Suchergebnisse

In social science research, differences among groups or changes over time are a common focus of study. While means and variances are typically the basis for statistical methods used in this research, the underlying social theory often implies properties of distributions that are not well captured by these summary measures. Examples include the current controversies regarding growing inequality in earnings, racial differences in test scores, socio-economic correlates of birth outcomes, and the impact of smoking on survival and health. The distributional differences that animate the debates in these fields are complex. They comprise the usual mean-shifts and changes in variance, but also more subtle comparisons of changes in the upper and lower tails of distributions. Survey and census data on such attributes contain a wealth of distributional information, but traditional methods of data analysis leave much of this information untapped. In this monograph, we present methods for full comparative distributional analysis.; The methods are based on the relative distribution, a nonparametric complete summary of the information required for scale - invariant comparisons between two distributions. The relative distribution provides a general integrated framework for analysis. It offers a graphical component that simplifies exploratory data analysis and display, a statistically valid basis for the development of hypothesis-driven summary measures, and the potential for decomposition that enables one to examine complex hypotheses regarding the origins of distributional changes within and between groups. The monograph is written for data analysts and those interested in measurement, and it can serve as a textbook for a course on distributional methods. The presentation is application oriented

Most discourse about social integration assumes that it is positively linked to development, & that higher levels of both reduce social conflict. Analyzed here are the processes usually labeled "involuntary population displacement & resettlement" that are brought about by development, as well as how disintegrative effects can be mitigated & counteracted through policies enriched by social knowledge. Discussed here are the primary findings of a study of World Bank-financed development projects in 39 countries that anlayzed the processes of development-caused displacements & resettlements. 2 Photographs, 73 References. Adapted from the source document.

There is an underlying assumption in the social sciences that consciousness and social life are ultimately classical physical/material phenomena. In this ground-breaking book, Alexander Wendt challenges this assumption by proposing that consciousness is, in fact, a macroscopic quantum mechanical phenomenon. In the first half of the book, Wendt justifies the insertion of quantum theory into social scientific debates, introduces social scientists to quantum theory and the philosophical controversy about its interpretation, and then defends the quantum consciousness hypothesis against the orthodox, classical approach to the mind-body problem. In the second half, he develops the implications of this metaphysical perspective for the nature of language and the agent-structure problem in social ontology. Wendt's argument is a revolutionary development which raises fundamental questions about the nature of social life and the work of those who study it

Social impact assessment in Social Sciences builds a base of knowledge transparency and direct involvement in social inequality, creating an alternative to the stagnation of scientific results and allowing them to become a real impact through society improvements. Four parameters inform and measure the degree of researchers' involvement in a scientific project and the improvements that this generates in society. These parameters are: Dissemination, Transfer, Impact and Social Creation. Social improvement does not come until impact is achieved, since dissemination does not ensure knowledge application, and transfer does not ensure that its application generates improvement as even sometimes its generates deterioration. However, we can achieve social impact by writing scientific publications about successful social realities that others have done. The new concept of social creation is a step beyond, and defines the process when from social research itself new successful social realities that improve society in ways that hitherto had not existed emerge.

Studying Police Integrity in South Africa -- The Origin and Functions of the Police in South Africa: From Colonialism to Democracy -- Transition to a Police Service: From Enforcer to Protector -- South African Policing through Normative and Legal Boundaries -- Policing the Police: Internal Control of Police Misconduct -- Curtailing the Code of Silence -- Apartheid Aftershock: Race, Police, and Police Integrity -- Gender (In)Equality within the SAPS -- Police Integrity across Rank and File -- Police Integrity in the South African Context.

Social scientists usually assume that the attitudes, behaviors, and statuses of respondents to longitudinal surveys are not altered by the act of measuring them. If this assumption is false—or even if the quality of survey participants' responses change because of measurement—then social scientists risk mischaracterizing the existence, magnitude, and correlates of changes across survey waves in respondents' characteristics. In this article, we make the case that social scientists ought to worry more about panel conditioning biases. We also describe and demonstrate empirical strategies for estimating the magnitude of such biases in longitudinal surveys, and we provide illustrative empirical results that are germane to social science research. We end by outlining a research agenda that would generate specific information about the nature and degree of panel conditioning in specific longitudinal surveys as well as a broader understanding of the circumstances in which panel conditioning is most likely to occur.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS -- PREFACE -- I. Language/Power in the Social Sciences -- 1. Poetics, Politics, and Truth: An Invitation to Rhetorical Analysis -- 2. Text/Context: The Rhetoric of the Social Sciences -- II. Rhetoric and Truth in the Social Sciences -- 3. The Interpretation of Disciplinary Writing -- 4. No Anthro-Apologies, or Der(r)idHing a Discipline -- 5. Textual Form and Social Formation in Evans-Pritchard and Lévi-Strauss -- III. Social Science as Political Discourse -- 6. Communication, Persuasion, and The Establishment of Academic Disciplines: The Case of American Psychology -- 7. Poetics and Politics in Ethnographic Texts: A View from the Colonial Ethnography of Afghanistan -- 8. Listening for the Silences: The Rhetorics of the Research Field -- 9. The Rhetoric of Efficiency: Applied Social Science as Depoliticization -- 10. Fact, Fiction, and Factions: Scandal, Controversy, and "Filemaking" as Social Theory -- IV. Challenges for the Rhetoric of the Human Sciences -- 11. Human Needs and Control: A Foundation for Human Science and Critique -- 12. Narration, Reason, and Community -- 13. From Suspicion to Affirmation: Postmodernism and the Challenges of Rhetorical Analysis -- Index