The Use of Social Research in Federal Domestic Programs: Part III-The Relationship of Private Social Scientists to Federal Programs on National Social Problems

1967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murat Anıl Mercan ◽  
Hande Barlin

Social scientists have been intrigued by the relationship between generations based on different characteristics. Economists, has been especially interested in measuring intergenerational income elasticity, which looks at the relationship of parents and that of their children when they become adults and gives clue on trends of income inequality. Most of the literature concentrates on the experiences of developed countries and measurement issues. Nevertheless, new studies concerning intergenerational income elasticity is being undertaken in developing countries as the data become increasingly available for these countries. In this vein, there is only one previous study that investigates intergenerational income elasticity for Turkey. Mercan (2012) finds that intergenerational income elasticity is around 0.1 in Turkey, which depicts Turkey as a highly mobile country meaning that children of poor parents have a higher likelihood to have a better income status. However, his study does not depend on a longitudinal dataset, which might make Mercan’s (2012) estimate biased. Following Solon (1992) in using OLS for lower bound and instrumental variable (IV) for upper bound, this study puts forth a new estimate, which relies on a nationally representative and longitudinal dataset for Turkey. The study's estimate for intergenerational income elasticity varies between 0.3 and 0.6, which is much higher than the result of Mercan (2012), indicating that Turkey is a less mobile country than previously foreseen.


Author(s):  
Richard Swedberg

This chapter examines the role of imagination and the arts in helping social scientists to theorize well. However deep one's basic knowledge of social theory is, and however many concepts, mechanisms, and theories one knows, unless this knowledge is used in an imaginative way, the result will be dull and noncreative. A good research topic should among other things operate as an analogon—that is, it should be able to set off the theoretical imagination of the social scientist. Then, when a social scientist writes, he or she may want to write in such a way that the reader's theoretical imagination is stirred. Besides imagination, the chapter also discusses the relationship of social theory to art. There are a number of reason for this, including the fact that in modern society, art is perceived as the height of imagination and creativity.


Urban History ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 28-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Sindall

In the last decade an area of urban history receiving increasing attention has been that of crime and, in particular, nineteenth-century crime. For those social scientists whose main interest is the study of lower-class life the study of crime has become increasingly fashionable. However, the study of crime is the study of the whole of society and the relationship of the various classes within that society. That law-makers create law-breakers is axiomatic and the study of crime is, therefore, not just the study of criminals but also of the institutions which defined them as criminals. For too long it has been implied that studying criminals is the study of a subset of lower-class life. This is a reflection of the fact that research is largely a middle-class occupation and so researchers bring to their work their own middle-class perception of society. The result is the automatic acceptance that crime consists purely of larceny, burglary, assault, rape and murder while overlooking the middle-class crimes of fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion, offences against the Companies Acts, Consumer Protection Acts and Factory Acts.


1985 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-93
Author(s):  
Melvin L. Perlman

Jane Collier has stated that “the long preoccupation in legal studies with explaining the gap between law and behaviour has precluded the search for a more complex model of relations between law and society that accepts the gap as given”. The purpose of this paper is to further document the need for a more complex model of the relations between law and society. One question now gaining currency is: what is the relationship of law to social change? Some observers claim that “the question is no longer whether law is a significant vehicle of social change but ratherhowit so functions and what special problems arise”. Others regard law as a potential cause of social problems. A serious debate has thus emerged over whether law works at all to effect change and, if so, for whose benefit. This is a complex question. Legal impact studies for example, have revealed some unintended consequences of law-in-action. Moreover, it is often difficult to isolate the main effect of a legal policy, and in any case, social scientists and policymakers alike are interested in longer-range, indirect effects. It is useful, therefore, to distinguish between the direct and indirect aspects of the role of law. Given this complexity, we may usefully rephrase the question as follows: what conditions or factors affect the relationship between law and society, including social change?


2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-26
Author(s):  
Dina F Islamutdinova

The development of regionalization in the context of international relations. Globalism and regionalism are considered one-directional: the interdependence, the growth of cross-border movement of factors of production, focus on solving environmental and social problems.


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