemented with new blocks of questions related to the peculiarities and specifics of the manifestation in Russia of such relatively new forms of social inequality as digital divide and inequality in health. The questions to which the answers were received were of both general and specific nature and, in general, reflected the key trends in the attitude of young people to the problem of social inequality in the conditions of the complex social situation that developed in 2020 in all respects. A detailed analysis of the answers to the questions presented in the questionnaire showed that, although social inequality is recognized by modern Russian youth as an urgent social problem, it does not occupy a key place among the topical problems for Russian youth.

Deliberative Stakeholder Engagement in Person-centered Health Research

ABSTRACT Robust stakeholder engagement in health research requires broad communicative integration, not only of patients but also other stakeholders such as health system leaders, clinicians, and researchers. As patients’ personal narratives tend to focus on their own health care experiences, it can be challenging to incorporate these perspectives at the health system level, where discussions often address technical issues such as strategies for aggregating and interpreting population-level data. The PaTH Health System Leaders Demonstration Project provides a case study to explore the potential usefulness of deliberative techniques for facilitating heterogeneous stakeholder engagement in what some sociologists of science call ‘hybid forums.’ Close textual analysis of the event transcript yields insight on how social learning motivates group opinion shifts in deliberative processes. Reconstruction of the event’s narrative arc marks a path of ‘dynamic updating’ that manifests in group opinion change. Analysis of episodes where participants perform ‘deliberative openness’ lends qualitative nuance to previously reported process measure outcomes reflecting high participant satisfaction. Such inquiry helps address a gap in literature on stakeholder engagement in comparative effectiveness health research, sheds light on the understudied genre of ‘empowered deliberation’, and illustrates design principles and practices useful for upstream integration of stakeholder engagement in the research process.

Science of science

BACKGROUND. The increasing availability of digital data on scholarly inputs and outputs – from research funding, productivity, and collaboration to paper citations and scientist mobility – offers unprecedented opportunities to explore the structure and evolution of science. The science of science (SciSci) offers a quantitative understanding of the interactions among scientific agents across diverse geographic and temporal scales: It provides insights into the conditions underlying creativity and the genesis of scientific discovery, with the ultimate goal of developing tools and policies that have the potential to accelerate science. In the past decade, SciSci has benefited from an influx of natural, computational, and social scientists who together have developed big data–based capabilities for empirical analysis and generative modeling that capture the unfolding of science, its institutions, and its workforce. The value proposition of SciSci is that with a deeper understanding of the factors that drive successful science, we can more effectively address environmental, societal, and technological problems.ADVANCES. Science can be described as a complex, self-organizing, and evolving network of scholars, projects, papers, and ideas. This representation has unveiled patterns characterizing the emergence of new scientific fields through the study of collaboration networks and the path of impactful discoveries through the study of citation networks. Microscopic models have traced the dynamics of citation accumulation, allowing us to predict the future impact of individual papers. SciSci has revealed choices and trade-offs that scientists face as they advance both their own careers and the scientific horizon. For example, measurements indicate that scholars are risk-averse, preferring to study topics related to their current expertise, which constrains the potential of future discoveries. Those willing to break this pattern engage in riskier careers but become more likely to make major breakthroughs. Overall, the highest-impact science is grounded in conventional combinations of prior work but features unusual combinations. Last, as the locus of research is shifting into teams, SciSci is increasingly focused on the impact of team research, finding that small teams tend to disrupt science and technology with new ideas drawing on older and less prevalent ones. In contrast, large teams tend to develop recent, popular ideas, obtaining high, but often short-lived, impact.OUTLOOK. SciSci offers a deep quantitative understanding of the relational structure between scientists, institutions, and ideas because it facilitates the identification of fundamental mechanisms responsible for scientific discovery. These interdisciplinary data-driven efforts complement contributions from related fields such as scientometrics and the economics and sociology of science. Although SciSci seeks long-standing universal laws and mechanisms that apply across various fields of science, a fundamental challenge going forward is accounting for undeniable differences in culture, habits, and preferences between different fields and countries. This variation makes some cross-domain insights difficult to appreciate and associated science policies difficult to implement. The differences among the questions, data, and skills specific to each discipline suggest that further insights can be gained from domain-specific SciSci studies, which model and identify opportunities adapted to the needs of individual research fields.Abstract. Identifying fundamental drivers of science and developing predictive models to capture its evolution are instrumental for the design of policies that can improve the scientific enterprise – for example, through enhanced career paths for scientists, better performance evaluation for organizations hosting research, discovery of novel effective funding vehicles, and even identification of promising regions along the scientific frontier. The science of science uses large-scale data on the production of science to search for universal and domainspecific patterns. Here, we review recent developments in this transdisciplinary field.

