Suchergebnisse

The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) has formalized the need to provide assessment of projects which have potential impacts. Many social scientists suddenly have become involved with performing social research in order to assess impacts upon human behavior. This paper describes some of the problems facing social scientists in this endeavor. Practical advice regarding their solutions is provided.

Bei den Schätzungen der künftigen Auswirkungen bleiben die globalen Ungleichheiten der sozioökonomischen Bedingungen meist unberücksichtigt, die für die tatsächliche Fähigkeit der Systeme, viele der Anpassungsmaßnahmen umzusetzen, entscheidend sein werden. Um das zu erwartende Ausmaß der Anpassung auf der Grundlage wirtschaftlicher, finanzieller, menschlicher, technologischer und anderer Kapazitäten besser bestimmen zu können, sollten Projektionen der Klimaauswirkungen und der daraus resultierenden Verluste und Schäden die Koevolution zwischen Klimagefahren und sozioökonomischer Entwicklung berücksichtigen. In dieser Arbeit werden verschiedene Bereiche der Klimawissenschaft miteinander verknüpft, um ein Instrumentarium zur besseren Darstellung der Anpassung in quantitativen Modellierungsinstrumenten anzubieten. Der Ansatz bettet die sozioökonomischen Barrieren in den Szenariorahmen der Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) ein, um quantitative Pfade der Anpassungsfähigkeit zu erstellen. Die Integration der Anpassungsfähigkeit in den Szenarioraum ermöglicht eine differenziertere Operationalisierung der Anpassung in der quantitativen Modellierung. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit werden zwei Erweiterungen des Szenariorahmens vorgestellt, die sich auf Indikatoren für die Regierungsführung und die Gleichstellung der Geschlechter als zwei der wichtigsten Hindernisse für die Anpassung konzentrieren. Im zweiten Teil werden zwei Anwendungen der Anpassungsfähigkeit für die Sektoren Gesundheit und Landwirtschaft vorgestellt, die den Zusammenhang zwischen sozioökonomischen Bedingungen und der unterschiedlichen Anfälligkeit für mögliche Klimastressoren aufzeigen. Das hier vorgestellte Toolkit eignet sich in erster Linie für den Einsatz in quantitativen Bewertungen von Auswirkungen und alternativen politischen Optionen, um anpassungsrelevante Informationen einzubeziehen, damit der Klimawandel unter verschiedenen sozioökonomischen Szenarien robuster dargestellt werden kann. ; Adaptation to climate change can substantially reduce the ...

Affirmative action (AA) has long been viewed negatively in contemporary society. The political philosophies of AA are still widely misunderstood and fiercely debated around the world today. The argument against AA is that faculty hired through AA are less efficient than those hired through open/general category. This research attempts to empirically assess if professors from the Other Backward Class (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories in India's three Central Universities are equally productive and effective as their General category counterparts. The effectiveness of the four teaching categories (General/OBC/SC/ST) was evaluated using the CCR model of Data Envelopment Analysis, while the productivity of teachers was estimated using bibliometric analysis. The data analysis demonstrates that AA positively impacts the research productivity of marginalized groups, except ST, which has very low representation in Pure and Applied Sciences, with OBC and SC performing on par with their General counterpart when placed in higher productivity subjects.

In Deutschland haben ArbeitnehmerInnen seit 1974 in mittlerweile fast allen Bundesländern das Recht auf fünf Tage Bildungsfreistellung bei voller Lohnfortzahlung. Dies wird von ein bis zwei Prozent der berechtigten ArbeitnehmerInnen auch genutzt, oft mehrfach. Zwischen 2017 und 2019 führten die Autorinnen des vorliegenden Beitrags eine Studie zur Erforschung der Wirkungen von Mehrfachteilnahmen an Veranstaltungen im Rahmen von Bildungsfreistellungsgesetzen durch. Sie wollten zeigen, dass die Mehrfachteilnahme zu langfristigen Lernprozessen und biographischen Veränderungen führen kann. In 27 explorativ-narrativen, leitfadengestützten Interviews wurde der Fokus auf biographische Lern- und Bildungsprozesse gelegt, die nach Prinzipien der Grounded Theory ausgewertet wurden. Wie die Auswertung zeigt, bestätigten die Interviewten tatsächlich sehr viele der erwarteten Wirkungen von Bildungsfreistellung. (DIPF/Orig.) ; In nearly all of the federal states of Germany, employees have had the right to five days of educational leave at full pay since 1974. One to two percent of employees entitled to it exercise this right—and often repeatedly. From 2017 to 2019 the authors of this article conducted a study of the impacts of repeated participation in events as a result of educational leave legislation. They wanted to show that repeated participation can lead to long-term learning processes and biographical changes. 27 explorative, narrative and guideline-based interviews focus on biographical learning and educational processes, which are analyzed according to the principles of grounded theory. As the analysis shows, the interviewees confirmed a great many of the expected impacts of educational leave. (DIPF/Orig.)

