scholarly journals Fragile alliances: culture, funding and sustainability in police–academic partnerships

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Bacon ◽  
Joanna Shapland ◽  
Layla Skinns ◽  
Adam White
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Dissonance ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Partnerships ◽  
Global North ◽  
Evidence Based Policing ◽  
Institutional Relationships ◽  
Pragmatic Measures ◽  
The Ideal

Background: Police–academic partnerships have developed significantly over the past decade or so, spurred on by the expansion of the evidence-based policing movement, the increasing value attached to impactful research in the academy, the ascendance of the professionalisation agenda in the police, and the growing necessity of cross-sectoral collaborations under conditions of post-financial crisis austerity. This trend has given rise to a burgeoning literature in the discipline of criminology which is concerned with charting the progress of these partnerships and setting out the ideal conditions for their future expansion.<br />Aims and objectives: we advance a sympathetic critique of this literature, adding a note of caution to its largely optimistic outlook.<br />Methods: we do this by combining a narrative review of the literature on police–academic partnerships with insights from elsewhere in the social sciences and observations from our experience of running the International Strand of the N8 Policing Research Partnership.<br />Findings and discussion: while we recognise that police–academic partnerships have certainly come a long way, and have the capacity to make important contributions to police work, we argue that they remain ‘fragile’ alliances, beset with fractious occupational cultures, unreliable funding streams and unsustainable inter-institutional relationships. We also reason that the structures underpinning this ‘fragility’ do not represent problems to be overcome, for they help to protect the integrity of the two professions.<br />Conclusion: we conclude by offering pragmatic measures for sustaining police–academic partnerships during those difficult periods characterised by cultural dissonance, a paucity of funding and the turnover of key personnel.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ol><li>Over the past decade, police–academic partnerships have developed considerably in scope and size.</li><br /><li>This process has been spurred on by shifting attitudes towards research in the police and academy.</li><br /><li>However, these partnerships are largely confined to a select few countries in the Global North.</li><br /><li>They are also rendered ‘fragile’ by issues relating to culture, funding and sustainability.</li></ol>

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

scholarly journals The Relevance of Inequality Research in Sociology for Inequality Reduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110201
Author(s):  
Thomas A. DiPrete ◽  
Brittany N. Fox-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Large Scale Change ◽  
The Subject

Social inequality is a central topic of research in the social sciences. Decades of research have deepened our understanding of the characteristics and causes of social inequality. At the same time, social inequality has markedly increased during the past 40 years, and progress on reducing poverty and improving the life chances of Americans in the bottom half of the distribution has been frustratingly slow. How useful has sociological research been to the task of reducing inequality? The authors analyze the stance taken by sociological research on the subject of reducing inequality. They identify an imbalance in the literature between the discipline’s continual efforts to motivate the plausibility of large-scale change and its lesser efforts to identify feasible strategies of change either through social policy or by enhancing individual and local agency with the potential to cumulate into meaningful progress on inequality reduction.

scholarly journals Niche Construction Theory in Archaeology: A Critical Review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert N. Spengler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Heuristic Function ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanism ◽  
Ecosystem Impacts ◽  
Niche Construction Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism

AbstractOver the past decade, niche construction theory (NCT) has been one of the fastest-growing theories or scholarly approaches in the social sciences, especially within archaeology. It was proposed in the biological sciences 25 years ago and is often referred to as a neglected evolutionary mechanism. Given its rapid acceptance by the archaeological community, it is important that scholars consider how it is being applied and look for discrepancies between applications of the concept. Many critical discussions of NCT have already been published, but most of them are in biology journals and may be overlooked by scholars in the social sciences. In this manuscript, my goal is to synthesis the criticisms of NCT, better allowing archaeologists to independently evaluate its usefulness. I focus on the claims of novelty and differences between NCT and other approaches to conceptualizing anthropogenic ecosystem impacts and culture-evolution feedbacks. I argue that the diverse concepts currently included in the wide-reaching purview of NCT are not new, but the terminology is and may be useful to some scholars. If proponents of the concept are able to unify their ideas, it may serve a descriptive function, but given that lack of a testable explanatory mechanism, it does not have a clear heuristic function.

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

Moral economy: What’s in a name

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empty Symbol ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Economic

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.

Futures Honed

Futures ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 118-134
Author(s):  
Barbara Adam
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Original Work ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
The Past ◽  
Writing Theory ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Verse Form ◽  
The Way

This chapter comprises an interview between Barbara Adam and the editors, and is followed by Adam’s ‘Honing Futures’, which is presented in four short verses of distilled theory. In the interview Adam reflects on thirty-five years of futures-thinking rooted in her deeply original work on time and temporality, and her innovative response to qualitative and linear definitions of time within the social sciences. The interview continues with a discussion of the way Adam’s thinking on futures intersects in her work with ideas of ethics and collective responsibility politics and concludes with a brief rationale for writing theory in verse form. In ‘Honing Futures’, a piece of futures theory verse form, Adam charts the movements and moments in considerations of the Not Yet and futurity’s active creation: from pluralized imaginings of the future, to an increasingly tangible and narrower anticipated future, to future-making as designing and reality-creating performance. Collectively, the verses identify the varied complex interdependencies of time, space, and matter with the past and future in all iterations of honing and making futures.

