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IN THEIR SURVEY OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH BASED ON RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY, DON GREEN AND IAN SHAPIRO POINT TO A LIST OF METHODOLOGICAL DEFICIENCIES OF 'PATHOLOGIES.' THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH GREEN AND SHAPIRO'S LIST LIES IN THE STANDARDS THEY USE TO EVALUATE THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY. THESE STANDARDS ARE DERIVED FROM A VIEW OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH THAT IS DEEPLY QUESTIONABLE AND, IN THE STATED FORM, INCONSISTENT WITH BOTH STANDARD INSIGHTS IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND THE ESTABLISHED PRACTICE IN THE MOST SUCCESSFUL EMPIRICAL SCIENCES.

Contends that political science must have a greater public presence, arguing that this has been a long-standing goal of the discipline, but one that has lost salience. It is noted that those who advocate most strongly the public responsibilities of political science have been the most vociferous critics of the discipline's scientific aspirations -- & vice versa. In addition, skeptical attitudes among leading scholars have inhibited political science's contributions to public life. How to foster a more engaged political science is considered. 21 References. J. Zendejas

Public Understanding of Science (PUS) is a field of activity and an area of social research. The evolution of this field comprises both the changing discourse and the substantive evidence of a changing public understanding.1 In the first part, I will present a short account on how the discourse of PUS moved from Literacy, via PUS, to Science-in-Society. This is less a story of progress, but one of false polemics and the multiplication of concerns. In the second part, I will show some empirical evidence on how PUS has changed by drawing on mass media data and large scale comparative survey evidence. I conclude by stressing that the Science-Society relationship is variable both in distance between science and the wider society and in the quality of this relationship.

The article presents a critical review and reactualization of the results of earlier comparative studies of competing paradigms in social and behavioral sciences and metatheories in marketing research. The results of comparative studies of different paradigms in social and behavioral sciences show a predominant coincidence of paradigmatic dispositions of positivism and postpositivism in many issues of ontology, epistemology, methodology, ethics, and axiology. At the same time, postpositivism is more adaptive under the conditions of paradigmatic competition, more open to borrowing and applying fruitful research practices of competing paradigms.

The article discusses the evolution of civil and political rights in the French Republic in historical retrospective and the key events, that influenced their formation in a modern way. The problems of freedom and equality in France in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The article studied the views of representatives of pre-revolutionary science of law on the understanding of freedom and equality in France. The authors pay special attention to the French Revolution of 1789, the fall of absolutism, the process of establishing the constitutional order and new democratic principles of the organization of state power.

This paper investigates institutional change in the Polish public science system (PPSS) in the past twenty years. Employing macro-statistical data, the paper argues that this change process has unfolded stepwise and relatively late despite major political and economic transformations in post-socialist Poland. Using a historical-institutionalist perspective, the paper focuses on processes of institutional change, including layering, displacement, and dismantling. One major finding is that the speed and depth of the gradual transformation differs considerably between the three research performing sectors of the Polish public science system. As the Polish Academy of Sciences was reproduced institutionally, the former governmental units for applied R&D were partly dismantled and displaced by private sector R&D units. In contrast, the Higher Education sector underwent a strong expansion and, thus, layering of new research activities and fields. Since policy shifts within the PPSS occurred relatively late, the more than two decades following the collapse of communism are of special interest to scholars of incremental, yet cumulative, institutional change.

Everyone has heard the gibe that the specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less, while a sociologist is one who knows less and less about more and more. Another quip has it that while psychology is all data and no conclusions, sociology is all conclusions and no data. Political science itself has not escaped a certain amount of cheap disparagement from those who know little or nothing about it. Thus a political scientist has been described as one who among politicians is reckoned a scientist, and among scientists is reckoned a politician; or, indeed, as one who is called a political scientist because he is neither—an obvious paraphrase of Voltaire's famous sarcasm regarding the Holy Roman Empire. At any rate, the time has come when a certain group of political scientists have wearied of such gibes, to say nothing of that condescension which they think they detect in the attitude of laboratory scientists toward them; and they have registered a vow to convert political science from a "normative" or "telic" science, as it has been variously called, into a natural science, into a science which will hereafter be printed in lower case instead of in upper, and will, moreover (the height of ambition of all true sciences) be able to predict the future just as astronomy, physics, and chemistry are able to do—not to mention astrology, alchemy, and palmistry. Nor is this newly conceived ambition the product merely of discontent; it is rather more, perhaps, response to the beckoning of opportunity—the opportunity spelled by the rise of the behavioristic psychology.

▪ Abstract  In broad brush strokes, this essay identifies and reviews key trends and theoretical orientations that have shaped the field of educational ethnography from the period of its inception to the closing decade of the twentieth century. It demonstrates how the growth of educational ethnography as a subfield within anthropology reflects a growing focus on prescriptive, applied, and reformist research within urban contexts. It maps the transition from modernist formulations of the field in its formative days, when ethnographies laid claim to being sealed and scientific texts, to the more recent formulations shaped by postmodern and poststructural ideas that undermine earlier meanings of culture and call attention to the explanatory limits of ethnography. This review draws on examples from North America and Britain and makes no claim to being exhaustive of the vast and growing field. Although it delineates what distinguishes successive decades of educational ethnography, the essay argues for understanding the developments not as distinct phases but as overlapping moments in the evolution of the field of study. Attention is drawn to how developments in theory and method, in particular a move toward reflexivity in educational ethnography, mirror developments in the discipline of anthropology at large.

AbstractThe following paper discusses the importance of establishing communication channels between academia, the media, and the public with respect to the development of biotechnology within Sub‐Saharan Africa. Citing evidence from interviews with specialists in genetic science, science journalism and public education, the paper reflects on the problems associated with developing multidisciplinary discussion within academic circles, communication between natural scientists and the media, and ultimately the exchange of knowledge between science and society. The major findings from these interviews is that while there is a shared objective and realisation that science communication is important for the development of the region, this objective is hampered by a lack of understanding and trust between scientists and the scientific media. A pattern of mistrust has developed whereby local experts tend to talk to journalists from outside the region rather than from Africa. As a result, there is little opportunity for scientists and the media to communicate the relevance of genetics and biotechnology for the region's development. By way of conclusion, the paper discusses the positive indicators for science communication across the region, based on demand for knowledge, empowerment of scientists and the public, and the urgency of the regional food crisis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.