scholarly journals Social Science Research Findings and Educational Policy Dilemmas

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven I. Miller ◽  
Marcel Fredericks
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Bell Curve ◽  
Science Models ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Relationship Of

The article attempts to raise several distinctions regarding the presumed relationship of social science research findings to social policy making. The distinctions are made using Glymour's critique of the Bell Curve. An argument is made that (1) social science models and research findings are largely irrelevant to the actual concerns of policy makers and (2) what is relevant, but overlooked by Glymour, is how ideological factors mediate the process. The forms that ideological mediation may take are indicated.

Navigeren in het onderzoeksveld en het onderzoekersveld: reflecties op onderzoekspositionaliteit in (vermeend) insideronderzoek

KWALON ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Jing Hiah
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Insider Research ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Navigating the research and researchers’ field: Reflections on positionality in (assumed) insider research To challenge rigid ideas about objectivity in social science research, qualitative researchers question their own subjectivity in the research process. In such endeavors, the focus is mainly on the positionality of the researcher vis-à-vis their respondents in the research field. In this contribution, I argue that the positionality of the researcher in academia, what I refer to as the researchers’ field, is equally important as it influences the way research findings are received and evaluated. Through reflections on positionality in my insider research concerning labour relations and exploitation in Chinese migrant businesses in the Netherlands and Romania, I explore how my positionality as an insider negatively influenced my credibility and approachability in the researchers’ field. I conclude that it is necessary to pay more attention to researchers’ positionality in academia as it may shed light on and make it possible to discuss the written and unwritten standards of researchers’ credibility and approachability as an academic in the researchers’ field. Accordingly, this could provide insights into the causes of inequalities in academia and contribute to the current challenge for more diversity in academia.

Facing the Future

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-216
Author(s):  
Lise Butler
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Science Journal ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intellectual Networks ◽  
Negative Income Tax

This chapter examines Young’s work as founding chair of the Social Science Research Council between 1965 and 1968 in the Labour government led by Harold Wilson. It describes how Young responded to increasing anxieties about the nature of planning and expertise in the British civil service by arguing that the social sciences should play a more prominent role in government policy making. The chapter focuses mainly on Young’s Committee on the Next Thirty Years, and his proposals for an Institute of Forecasting Studies, which he unsuccessfully sought to develop as part of a transnational forecasting movement with the support of foreign intellectuals such as the American sociologist Daniel Bell and the French futurologist Bertrand de Jouvenel. The chapter also discusses the intellectual networks associated with the popular social science journal New Society, showing that this group promoted libertarian and state-critical perspectives on urban planning, and radical economic ideas like negative income tax. While the Next Thirty Years Committee was short-lived, it reflected Young’s career-long conviction that public policy should be guided by interdisciplinary social science.

Policy analysis by academics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marleen Brans ◽  
David Aubin ◽  
Valérie Smet
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
Structural Interfaces ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
The Impact

Through their policy relevant research outputs and integration in policy networks, Belgian academics ‘speak truth to power’ (Wildavsky 1979) or ‘make sense together’ (Hoppe 1999) in political and public debates about policy problems and options. At the turn of the millennium, the federal and regional governments have moved to institutionalizing policy relevant research in what are called interuniversity research pillars, and middle to long term research programmes, thematically organised along the priorities decided by the respective governments. Next to these structural interfaces, there are other access points for academics to bring their expertise to policy-making. Sectoral academic experts maintain multiple relationships with knowledge brokers. They are welcome guests in opinion sections of the written and spoken media and hold positions in the strategic advisory bodies of different governments. Several of them are also active in think tanks, or act themselves as consultants in commercial university spin-offs. This chapter analyses the structural and individual access of academics to policy-making in Belgium. The empirical material is based upon documents analysis and budget information, on a study of knowledge utilisation in labour market and education policies in Belgium, and on a recent survey on the impact of social science research on Flemish policy-makers.

Representing own and other voices in social science research articles

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Parkinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Prior Investigation

That complement clauses are a prominent feature of various registers including conversation and academic prose. In academic prose, that-clauses are of interest because they frame research findings, the writer’s central message to the reader. To achieve this persuasive purpose, that-clauses are employed to draw in various voices, including those of other researchers, research participants, research findings and the writer. This study extends prior investigation of complement clauses to examine their distribution across different sections of a corpus of research articles in social science. The social action of each section is partially achieved through what the different voices in the different sections of the article talk about, and the subtle variations in the stance of the author and other voices across sections. This study finds that use of reporting verbs is nuanced according to authors’ purposes in different sections, and also according to the source of the proposition in the that-clause.

Recovering Meaning by Reforming Organizations and Institutions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
School Practices ◽  
University Departments

This chapter addresses what universities, university departments, and professional institutions can do to support the recovery of meaning in social science research. It examines how the practices of journals, publishers, conference organizers, workshops, and other research-related institutions can be reformed to this end. The chapter also looks at how departmental and school practices can be reformed. These include PhD training, other research-relevant educational matters, seminars, workshops, and promotion. The chapter argues that it is academics themselves, and in particular senior academics, who are generally in control as deans, departmental heads, editors, conference organizers, and as policy makers. It is they who have the major part of the responsibility to initiate and sustain a fundamental re-orientation of academic institutions and policies towards research that is meaningful and relevant.

Triangulation Approaches in Accounting Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 186-200
Author(s):  
Koholga Ormin
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Accounting Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Single Data ◽  
Science Disciplines

Accounting research, like many other social science disciplines, has gradually moved from qualitative to quantitative research with an emphasis on the use of multiple evidence or methods in the conduct of research. This chapter explores the concerns and implications of triangulation in the conduct of research in the social sciences, particularly in the field of accounting. Based on evidence from existing literature, the chapter submits that triangulation is an important strategy for enhancing the quality of accounting research. Accounting researchers, like those from other social science disciplines, often adopt triangulation when investigating a complex phenomenon whereby using a single data source or method may not allow an exhaustive investigation to fully understand it, hence the inability to reach a dependable conclusion. Despite the concerns and implications of use of triangulation in accounting and social science research, the chapter concluded it is a relevant approach especially at a time when adequate evidence and analytical rigor is required to substantiate research findings.

Justitiebeleid in de jaren zeventig

Res Publica ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-369
Author(s):  
Luc Huyse ◽  
Lode Van Outrive ◽  
Cyriel Fynaut ◽  
Lieven Dupont ◽  
Tony Peters
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
National Government ◽  
Statistical Information ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Legal Aid ◽  
Department Of Justice

The authors discuss «judicial» policy-making in the seventies by such various actors as police authorities, local and national government, the Bar associations, legal aid agencies, the judiciary, and prison  authorities.  They stress the quasi-absence of reliable statistical information, of good annual reports, and of the minimum goodwill of the authorities that would open this area for social science research. They also analyse some of the major decisions that have been made by the Belgian department of justice in the last ten years.

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