Social Science History: Citation Record, 1976–1985

1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-215
Author(s):  
Aage R. Clausen ◽  
Jaushieh Joseph Wu
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Science Methods ◽  
Major Purpose ◽  
Science History ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Social Science Methods ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Research And Teaching

In a recent article in Social Science History, Professor Alan Bogue, former president of the Association and one of its founding fathers, has reviewed the first ten years of SSHA. In it he presents from the constitution the major purpose of the Association as “improving ‘the quality of historical explanation in every manner possible, but particularly by encouraging the selective use and adaptation in historical research and teaching of relevant social science’” (Bogue, 1987: 336). In this paper, we review the first ten years of the Social Science History journal in the context of an association formed to promote social science applications to the analysis of historical data. One indicator of the success of this enterprise is the extent to which historians are applying social science methods. Another indicator is the involvement of non-historians in social science history.

scholarly journals Editor's Introduction to Volume 40, Issue 1

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Anne EC McCants
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science History ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Parent Organization ◽  
The Social ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

With this issue, Social Science History begins its fortieth year of publication. The journal is also in its second year of publication with Cambridge University Press. So this seems an especially propitious moment to take stock of who we are and how we conceive of our mission, to both our parent organization and to the wider world of interdisciplinary scholarly inquiry. Since our founding in 1976, the journal remains firmly rooted in the organizational and intellectual apparatus of the Social Science History Association (SSHA). We embrace the cross-disciplinary and grassroots “network” structure of the annual meetings in forming our Editorial Board, with its rotating membership and diverse representation from across the historical and social science disciplines. We actively seek out new scholarship, as well as encourage SSHA members to propose special issues that address a common theme or scholarly question from multiple disciplinary points of view and address different places and time periods. But we also remain fundamentally historical in our purview, dedicated to “improv[ing] the quality of historical explanation in every manner possible, but particularly by encouraging the selective use and adaptation in historical . . . research of relevant theories and methods from related disciplines, particularly the social sciences.”

Recognizing Sample-Selection Bias in Historical Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariell Zimran
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Selection Bias ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Sample Selection ◽  
Sample Selection Bias ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History

ABSTRACTRecent research has ignited a debate in social science history over whether and how to draw conclusions for whole populations from sources that describe only select subsets of these populations. The idiosyncratic availability and survival of historical sources create a threat of sample-selection bias—an error that arises when there are systematic differences between the observed sample and the population of interest. This danger is common in studying trends in health as measured by average stature—scholars can often observe these trends only for soldiers and other similar groups; but whether these patterns are representative of those of the broader population is unclear. This article illustrates what simple patterns in a potentially selected sample can be used to recognize the presence of sample-selection bias in a source, and to understand how such bias might affect conclusions drawn from this source. Applying this intuition to the use of military data to describe stature in the antebellum United States, I present several simple empirical exercises based on these patterns. Finally, I use the results of these exercises to describe how sample-selection bias might affect the use of these data in testing for differences in average stature between the Northeast and the Midwest.

Reflections on Local Population Studies and Social Science History

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Osamu Saito
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Population Studies ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Local Source ◽  
Personal Reflection ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Source Materials

This personal reflection of more than 40 years' work on the supply of labour in a household context discusses the relationship between social science history (the application to historical phenomena of the tools developed by social scientists) and local population studies. The paper concludes that historians working on local source materials can give something new back to social scientists and social science historians, urging them to remake their tools.

Theory, Method, and Social Reproduction in Social Science History: A Short Jeremiad

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-499
Author(s):  
Charles Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Formal Methods ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Collective Enterprise

Let me begin with a simple theme, repentance, and a simple message: repent from complacency in the practice and defense of social science history (SSH). I say this because I do not see social science historians meeting three major challenges that must be overcome if the larger, collective enterprise is to survive with the same vitality it had a decade ago. Those challenges are, first, to bring social theory forcefully back into historical research; second, to take formal methods to a new, higher level; and, third, to seek to train the next generation of social science historians in the theory and methods they will need in the next century.

Life Cycles in Social Science History

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-489
Author(s):  
Andrew Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Science History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of

When one is asked to speak on the past, present, and future of social science history, one is less overwhelmed by the size of the task than confused by its indexicality. Whose definition of social science history? Which past? Or, put another way, whose past? Indeed, which and whose present? Moreover, should the task be taken as one of description, prescription, or analysis? Many of us might agree on, say, a descriptive analysis of the past of the Social Science History Association. But about the past of social science history as a general rather than purely associational phenomenon, we might differ considerably. The problem of description versus prescription only increases this obscurity.

Is There a Place for Anthropology in Social Science History?

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-559
Author(s):  
Alice Bee Kasakoff
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Secure Place

Imagine a fourfold table in which one dimension is “present versus past” and the other “exotic versus home.” Traditionally, social and cultural anthropology’s domain has been the exotic’s present and history’s domain the home’s past. A third box, the home’s present, has been occupied by sociology, while the fourth, the exotic’s past, has usually been the province of anthropologists too because other disciplines—with the exception, perhaps, of ethnohistorians—are usually even less interested in exotic peoples’ past than in their present. These domains are now in flux. I argue, in what follows, that only when the oversimplified ideas about time and space that have created them are seriously questioned will anthropology find a secure “place” in social science history.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document