‘Teaching Maths is Easier Than This!’: Pre-Service Educators Confront the Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching Emotive and Contested Pasts in Post-Apartheid History and Social Science Classrooms

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-69
Author(s):  
Siobhan Glanvill-Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science Classrooms ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

scholarly journals Norms and values in socio-hydrological models

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahendran Roobavannan ◽  
Tim H. M. van Emmerik ◽  
Yasmina Elshafei ◽  
Jaya Kandasamy ◽  
Matthew Sanderson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Social Science Theory ◽  
Science Theory ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources Management ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Future Prediction ◽  
Model Transfer

Abstract. Sustainable water resources management relies on understanding how societies and water systems co-evolve. Many place-based socio-hydrology (SH) studies use proxies, such as environmental degradation, to capture key elements of the social component of system dynamics. Parameters of assumed relationships between environmental degradation and the human response to it are usually obtained through calibration. Since these relationships are not yet underpinned by social science theories, confidence in the predictive power of such place-based socio-hydrologic models remains low. The generalisability of SH models therefore requires major advances in incorporating more realistic relationships, underpinned by appropriate hydrological and social science data, and theories. The latter is a critical input, since human culture – especially values and norms arising from it – influences behaviour and the consequences of behaviours. This paper reviews a key social science theory that links cultural factors to environmental decision-making, assesses how to better incorporate social science insights to enhance SH models, and raises important questions to be addressed in moving forward. This is done in the context of recent progress in socio-hydrological studies and the gaps that remain to be filled. The paper concludes with a discussion of challenges and opportunities in terms of generalisation of SH models and the use of available data to allow future prediction and model transfer to ungauged basins.

What is visual-numeric literacy, and how does it work?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise Seip Tønnessen
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Upper Secondary School ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
Science Classrooms ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
System Variables ◽  
Data Visualizations

This article explores the concept of literacy related to the use of data visualizations. Literacy is here understood as the ability to make sense from semiotic resources in an educational context. Theoretically the discussion is based in social semiotic theory on multimodality in the tradition of New Literacy Studies. Empirical examples are taken from observations in two Social Science classrooms in upper secondary school in Norway, where the students work with publicly available data visualizations to answer tasks designed by their teacher. The discussion sums up factors that affect reading and learning from such complex resources: taking time to explore axis system, variables, and digitally available options; questioning data; and contextualizing results.

Integrating genomic data and social science: Challenges and opportunities

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 88-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Freese
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Molecular Genetic ◽  
Genomic Data ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Molecular Genetic Data ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Why should social scientists be interested in using molecular genetic data? Here are five reasons:

Search engines: From social science objects to academic inquiry tools

First Monday ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Trevisan
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Search Engine ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in incorporating publicly available search engine data in scholarly research. In recent years, an increasing number of researchers have started to include tools such as Google Trends (http://google.com/trends) in their work. However, a central ‘search engine’ field of inquiry has yet to emerge. Rather, the use of search engine data to address social research questions is spread across many disciplines, which makes search valuable across fields but not critical to any one particular area. In an effort to stimulate a comprehensive debate on these issues, this paper reviews the work of pioneering scholars who devised inventive — if experimental — ways of interpreting data generated through search engine accessory applications and makes the point that search engines should be regarded not only as central objects of research, but also as fundamental tools for broader social inquiry. Specific concerns linked to this methodological shift are identified and discussed, including: the relationship with other, more established social research methods; doubts over the representativeness of search engine data; the need to contextualize publicly available search engine data with other types of evidence; and the limited granularity afforded to researchers by tools such as Google Trends. The paper concludes by reflecting on the combination of search engine data with other forms of inquiry as an example of arguably inelegant yet innovative and effective ‘kludgy’ design (Karpf, 2012).

scholarly journals COVID-ized Ethnography: Challenges and Opportunities for Young Environmental Activists and Researchers

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Dena Arya ◽  
Matt Henn
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Iterative Process ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Impact

This article offers a critical and reflective examination of the impact of the enforced 2020/21 COVID-19 lockdown on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with UK-based young environmental activists. A matrix of researcher and activist challenges and opportunities has been co-created with young environmental activists using an emergent research design, incorporating a phased and intensive iterative process using online ethnography and online qualitative interviews. The article focuses on reflections emerging from the process of co-designing and then use of this matrix in practice. It offers an evidence base which others researching hard-to-reach youth populations may themselves deploy when negotiating face-to-face fieldwork approval at their own academic institutions. The pandemic and its associated control regimes, such as lockdown and social distancing measures, will have lasting effects for both activism and researchers. The methodological reflections we offer in this article have the potential to contribute to the learning of social science researchers with respect to how best to respond when carrying out online fieldwork in such contexts—particularly, but not only, with young activists.

scholarly journals Enhancing and accelerating social science via automation: Challenges and opportunities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Yarkoni ◽  
Dean Eckles ◽  
James Heathers ◽  
Margaret Levenstein ◽  
Paul Smaldino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Data Access ◽  
The Social ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Core Areas ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Machine Readable

Automation plays an increasingly important role in science, but the social sciences have been comparatively slow to take advantage of emerging technologies and methods. In this review, we argue that greater investment in automation would be one of the most effective and cost-effective ways to boost the reliability, validity, and utility of social science research. We identify five core areas ripe for potentially transformative investment, including (1) machine-readable standards, (2) data access platforms, (3) search and discoverability, (4) claim validation, and (5) insight generation. In each case, we review limitations associated with current practices, identify concrete opportunities for improvement via automation, and discuss near-term barriers to progress. We conclude with a discussion of practical and ethical considerations researchers will need to keep in mind when working to enhance and accelerate social science progress via automation.

scholarly journals Prototyping Text Mining and Network Analysis Tools to Support Netnographic Student Projects

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (10) ◽  
pp. 223
Author(s):  
Ilya Musabirov ◽  
Denis Bulygin
Keyword(s):  
Network Analysis ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Science Students ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Computational Tools ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Student Projects

Social science is witnessing tremendous growth of data available on the Internet regarding social phenomena; however, social science students are typically not prepared for managing the challenges and opportunities of analysing online data. One of the areas where this growth is especially important is in social studies of consumption. This article discusses a prototype of a visualisation tool intended to support the learning of netnographic analysis with computational tools.

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