Suchergebnisse

Throughout the United States and elsewhere in the Western world since World War II, there has been a grow ing interest in medicine. As early as the 1930's, popular accounts of scientific developments began to interest lay readers in medical care and innovation. The significant involvement of social and behavioral scientists in medical education and research began a decade ago and has increased rapidly. It has become apparent that the understanding of health and disease requires a holistic frame of reference in which the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of human behavior are appropriately related to the biological nature of man and the physical environ ment in which he lives. Emphasis upon the holistic approach to medical science and upon comprehensive health care has moved medicine to seek the services of social scientists, notably in connection with public health, preventive medicine, and psychiatry. And, as conceptualization and methodology in the social sciences have matured, social scientists have increasingly tended to interest themselves in applied fields and have come to grasp the significance of health and medicine as a major focus of organized human behavior. Thus, medical science, social science, and popular interest merge to formulate con temporary approaches and norms in health care.—Ed.

This textbook is part of series on sociology, social and political life. Chapter titles include Understanding Diversity, Panchayati Raj, Rural Administration, Urban Administration, Rural Livelihoods, and Urban Livelihoods. Made available by the National Repository of Open Educational Resources of India.

"This book presents various recently developed and traditional statistical techniques, which are increasingly being applied in social science research. The social sciences cover diverse phenomena arising in society, the economy and the environment, some of which are too complex to allow concrete statements; some cannot be defined by direct observations or measurements; some are culture- (or region- ) specific, while others are generic and common. Statistics, being a scientific method - as distinct from a 'science' related to any one type of phenomena - is used to make inductive inferences regarding various phenomena. The book addresses both qualitative and quantitative research (a combination of which is essential in social science research) and offers valuable supplementary reading at an advanced level for researchers."--

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- PART ONE DESCRIPTION, OBSERVATION AN D EXPLANATION -- I . Questions About Society -- II . Social Description -- III . Social Observation -- IV. Social Explanation -- PART TWO METHODS OF EXPLANATION -- V. Genetic -- VI . Intentions -- VII . Dispositions -- VIII . Reasons -- IX. Functions -- X. Empirical Generalizations -- XI . Theories -- Index

During the past decade, social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations have received considerable attention in the social sciences as well as in the philosophy of science. This article critically reviews the most important philosophical and social science contributions to the mechanism approach. The first part discusses the idea of mechanism-based explanation from the point of view of philosophy of science and relates it to causation and to the covering-law account of explanation. The second part focuses on how the idea of mechanisms has been used in the social sciences. The final part discusses recent developments in analytical sociology, covering the nature of sociological explananda, the role of theory of action in mechanism-based explanations, Merton's idea of middle-range theory, and the role of agent-based simulations in the development of mechanism-based explanations.

The fact-value distinction and the conception of science as a practice put a premium on the ethics of the scholarly community. The principles of ethics, not those of logic, govern this process of knowledge production. Values not only enable facts, but sustain our identities as scholars and enable the practice of science. In the absence of ethical commitments, we would become indistinct from polemicists and spin doctors. Ethics are instantiated and sustained through practices. As graduate students, we learn professional ethics the same way we learn other values and habits: by emulating those we respect. It is imperative that we practice and communicate tolerance and pluralism to our graduate students and younger colleagues, not merely the professional skills we associate with the production and evaluation of research. Adapted from the source document.

Sport is one of the most ubiquitous activities of modern contemporary society. The pervasiveness of sport can be seen by the enormous amount of primary and second ary involvement in it by people of all ages and social strata. Sport penetrates into and plays a significant role in all of the social institutions. The functions of play, games, and sport is a major theme running through much of the work of social scientists. Although there is no definitive list, there are seven major categories of functions of play, games, and sport: in stinct, developmental-cognitive, mastery, social integration, socialization, social control, and personal-expressive. There is a substantial body of literature in the social sciences dis cussing the importance of each of these functions.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. The Chinese Connection -- 2. The Drug Market in Burma -- 3. Wholesale Heroin Trafficking -- 4. Low-Level Heroin Trafficking -- 5. The Social Organization of Entrepreneurial Traffickers -- 6. The Retail Heroin Market in China -- 7. Women in the Heroin Trade -- 8. Drug Treatment with a Chinese Characteristic -- 9. Combating Drug Trafficking -- 10. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index -- About the Authors

This book provides a language and tools for finding bounds on predictions social and behavioral scientists can logically make from nonexperimental and experimental data. Manski draws on criminology, demography, epidemiology, social psychology, sociology, and economics to illustrate this language and to demonstrate the usefulness of the tools.