Polska historiografia po roku 1989: spojrzenie socjologa nauki

The text presents an overview of the state of Polish historiography after 1989 seen from the perspective of the sociology of science, in particular the so-called critical sociology. It points, firstly, to the main achievements, weaknesses, and potential directions for the development of disciplines, especially global history; secondly, to the history of empires, closely related to global history; and thirdly, to the study of the history of modernity in its various understandings and forms.

Проблемы определения вины юридических лиц в административном праве

The problem of determining the guilt of a legal entity for an administrative offense is currently very relevant in legal science. This problem is the central focus of this work. However, in order to fully disclose the problem of determining the guilt of legal entities, the article highlights the problems that are associated with the concept of a legal entity and its essence. The presented paper lists the approaches to determining the essence of a legal entity. The concept of a legal entity in accordance with the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is given. The article analyzes the concept of a legal entity under civil law with the concept of an organization, which is defined in the science of sociology. This article gives the concept of a collective subject. And also, the correlation of the concept of a collective subject and the concept of a legal entity is considered. Further, the article identifies three main approaches to determining the guilt of legal entities in administrative law: subjective, objective and complex, and also expresses the opinion of the authors of the article about the approaches under consideration. The paper presents the author’s conclusions and possible solutions to problems related to the concept of a legal entity and the definition of the legal entity’s guilt in administrative law for administrative offenses.

Bourdieu’s Field Theory and Science Education: Possible Articulations and Appropriations

Based on contributions from the sociology of science in the field of Science Education, this article aims to explore and elucidate the concept of fields, formulated by Pierre Bourdieu, in the objects of study of this area. This theoretical study is structured in three parts, which are articulated throughout the text: a synthesis of the general and invariable principles of fields; an elaboration of an analogy between the different field theories (sociology and physics); a discussion about the appropriation of field theories in research studies on Science Education that use them. We discuss the field as a social space, the agents’ habitus, the positions in the field, disputes and interests, distribution of the specific capital, limits, boundaries, and the field autonomy. An interpretation of this complex Bourdieusian concept was defended, in a way to determine the limits of the field and their agents, based on how research has appropriated it. Therefore, a theoretical framework was advanced, coming up with the possible and effective articulations between Science Education and Bourdieu’ Sociology of Science.

WESTERN NOMADIC DISCOURSE AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE OTHER

Max Weber was concerned with aestheticism within the framework of the sciences of sociology and philosophy. He explained its effect on communication among different societies, on the one hand, and looked at it as a state that aimed to demonstrate beauty in a certain matter, on the other hand. Therefore, it is known as the quality that makes a thing an aesthetic object, in other words, the relationship which links the beautiful thing with its perception. Thus, Max set it out by defining it with the voluntary relationship in which he expresses the perception of ideas that are created and chosen by the individual

Resilience Thinking in the Rural Human Settlements’ Development and Management

The article makes a case for the integration of resilience thinking in the debate on rural human settlements in the regional planning. It observes the numerous definitions of resilience within different research traditions, disciplines and fields, such as sociology, psychology, medicine, engineering, economics, ecology and political science have affected the decision-making processes in different human settlements across the globe. The dynamics of integrating resilience theory and practice into rural settlement planning and implications for sustainable development are little understood. The paper suggests the broadening of resilience drawing on diverse perspectives that appeal to wide ranging interdisciplinary experiences. Using the multi-case study approach, the article suggests how ideas of resilience can be translated into practice and how practices of resilience can be theorised in the context of the regional planning in Zimbabwe. Undoubtedly, an integrated framework for the development country’s space economy should accommodate a wide range of concepts, strategies and models of resilience together with the underpinning policy implementation modalities.