School Notes: Committee on Historical Studies

1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-236
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Processes Of Change ◽  
Graduate Faculty ◽  
New School ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Historical Moment

The Committee on Historical Studies was established in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in 1984. The Graduate Faculty has long emphasized the contribution of history to the social sciences. Committee on Historical Studies (CHS) courses offer students the opportunity to utilize social scientific concepts and theories in the study of the past. The program is based on the conviction that the world changes constantly but changes systematically, with each historical moment setting the opportunities and limiting the potentialities of the next. Systematic historical analysis, however, is not merely a diverting luxury. Nor is it simply a means of assembling cases for present-oriented models of human behavior. It is a prerequisite to any sound understanding of processes of change and of structures large or small.

The Use of Photo-interviewing: Three Examples from Health Evaluation and Research

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 52-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind Hurworth ◽  
Eileen Clark ◽  
Jenepher Martin ◽  
Steve Thomsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Recent Case ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Health Evaluation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social

This article reviews the use of photographs as data within the social sciences as well as defining related terminology used over the past century. It then examines the use of photos as stimuli for talking about health settings before presenting three recent case studies where photo-interviewing has been used successfully in health evaluation and research. Advantages and limitations of the method are considered.

Social Sciences between the Systems: The Ecuadorian University between Science, Education, Politics and Economy

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Altmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Education Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Global North ◽  
Self Production ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Operative Closure

Universities are, like all organizations, at the intersection of different functional subsystems. They are not only dedicated to research (science) and teaching (education) but are also place for communications that form part of politics, economics and so on. But, what happens to universities, and, more precisely, social sciences in university, if the social system they work in is not differentiated in the way the social sciences in the Global North are used to? What if there is no clear distinction between science and politics? Does academic autonomy lead in this situation to some kind of ‘university as a subsystem’, complete with its own code and autopoiesis? Or will the different subsystems de-differentiate increasingly, as predicted by Luhmann? This contribution will analyse social sciences in Ecuadorian universities as an example for organizations at the intersection of functional systems that are not fully differentiated. The development, the operative closure, the institutionalization and the self-production of a concrete discipline under constant pressure of other social systems will be analysed. The goal is a further insight into processes of differentiation in the Global South and the role of institutions in these processes. Part of this is the attempt to actualize and criticize Niklas Luhmann’s approach of systems theory to regions outside of the Global North. JEL: O300, Z130

scholarly journals GURIAH LIMPAPEH

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Intania Ananda Jonisa ◽  
Susas Rita Loravianti ◽  
Rasmida Rasmida
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Behavior Patterns ◽  
Female Behavior ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Main Medium ◽  
The Ideal

AbstrakKarya tari yang berjudul “Guriah Limpapeh” terinspirasi dari kehidupan sosial perempuan Minangkabau yang pengkarya amati di sekeliling pengkarya bersikap dan bertingkah laku tidak sesuai dengan etika idealnya perempuan Minangkabau. Dalam aplikasinya menginterpretasikan bergesernya nilai dan etika perempuan hari ini dan mengungkap nilai yang relevan dengan adat dan budaya Minangkabau. Dalam konsep gerak sebagai media utama tari pengkarya mengembangkan gerak yang relevan dengan konsep garapan, selain itu diperkuat dengan menggunakan drum sebagai properti dan setting. Karya ini digarap dalam tiga bahagian yakni pada bagian pertama menginterpretasikan tentang kehidupan dan aktivitas masyarakat di Kecamatan Matur, bahagian kedua menggambarkan perubahan memori pada dahulu dan zaman sekarang, kemudian bahagian ketiga menginterpretasikan bagaimana pola tingkah laku perempuan yang dalam adat Minangkabau yang disebut Simarewan dan Mambang Tali Awan yang menjadi konflik dalam garapan, sedangkan bagian endingnya adalah mengekspresikan idealnya perempuan Minangkabau yang disebut dengan Parampuan. Karya ini diperkuat dengan musik untuk memperkuat suasana, demikian juga elemen-elemen dan artistik lainnya untuk penampilannya memilih ruang terbuka atau outdoor. Kata Kunci: interpretasi, perempuan, adat MinangkabauAbstractThis work of dance entitled  as "Guriah Limpapeh" which is inspired from the social life of Minangkabau women, that the observed around the worker’s attitude and behaved not in accordance with the ideal ethics of Minangkabau women. In its application interpet the shifting values and ethics of women today and reveal values relevant to the customs and culture of Minangkabau. In the concept of motion as the main medium of the dance the developer develops a motion that is relevant to the concept of arable, besides being strengthened by using drums as property and settings. This work is worked on in three parts, namely in the first part of interpreting the life and activities of the community in the mature sub-district, the second part describes the change of memory in the past and present, then the third part interprets how the female behavior patterns in the Minangkabau tradition called simarewan and mambang tali awan  which becomes conflict in claim while the final part is expressing ideally the Minangkabau women who is called parampuan. This work is strengthened by music to strengthen the atmosphere, as well as other artistic and elements for his appearance in choosing open space or outdoor.Keywords: interpretation, women, adat Minangkabau.

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