The Social Sciences

How the NSF became an important yet controversial patron for the social sciences, influencing debates over their scientific status and social relevance. In the early Cold War years, the U.S. government established the National Science Foundation (NSF), a civilian agency that soon became widely known for its dedication to supporting first-rate science. The agency's 1950 enabling legislation made no mention of the social sciences, although it included a vague reference to "other sciences." Nevertheless, as Mark Solovey shows in this book, the NSF also soon became a major--albeit controversial--source of public funding for them.

The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society? Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including: identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved. This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research.

Laboratory Experiments in the Social Sciences is the only book providing core information for researchers about the ways and means to conduct experiments. Its comprehensive regard for laboratory experiments encompasses “how-to explanations, investigations of philosophies and ethics, explorations of experiments in specific social science disciplines, and summaries of both the history and future of social science laboratories. No other book offers such a direct avenue to enlarging our knowledge in the social sciences.This collection of original chapters combines instructions and advice about the design of laboratory experiments in the social sciences with the array of other issues. While there are books on experimental design and chapters in more general methods books on design, theory, and ethical issues, no other book attempts to discuss the fundamental ideas of the philosophy of science or lays out the methods comprehensively or in such detail. Experimentation has recently prospered because of increasing interest in cross-disciplinary syntheses, and this book of advice, guidelines, and observations underline its potential and increasing importance. · Provides a comprehensive summary of issues in social science experimentation, from ethics to design, management, and financing· Offers "how-to" explanations of the problems and challenges faced by everyone involved in social science experiments· Pays attention to both practical problems and to theoretical and philosophical arguments· Defines commonalities and distinctions within and among experimental situations across the social sciences

Knowledge Discovery in the Social Sciences helps readers find valid, meaningful, and useful information. It is written for researchers and data analysts as well as students who have no prior experience in statistics or computer science. Suitable for a variety of classes—including upper-division courses for undergraduates, introductory courses for graduate students, and courses in data management and advanced statistical methods—the book guides readers in the application of data mining techniques and illustrates the significance of newly discovered knowledge. Readers will learn to: • appreciate the role of data mining in scientific research • develop an understanding of fundamental concepts of data mining and knowledge discovery • use software to carry out data mining tasks • select and assess appropriate models to ensure findings are valid and meaningful • develop basic skills in data preparation, data mining, model selection, and validation • apply concepts with end-of-chapter exercises and review summaries

The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism that has been passed on the European approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; criticism of European social sciences by “subaltern” social sciences, their “talking back”, has become a frequent line of reflection in European social sciences. The re-labelling of the critique of the European approach to social sciences towards a critique from “Southern” social sciences of “Western” social sciences has somehow turned “Southern” as well as “Western” social sciences into competing contributors to the same “globalizing” social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe prevails. If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are very adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences; or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the “Western” as in the “Southern” discourse.

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

"A stunning achievement as the first full account of social science in a non-Western society. Barshay tells an epic story of how a handful of Japanese intellectuals used social science to make sense of the new society into which they were moving. What they did helps us understand not only Japan, but the whole modern world."—Robert Bellah, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Tokugawa Religion and Imagining Japan

This compact volume covers the main developments in the social sciences since the Second World War. Chapters on economics, human geography, political science, psychology, social anthropology, and sociology will interest anyone wanting short, accessible histories of those disciplines, all written by experts in the relevant field; they will also make it easy for readers to make comparisons between disciplines. A final chapter proposes a blueprint for a history of the social sciences as a whole. Whereas most of the existing literature considers the social sciences in isolation from one other, this volume shows that they have much in common; for example, they have responded to common problems using overlapping methods, and cross-disciplinary activities have been widespread.

This collection demonstrates the use and variety of applications of time use methodology from multidisciplinary, multinational, and multicultural perspectives. A distinguished roster of contributors from such fields as psychology, occupational therapy, sociology, economics, and architecture examines the complex relationship between human time utilization and health and well-being and evaluates the future of time use analysis as a research tool in the social sciences.