Disciplinary Culture and Effective Teaching: A Cultural Anthropological Study

During the last couple of decades, many researchers have been trying to explicate "effective teaching" in higher education. As a result, when one searches the term, a vast amount of papers and research reports pop up in the literature, involving lists of attributes and competencies of effective teachers. But the impressive point is that "effectiveness" has been viewed mostly from a technical vantage point and disciplinary differences have not received proportionate attention. At the same time, some sociologists of science began to view disciplines as tribes and territories who own their exclusive norms, rituals, and values. Hence, this research aims at investigating effective teaching in higher education within the framework of disciplinary culture. Methodologically, the research may be deemed as interpretive ethnography as it aims at representing emically how members of disciplinary cultures perceive and interpret effective teaching. Hence, based on Tony Becher classification of disciplines into civil and rural, two postgraduate classes were selected, namely from Pure Mathematics (involving 15 students to represent civil disciplines) and Education Studies (involving 18 students to represent rural disciplines). To collect data, the researcher deployed non-participant observation for a full semester and informal interviews were also conducted at regular intervals. The field notes and interview protocols were analyzed thematically to produce meaningful categories for results representation. As credibility was of great concern in the research, three strategies were used for this purpose namely member check, peer debriefing and prolonged engagement. Based on the interpretations, members of rural disciplines evaluate teaching as effective when it focuses on classic texts, cares about human and social issues, approaches laymen jargons, emphasizes understanding, appreciates variety of teaching strategies and learning styles, holds a critical stance towards cultural issues, and takes on a lenient approach in marking. On the other side, members of civil disciplines evaluate teaching as effective when it focuses on updated resources, is content-oriented, approaches professional terminology, emphasizes practicality, and takes on a tough stance on marking.

Unpacking ambiguity in ideational change: the polysemy of the ‘Europe of Knowledge’

What is ambiguity, and why does it matter in policy change? Often treated as an exogenous factor, the ambiguity of ideas has been considered a taken for granted entity instrumental to actors’ strategic action. Less attention has been devoted to elucidating the nature and drivers of ambiguity in the policy process. Building on the concept of ‘boundary objects’, originally developed within the sociology of science, this article identifies polysemy as one explanatory factor through which multiple and contradictory meanings are shared across a constellation of different actors. Empirically, the article examines how the idea of the ‘Europe of Knowledge’ in European education policy was first rejected in the mid-1990s and then adopted only a few years later thanks to its polysemy. By ‘objectifying’ an idea into a boundary object, polysemy can thus create entry or exit options in the institutional arena by legitimising actors’ cooperation and enabling (policy) entrepreneurship.

Pacific Matildas: Finding the Women in the History of Pacific Archaeology

In this paper I present the background and rationale for a new research project that aims to rediscover the first women who participated in the development of archaeology in the Pacific, from the 19^th to the mid-20^th century. I discuss how this research is inscribed in the history of women in science, responding to Rossiter’s plea to future scholars: to write a history and sociology of science that is more comprehensive by integrating ever more of the hidden women scientists, or ‘Matildas’. I consider how a history of these ‘Pacific Matildas’ can be connected to factors that have been identified as historically keeping women out of science (especially fieldwork-based sciences) as well as keeping them out of historical records about the making of science. After discussing the methodological and conceptual frameworks envisaged for such a project, I present some preliminary results of this research: a short overview of historical figures already identified and a brief examination of one early case-study in the history of the first women engaged in the discipline, that of Adèle de Dombasle in the mid-19th century. I conclude by highlighting what the first clues we can gather about such stories tell us both about the historical place of women in the field and the place of women in the history written about the field.

