Suchergebnisse

This study investigates the visual representation of ethnic minority groups in Chinese elementary social studies textbooks. The author conducts a content analysis to examine the extent to which ethnic minority groups are visually represented and to explore the ways in which they are portrayed in some of the most popular social studies textbooks in China. A total of 6075 visuals drawn from 36 books were electronically coded and analyzed using SPSS. The findings reveal the dearth of ethnic minority-related visuals and show that ethnic minority individuals are visually represented in significantly different ways in many important aspects than non-minority people in these textbooks. The author concludes that the visual representations of ethnic minority groups in these textbooks contributes to a binary understanding of minority and majority by limiting the images of ethnic minority groups to selected cultural markers.

Canadian universities have not been as enterprising as their American neighbours in seeking out new ways of serving the community; but they have deviated far enough from the straight and narrow path of academic scholarship to develop a sense of guilt for which atonement may be offered by devoting a part of their resources to the promotion of graduate studies.In the United States we find a desperate effort being made to save the M.A. degree from the fate which has befallen the B.A. degree, by applying truly heroic remedies, such as insistence on serious qualifications for admission to candidacy, on "graduate standards of attainment," on "proper use of spoken and written English," on "a reading knowledge of at least one foreign language … as indispensable background and not merely as a tool for research." A candidate should have obtained "an average grade which places him in at least the first third of his class" and "due attention should be paid to those qualities known as personality and, in particular, to moral character."A sense of guilt may be a very potent force, but it requires rationalization. Various reasons have been assigned for promoting graduate studies in Canada. Professor Brebner contends that an increased output of scholars, retained in Canada, could be employed in "the creation of Canadian culture." In so doing they would solve what Professor Brebner considers ought to be "the most urgent problem for Canadian post-war planners," namely "how to make Canada so cordial and attractive a place" that Canadians "who excel in any field" will be content to live and work there. It is nearly fifty years since American universities set about the task of meeting "needs for the satisfaction of which approximately 300 out of a total of some 500 advanced students at the time considered it necessary to go abroad." Canadians have continued to pursue graduate studies in other countries, but it is possible to argue that young Canadians cannot rely as much as in the past on the opportunities offered for advanced work at British and American universities.

The involvement of the social sciences in non- Western studies has been growing in spite of the institutional and intellectual conflicts between area studies and disciplinary studies. The process of institutional adaptation is illustrated by reference to the postwar development of non-Western stud ies. The intellectual conflict springs from the fact that the definitions and classifications of major world areas, including the division between "Western" and "non-Western," do not correspond to the definitions and classifications in any social science discipline. The several disciplines have a differential proneness to area studies, and the problem of integrating them for study of a particular area has no simple, uniform solution. Evidence is presented to show how the study of non-Western societies and civilizations is generating new and fertile hybrid disciplines in anthropology and is giving a comparative and international dimension to the other social sciences.

A general cycle of relations between the Department of Defense (DoD) and the university is described with particular reference to the social sciences and international studies: a general decline in amity since World War II, decreased support for DoD objectives, a concern for the effect of DoD priorities on the general research profile, the growth of in-house and nonacademic vendors in research and training, and the enclaving of the military-connected research community within the university. The pattern of DoD support for strategic studies, linguistics, and language and area studies is examined.

ObjectivesThis article provides an overview of how the interdisciplinary field of disaster studies contributes to the social sciences.MethodsThe following themes are explored in relation to the articles contained in the special issue: disasters are social and political phenomena that generate policy change, disasters reflect and affect democratic governance, and disasters reveal shared experience and collective identity.ResultsDisaster studies bridge the social sciences theoretically and methodologically. Given the scope of disaster impacts—across social, political, economic, ecological, and infrastructure spheres—and the policy response they garner involving public, private, and civic actors, they offer a lens by which to see society and politics in a way that no other critical events can.ConclusionDisaster studies offer important applications of social science theories and concepts that expand the field, broaden our reach as social scientists, and deepen our understanding of fundamental social processes and behaviors in meaningful ways.

This report is concerned with the contribution of political science to the instructional needs of those who are preparing to teach, and of those now teaching, the social studies in elementary and secondary schools. How can political scientists in colleges and universities maximize the contribution which they, as specialists in one large field of human knowledge, can make to enrich the teaching of the social studies? Before offering suggestions which, if applied generally, should provide at least a partial answer to the question, the Committee on the Social Studies states two assumptions. First, most political scientists can do more than they have done in the past. Second, reverse lend-lease is anticipated. Political scientists have much to learn from teachers of the social studies as to what methods are effective in enabling youth to learn the ways of democracy and what types of material are most useful in the learning process. The recommendations in this report are presented in the hope that coöperation between the two groups will become more extensive and regular. The recommendations are divided into four classes, according to the incidence of responsibility for carrying them into effect.

On March 12 this year I gave an informal talk to the 'overseas history group' in which I tried to sketch in the development and atmosphere of major Southeast Asia programs in the USA and Australia, with particular reference to the influence of the social sciences on approaches to Indonesian history. My opinions were based on personal impressions and were utterly non-expert; it was therefore with some reluctance that I agreed to try and summarize my talk for Itinerario. No historian should publish without doing some research, but since I was assured that the very informality and casualness of my approach was a recommendation, I will do my best.