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Joseph Semini, a police inspector, became Malta's first criminologist when he published the first criminological text, Some Points on Criminology, in 1926. Although this text incorporates conceptual language borrowed from Lombroso, it would be wrong to dismiss it as an extension of the scuola positiva. Some Points on Criminology can really only be appreciated when framed within political affairs in Malta during the 1920s and 1930s. This article discusses Semini's criminology in the context in which he wrote it; his perception of the problems that motivated his writing and the source of ideas that influenced his approach to them. Although the book appears to have had little influence at the time, it is significant because he pursues an alternative to colonial criminology. Colonial criminology relied on analogies with Great Britain to understand Maltese crime problems and sought to develop Maltese institutions of criminal justice from British models. In bringing what Semini took to be an international science of criminology to the Maltese context, he was able to conceive of a more authentic Maltese response ; peer-reviewed

AbstractAgent-based models (ABMs) are increasingly important in social science research. They have two obvious apparent virtues: they can model complex macrosociological phenomena without strong assumptions about agents and without analytic solutions for models, and they seem to instantiate the methodological individualist program in a concrete way. We argue that the latter claim is false. After providing schematic accounts of ABM models and a first introduction to ways in which to characterize individualist explanations, we work through six conceptions of individualist explanations that are decreasingly "less individualist" and argue that ABM-based explanations in the social sciences are not inevitably individualist in any of these senses. ABMs allow for explanatory relations among social entities and properties in the model environment and they are silent on what basic agents are, allowing social entities and properties to play basic explanatory roles.

A study of the production, size, growth, & composition of the serial & monograph literature of the social sciences up to 1973 is reported. Data on the social science serial literature was obtained by analysis of the Check List of Social Science Serials (CLOSSS)--a machine-readable data base constructed specifically for the Design of Information Systems in the Social Sciences (DISISS) project. A wide range of published & unpublished primary & secondary statistics were used for a variety of other analyses. In many analyses the data is broken down by subject within the social sciences & by country of origin. The analysis of literature growth shows that it is necessary to reexamine the widely held view that the bulk of literature growth has been & will continue to be exponential. Accelerating & exponential growth has occurred in much of the serial literature, & in a few, but not all, parts of the monograph literature. There are currently signs of a leveling off in the rate of growth. 27 Tables, 5 Figures. AA.

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: The Pittsburgh Survey in Historical Perspective | Margo Anderson & -- Maurine W. Greenwald -- 2. The Social Survey Movement and Early Twentieth-Century Sociological Methodology | Martin Bulmer -- 3. The Pittsburgh Survey and the Survey Movement: An Episode in the History of Expertise | Stephen Turner -- 4. The Failure of Fair Wages and the Death of Labor Republicanism: The Ideological Legacy of the Pittsburgh Survey | Steven R. Cohen -- 5. The Pittsburgh Survey and "Greater Pittsburgh": A Muddled Metropolitan Geography | Edward K. Muller -- 6. Seeking the Meaning of Life: The Pittsburgh Survey and the Family | S. J. Kleinberg -- 7. Does the Evidence Support the Argument?: Margaret Byington's Cost of Living Survey of Homestead | Margo Anderson -- 8. Visualizing Pittsburgh in the 1900s: Art and Photography in the Service of Social Reform | Maurine W. Greenwald -- 9. Civic Leaders and Environmental Reform: The Pittsburgh Survey and Urban Planning | John F. Bauman & -- Margaret Spratt -- 10. The Pittsburgh Survey as an Environmental Statement | Joel A. Tarr -- 11. The Spirit of '92: Popular Opposition in Homestead's Politics and Culture, 1892-1937 | Richard Oestreicher -- 12. Optimism, Dilemmas, and Progress: The Pittsburgh Survey and Black Americans | Laurence A. Glasco -- 13. The Immigrants Pictured and Unpictured in the Pittsburgh Survey | Ewa Morawska -- Notes -- Contributors -- Index.