"Involvement of community partners in the structure and design of services is largely accepted in principle, but its practice is heavily contested. This book argues that the co-production of research is one of the best ways to involve community partners. As well as having intrinsic value in and of itself, research embeds a culture of learning, co-production and of valuing research within organizations. It also creates a mechanism for developing evidence for, monitoring and evaluating subsequent ideas and initiatives that arise from other co-production initiatives. The book makes a case for research to be a synthesis of participatory research, critical pedagogy, peer research and community organizing. It develops a model called Participatory Pedagogic Impact Research (PPIR). Participatory research is often criticized for not having the impact it promises. PPIR ensures that the issues chosen, and the recommendations developed, serve mutual self-interest, are realistic and realizable. At the same time this approach pushes the balance of power towards the oppressed using methods of dissemination that hold decision makers to account and create real change. PPIR also develops a robust method for creatively identifying issues, methods and analytic frameworks. Its third section details case studies across Europe and the United States of PPIR in action with professional researchers and community partners reflections on these experiences. This book gives a unique articulation of what makes for genuinely critical reflective spaces, something underdeveloped in the literature. It should be considered essential reading for both participatory research academics and those involved in health and social care services in the planning, commissioning and delivery of services."--Provided by publisher.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect critically upon current debates and tensions in the governance of research in the UK and more widely, particularly the imperative that social science research should demonstrate impact beyond the academy.


Design/methodology/approach
Drawing implicitly upon the Bevir's theory of governance, the paper positions discourses about "research excellence and research impact" as elite narratives that are rooted genealogically in forms of managerial audit culture which seek to govern the practices of social science academics. The paper reviews relevant literature, draws upon key contributions that have shaped debate and refers to the author's own research and experiences of "research impact".


Findings
Initiatives such as the UK's "Research Excellence Framework" can be understood as a form of governance that further enables already present neo-liberalising tendencies in the academy. The "impact agenda" has both negative (e.g. it can distort research priorities and can lead to overstatement of "real world" effects) and positive potential (e.g. to provide institutional space for work towards social justice, in line with long-standing traditions of critical social science and "public sociology").


Research limitations/implications
There is a need for more critical research and theoretical reflection on the value, threats, limitations and potential of current forms of research governance and "impact".


Originality/value
To date, there are very few article-length, critical discussions of these developments and issues in research governance, even fewer that connect these debates to longer-standing radical imperatives in social science.

Contemporary research models are becoming increasingly transdisciplinary (TD), multilevel, community-connected, and bent on expediting the movement of research to impact. This requires not only fresh thinking about the science of social work but an educational architecture that fosters both cross-disciplinary understanding of complex underlying determinants and the ability to translate that knowledge into effective, sustainable action. This article illustrates the need for greater intentionality and coherence in preparing social work practitioners and researchers for participation in this changing landscape. We focus here on doctoral level training, but underscore opportunities for a robust educational "pipeline" linking undergraduate and graduate professional degree preparation to that at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels. We summarize selected literature that defines and operationalizes TD translational research, reflect strategically on social work's positioning within this scientific "marketplace," and offer recommendations for capacity building in social work doctoral education.

Since its creation in 2017, RASTA's collaborative research platform has continued to evolve and grow, promoting evidence use, enhancing coordination across a range of partners, and strengthening analytical skills of young Indian researchers to advance family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH). With a large body of research guided by questions developed in close collaboration with decision makers from government and other key stakeholders, RASTA has helped to fill critical evidence gaps and inform program, policy, and investment decisions, including around adolescent health and FP/RH access in the context of COVID-19.

This essay starts from a concern that many empirical researchers undermine their rigorous empirical work by coupling it to unclear and inconsistent theory. I suggest this is because we underestimate the difficulty of achieving theoretical clarity and consistency. I illustrate the problem in detail by cataloging common ways we violate clarity and consistency in the articulation of theoretical constructs and relationships and illustrating these violations with examples from unpublished manuscripts. In addition, I draw on the management literature on theory writing as well as on the dual-process theory of cognition and the philosophy of science to identify and unpack three challenges to clear and consistent theory: the taxing cognitive effort required to turn ambiguous, associative intuition into logical arguments; the impossibility of achieving perfect clarity; and the existence of trade-offs between clarity and other valued qualities of theory, particularly generalizability. The implication is that researchers need to invest not just in empirical rigor but also, in theoretical rigor. Funding: The author's research is supported in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.