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The fragmentation-into-hybridization process whereby fragmentation of scientific disciplines into specialized subfields is followed by hybrid subspecialisms is presented. Specific examples of hybridization in social science are analyzed, eg, social history & historical sociology. Pathways to hybridization include borrowing of concepts, theories, & methodologies from other disciplines. The findings of one discipline may challenge the theories of another; different perspectives of one may force reinterpretations in another & lead to innovations. It is concluded that hybridization is a difficult process, posing a challenge to the scientific validity of the formalized social sciences, but also facilitates intellectual interchange among subfields. 36 References. M. Malas

The fragmentation of disciplines into specialized subfields over the last few decades has been followed by the development of hybrid subspecialisms. (SJO)

"This paper addresses science communication problems: How do researchers convey social science representations and findings to the researched? How are the latter described in research reports? How do they react when they read or hear such reports and when they subsequently engage in discourse with researchers? Typically, social science researchers approach a field site with an attitude of curiosity that is unburdened by an immediate pressure to act. The field inhabitants, by contrast, are subject to the practical constraints of these everyday worlds; they identify personally with their milieu and its protagonists, and they are correspondingly sensitive. The present paper describes their defensive reactions, taking as an example the reception of a research project presented at conferences attended by a mixed audience. It highlights the reactions and strategies displayed by the researched in the contexts of discourse and meaning negotiation in response to unwelcome representations. And it offers several interpretations of the interactions between the researchers and the researched. Field members may oppose the revelation of contextual and causal factors construing it as 'washing dirty laundry in public'. Researchers react to this in their textual representations, and their reactions may take the form of score-settling. The present paper asks how such contradictory, conflict-laden constellations and perspectives in the discourse between the observers and the observed can be productively dealt with." (author's abstract)

Using field experiments, scholars can identify causal effects via randomization while studying people and groups in their naturally occurring contexts. In light of renewed interest in field experimental methods, this review covers a wide range of field experiments from across the social sciences, with an eye to those that adopt virtuous practices, including unobtrusive measurement, naturalistic interventions, attention to realistic outcomes and consequential behaviors, and application to diverse samples and settings. The review covers four broad research areas of substantive and policy interest: first, randomized controlled trials, with a focus on policy interventions in economic development, poverty reduction, and education; second, experiments on the role that norms, motivations, and incentives play in shaping behavior; third, experiments on political mobilization, social influence, and institutional effects; and fourth, experiments on prejudice and discrimination. We discuss methodological issues concerning generalizability and scalability as well as ethical issues related to field experimental methods. We conclude by arguing that field experiments are well equipped to advance the kind of middle-range theorizing that sociologists value.

"Big" digital behavioral data increasingly allows large-scale and high-resolution analyses of the behavior and performance of persons or aggregated identities in whole fields. Often the desired system of study is only a subset of a larger database. The task of drawing a field boundary is complicated because socio-cultural systems are highly overlapping. Here, I propose a sociologically enhanced information retrieval method to delineate fields that is based on the reproductive mechanism of fields, able to account for field heterogeneity, and generally applicable also outside scientometric, e.g., in social media, contexts. The method is demonstrated in a delineation of the multidisciplinary and very heterogeneous Social Network Science field using the Web of Science database. The field consists of 25,760 publications and has a historical dimension (1916-2012). This set has high face validity and exhibits expected statistical properties like systemic growth and power law size distributions. Data is clean and disambiguated. The dataset with 45,580 author names and 23,026 linguistic concepts is publically available and supposed to enable high-quality analyses of an evolving complex socio-cultural system.