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL TRAINING OF FUTURE TEACHERS OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE UNIVERSITIES OF GERMANY

The purpose of the study is to identify key principles for structuring the content of psychological and pedagogical training of future teachers based on the analysis of the legal framework for professional training of teachers of secondary schools in Germany, and based on program-methodical and educational-methodical documentation of German universities as well. The author has found that the training of future secondary school teachers in German universities includes four blocks: 1) special-subject; 2) subject-didactic; 3) "Science of Education"; 4) professional and pedagogical practice. The author emphasizes the special significance of the block "Science of Education", because it reflects the content of psychological and pedagogical training of teachers. In the article it was revealed that the purpose of this block is to consider the main problems of teaching, education, and assessment of students, and the introduction of innovations based on the synthesis of knowledge in pedagogy, psychology, sociology. The basic fundamental task of the block "Science of Education" is to develop special reflective competence of future teachers. Teacher training standards for the block "Science of Education" are formulated in terms of competencies, which every future teacher should possess for the effective implementation of professional and pedagogical activities. There is a further development of the curriculum of psychological and pedagogical training of teachers on the basis of these standards. The central points of these standards are education and upbringing; profession and role of teacher; action strategies in decision-making situations; designing the learning process and learning environment; diagnostics, assessment, counseling; differentiation, integration, support; motivation for success and learning motivation; learning, development, socialization; communication, interaction and conflict management; media education; school development; research in the field of education. The author reveals two key areas of structuring the content of curricula in the block "Science of Education". The first one is based on the subject principle - through the definition of the list of disciplines and on the principle of interdisciplinarity. It provides conducting classes based on the synthesis of knowledge in pedagogical, psychological, and sociological sciences. It is proved that the interdisciplinary principle is determinative in the process of updating the content of psychological and pedagogical training of teachers in Germany.

Региональные политико-институциональные и этнополитические процессы на примере Республики Тыва

The article introduces the problems of political, institutional, and ethnopolitical processes using the case of the Republic of Tyva. The research featured latent and low-formalized structures that affect the regional political regime and political processes in Russian regions. The research objective was to analyze the influence of such latent structures of power and administration on the regional political regime in the Republic of Tyva. As a general methodological principle, the authors used the polyparadigmatic approach, as well as neo-institutional and poststructuralist methodology. The authors performed a quantitative and qualitative political analysis of five research projects based on questionnaires (2016–2020). The projects belonged to the Department of Applied Sociology and Political Science of the Tyva Institute of Humanitarian and Applied Socio-Economic Research. The analysis also included 23 in-depth expert surveys from 16 focus groups conducted in all areas of the republic. Formal institutions in ethno-national regions of Russia turned out to be incongruous to the modernization processes. They proved to have been replaced by clientele and parantella patterns, where institutional relations are just a by-product of money distribution among the dominant interest groups. However, the authors believe that Sh. V. Kara-ool managed to stabilize internal ethnopolitical processes in the Tyva Republic. The research results can help improve local policy in ethnic regions.

Assessment of management efficiency of city managers (based on focused interviews with entrepreneurs)

The topic of the research is relevant to modern sociological science and social practice. The research problem lies, on the one hand, in the importance of the development of the municipality through contracts for municipal-private cooperation, and on the other hand, in the absence of a comprehensive scientific understanding of the barriers to the implementation of this process. The aim of the research is to assess the effectiveness of the management practices of city managers, in particular, their potential to attract private capital to the municipality. The methodological basis of the research in general theoretical terms is based on the new theory of institutions, in particular, on the concept of institutional evolution by D. North, and in the specific applied - focused interviews conducted with representatives of the business community and local administration in the Southern Federal District. As a result of the research, the following obstacles to the effective work of city managers have been identified: imitation practices, low qualifications of municipal employees, reduced trust of entrepreneurs, high economic risks and institutional instability. To overcome the above problems, the following recommendations have been made: to solve the problems of joining the law on PPP and MPP with anti-corruption legislation, to create a body to support MPP projects and increase business confidence in the municipality by setting clear «rules of the game» in the economic space.