In this essay, the authors consider the challenge made by two keynote speakers at recent social work research conferences, one in the United States and the other in Europe. Both spoke of a knowledge crisis in social work. Both John Brekke (Society for Social Work and Research) and Peter Sommerfeld (First Annual European Conference for Social Work Research) proposed some version of realism as a solution to the crisis. The authors will deepen the argument for realism, however, by discussing how a critical realist perspective allows us to rethink positivist and conventionalist assumptions about the fact/value relation. Using a critical realist philosophy of social science, the authors discuss how social work has taken up positivism and myriad forms of conventionalism and also identify how practical knowledge gradually loses its place and thus contribute to social work's ongoing knowledge crisis. The authors then offer a way of thinking about practice. The authors will consider forms of practice knowledge and propose that social work has four kinds that unfold in essentially open systems: discursive, visual, embodied, and liquid systems, and that each of these have both tacit and explicit dimensions. These forms of practice, moreover, are inevitably situated in theory-to-practice gaps (the authors call them phenomenological practice gaps), which are the source of social work's knowledge crisis. The authors conclude with a discussion of the role of reflexivity in a science of social work.

Contents -- Acknowledgement -- Chapter One: Problem, Purpose, Plan -- Chapter Two: James Coleman: Educational Policy for Youth and High Schools -- Chapter Three: Eli Ginzberg: Manpower and Human Resources Policy -- Chapter Four: Morris Janowitz: Military Institutions, the Draft, and the Volunteer Army -- Chapter Five: Joseph A. Pechman: Comprehensive Income Taxation -- Chapter Six: Merton J. Peck: Deregulation of the Transportation Industry -- Chapter Seven: Peter Rossi: Unemployment Insurance Payments and Recidivism Among Released Prisoners

"This book focuses on the implementation of computational social science methods and touches upon the opportunities and challenges of this method in social sciences with the goals of suggesting how the infrastructure could be built to gain required skill sets, the tools used in computational social sciences and the methods which have been developed and applied into computational social sciences"--

The use of social science knowledge in the policy of administrative reforms results in a remarkably reflexive connection between science and practice. In the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, too, which is being dealt with here, the state administrations have become significant promoters of the policy of science. Within the scope of social sciences not only the administrative science, but also diciplines such as the political science increasingly serve as an advisory science for public agencies. In this way part of the problems of science and practice is reflected in the use of social science knowledge in the policy fo administrative reforms.

Science communication, as a multidisciplinary field, has developed remarkably in recent years. It is now a distinct and exceedingly dynamic science that melds theoretical approaches with practical experience. Formerly well-established theoretical models now seem out of step with the social reality of the sciences, and the previously clear-cut delineations and interacting domains between cultural fields have blurred. Communicating Science in Social Contexts examines that shift, which itself depicts a profound recomposition of knowledge fields, activities and dissemination practices, and the value accorded to science and technology. Communicating Science in Social Contexts is the product of long-term effort that would not have been possible without the research and expertise of the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Network and the editors. For nearly 20 years, this informal, international network has been organizing events and forums for discussion of the public communication of science.

The time is, I think, opportune for introspection by Canadian social scientists. The present is a transitional period in the life of the nation. Five years of war have profoundly altered Canadian society: Canada has become a great industrial nation; the paternalistic state has arrived at least at adolescence under the stimulus of war; for the time being the Canadian people have become military-minded, a condition which may well continue into the peace in view of the shift of world power in favour of North America; everywhere social values hitherto accepted are under fire, and traditional folkways have been rudely disturbed; new social goals are being raised and new patterns of life are being established.It is probable also that we are in a transitional stage in higher education. At any rate Canadian universities, like other social institutions, will be compelled to adjust themselves to the changed conditions of the post-war world. One condition likely to obtain is an increasing interest in the social sciences, if for no other reason than the increasing demand for social technicians to manage a paternalistic society. It is not improbable also that Canadian society faces a prolonged and acrimonious, if not violent, debate on social objectives. Under these conditions I suggest it is of first importance that social scientists should have firm opinions as to the nature of their calling, both with 'a view to guiding educational expansion, and assisting them in deciding their personal responsibilities in a distracted world.