Conceptualization of the efficiency model of the institution of social protection of population (Part 1)

Today, we are faced with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which directly or indirectly affected all countries and regions of the world. The State policy of all countries is aimed at containing the spread of the virus and meeting the basic needs of people in forced isolation. This situation has once again proved the importance of the institution of social protection of population (hereinafter—ISPP) and the need to ensure the efficiency of its functioning. The high rates of growth of social changes, in turn, cause a certain lag behind the process of their scientific comprehension accumulation of issues unsolved by means of sociological science. Thus, the current system for assessing efficiency of the ISPP functioning in terms of the actually obtained result against the normative / planned one, as well as the system for assessing economic costs, do not meet the challenges faced by modern science and management. Many problems concerning assessment of the ISPP functioning remain unresolved. In particular, the entire range of difficulties faced by consumers of social services has not been fully disclosed; the issues of achieving a consistently high satisfaction of vulnerable groups of the population with various quantitative and qualitative parameters of service provision are acute. The article discusses the scientific concepts and approaches to assessing the effectiveness of social protection of population used in domestic and foreign social science and practice, and outlines the developed model for assessing effectiveness of the ISPP functioning on the example of the Republic of Tatarstan, which is based on an integrated approach that consists in fixing the temporal and spatial aspects of assessing effectiveness of the ISPP functioning.

THE ROLE AND BEHAVIOR OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL CAPITAL

At the intersection of the past and the future there is a point of present, which, due to external and internal socio-economic requirements, activates the subject himself, when uniting the sciences of economics and sociology, as well as psychology, philosophy and law, we see the development of a new scientific direction - social capital. Interdisciplinary and multi-vector methodological conception on development has the capabilities to use in all spheres of life, to develop a more productive and inclusive economy because it works directly with people and for people. The development of society and the formation of institutions of citizenship and economic growth are inherently connected with the new economic and social concept, which is an incentive for self-organization, and the establishment of interpersonal and intergroup relations, leading to a path of harmonization based on sincere help and trust. Formulation of the goals and objectives of the article (setting a task). A large amount of research on social capital, a wide and diverse direction of study directly inhibits the systemicity and orderliness of concepts and theoretical knowledge, so at the beginning of the study it is necessary to put problems, tasks, a place in the knowledge system and connection with other disciplines. The purpose of the study is to separate and determine the individuality of a person in the process of social capital, attitude and behavior of the individual and group at all levels of this concept, analysis, specifics and structural content of social capital. Methodology. During the research, to study and achieve the goal, the analysis of theoretical aspects and generalizations of scientific sources, dialectic cognition of the formation of social capital, revealed a kind of economic concept, methods of induction and deduction, abstraction of theoretical provisions and dialectic cognition were carried out. Results. The article raises the issue of the resource of socio-economic growth and improvement, on the basis of intergroup and interpersonal interactions and relationships at a high micro level, on the foundation of trust and cooperation between people, single work and development of state, economic, civic platforms. It is with humans that the mechanism of development, accumulation and effective use begins. The accumulation of individuality in the development of social capital of the economic system and the main components of social capital, such as trust and reliability, are studied. The analysis of economic behavior of the individual when making a rational decision in the world of economic changes is carried out. The practical component of the main provisions of the concept and levels of social capital, and its role in the general concept of the economic component can further develop and be used in the process of developing the analysis and development of the individual with individual behavior and personal decision-making. Value/originality. The theory of social capital itself is new and little-studied, so any vector of study and research gives a new impetus to interest and further development of the detection of theoretical aspects, generalization to definition and essence, outlining the main directions of development and formation for the future.

A theory-based approach to evaluations intended to inform transitions toward sustainability

There is an urgent need for radical transformations of unsustainable socio-technical systems, such as food, mobility, and housing. These transformations will not take place without new policies and research. In order to achieve these transitions, learning must be a central feature based on thorough evaluations of the actions taken. Evaluations have been conducted and studied for decades, but traditional evaluation approaches have largely been developed to produce knowledge for incremental changes, not for radical transformations. This article develops a framework for interdisciplinary evaluations targeting transformative changes toward a more sustainable society. The framework combines evaluation theory and practice with transition theory, sociology of science, policy analyses, and environmental psychology. While the primary purpose of the framework is to help design evaluations that would better enhance learning for transitions, it can also be used for systematic meta-evaluations of past evaluations.