scholarly journals Social Structures and Chaos Theory

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Prediction And Control ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

Up to this point many of the social-scientific discussions of the impact of Chaos theory have dealt with using chaos concepts to refine matters of prediction and control. Chaos theory, however, has far more fundamental consequences which must also be considered. The identification of chaotic events arise as consequences of the attempts to model systems mathematically. For social science this means we must not only evaluate the mathematics but also the assumptions underlying the systems themselves. This paper attempts to show that such social-structural concepts as class, race, gender and ethnicity produce analytic difficulties so serious that the concept of structuralism itself must be reconceptualised to make it adequate to the demands of Chaos theory. The most compelling mode of doing this is through the use of Connectionism. The paper will also attempt to show this effectively means the successful inclusion of Chaos theory into social sciences represents both a new paradigm and a new epistemology and not just a refinement to the existing structuralist models. Research using structuralist assumptions may require reconciliation with the new paradigm.

The NSF Law and Social Sciences Program

1979 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 16-17
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Wasby
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Social Scientific Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Impact

The National Science Foundation provides support for basic social science research on law and legal institutions through the Law and Social Sciences Program. The primary emphasis of the program is on research that will enhance understanding of the nature and sources of variation in legal rules and institutions and their consequences. Proposals directed to developing methodologies for the social scientific study of law are also considered. Proposals concerning criminal aspects of the law will be considered if they relate primarily to theoretical questions in the social scientific study of the law. However, the central focus of the Law and Social Sciences Program is on noncriminal aspects of the legal system.Those who anticipate submitting proposals might keep in mind the broad concerns that are central to the program:1. The capacity of law, through statutes, administrative regulations, and court decisions, to affect individual and organizational behavior, its limitations in regulating action, conditions which enhance or diminish the impact of law, and the processes by which that impact is achieved or diminished.2. The use of alternative methods, both formal (legal) and informal (extra-legal), for dealing with disputes, and factors that contribute to the selection of the alternatives used.3. Change in the legal system, its causes and the processes by which it occurs, with particular emphasis on factors affecting the use of law as an instrument of social control.

A Probability Index of the Robustness of a Causal Inference

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Pan ◽  
Kenneth A. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Confounding Variable ◽  
Reference Distribution ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Probability Index

Causal inference is an important, controversial topic in the social sciences, where it is difficult to conduct experiments or measure and control for all confounding variables. To address this concern, the present study presents a probability index to assess the robustness of a causal inference to the impact of a confounding variable. The information from existing covariates is used to develop a reference distribution for gauging the likelihood of observing a given value of the impact of a confounding variable. Applications are illustrated with an empirical example pertaining to educational attainment. The methodology discussed in this study allows for multiple partial causes in the complex social phenomena that we study, and informs the controversy about causal inference that arises from the use of statistical models in the social sciences.

Stabilizing American Society: Kenneth Boulding and the Integration of the Social Sciences, 1943–1980

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Fontaine
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Main Determinant ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Right

ArgumentFor more than thirty years after World War II, the unconventional economist Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) was a fervent advocate of the integration of the social sciences. Building on common general principles from various fields, notably economics, political science, and sociology, Boulding claimed that an integrated social science in which mental images were recognized as the main determinant of human behavior would allow for a better understanding of society. Boulding's approach culminated in the social triangle, a view of society as comprised of three main social organizers – exchange, threat, and love – combined in varying proportions. According to this view, the problems of American society were caused by an unbalanced combination of these three organizers. The goal of integrated social scientific knowledge was therefore to help policy makers achieve the “right” proportions of exchange, threat, and love that would lead to social stabilization. Though he was hopeful that cross-disciplinary exchanges would overcome the shortcomings of too narrow specialization, Boulding found that rather than being the locus of a peaceful and mutually beneficial exchange, disciplinary boundaries were often the occasion of conflict and miscommunication.

scholarly journals Feminist Methods and Sources in Criminology and Criminal Justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Howe
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Advanced Education ◽  
Justice Research ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Feminist Methods ◽  
Criminal Justice Research ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Criminology And Criminal Justice

AbstractThis article by Adrian Howe is based on a presentation given at the ‘Sources and Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice Conference’ in November 2015, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Education and the Socio-Legal Studies Association. She begins by querying whether there are indeed distinct feminist methods in the social sciences. She outlines the impact of what she calls the ‘methodical revolution’ on the criminology discipline, Foucault's contribution and Foucauldian methodologies deployed in criminological and criminal justice research.

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.

Journal influence in corporate research

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Borokhovich ◽  
Allissa Lee ◽  
Betty Simkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Corporate Finance ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
The Social ◽  
Total Influence ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – Studies of research influence commonly look at the overall field of finance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the sub-field of corporate finance at four different points in time to determine its evolution and range of influence, specifically focussing on the relative influence of seven leading journals. Design/methodology/approach – Not all articles appearing in the set of journals are in corporate finance. The authors examine each article published in the journals for four key periods and identify those that are corporate. The impact factors (IFs) published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) are for all articles appearing in a journal. The authors are interested only in the corporate articles, so the authors calculate separate corporate IFs based on the citations to the corporate articles using the JCR technique. Findings – The authors find a broad corporate research environment with influence that extends well beyond finance. The authors also find differences in the relative influence of the journals not only in their total influence, but in where the influence occurs outside finance and other business journals and even more broadly in the social sciences. Research limitations/implications – The exclusion of journals outside the seven selected may not uncover other areas where corporate finance articles impact research more broadly. Also, classification of articles is inherently subjective. Practical implications – The authors draw comparisons between journals and corporate finance topic areas; indicating the breadth and depth research in these areas attain. These results should prove beneficial to researchers in determining areas of influence for their work, consequently providing opportunities for additional exchanges of ideas resulting in better and more informed research in the overall social sciences. Further, our approach to analyzing journal influence could prove fruitful for additional research. Originality/value – The findings allow for a greater understanding of the influence of individual journals and their subsequent rankings by a number of different means. The authors propose that the means and measures employed here can lead to a greater understanding of how influential a journal really is. Further, the authors contend that the study provides comparisons of the scope and depth of influence for each journal in a way that could lead to new avenues of research.

scholarly journals Idiomaticity as a Language Learning Barrier: The EFL Context of Saudi Arabia

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Abdalla Elkheir Elgobshawi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Efl Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Efl College Students ◽  
The Impact

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of Idiomaticity on language learning and the extent to which it can be a language learning barrier. It contrasts the perspective of language teachers and the attitude of language learners regarding how idioms can influence language learning. The theoretical framework provides a description of the general properties of English idiomatic expressions and shows the relevance of idiomaticity to linguistic theory. The paper is based on an analytical analysis and follows a quantitative approach in which two questionnaires are used to collect the data. The two questionnaires are administered to two independent samples: 20 participants representing ELT teachers at the tertiary level and 80 subjects representing Saudi EFL college students. The data are then analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The study reveals learners’ reasonable consensus on the issues assessed. They generally acknowledge the significance of idioms for language learning but with a general dissatisfaction with their status in learning and teaching contexts. Both teachers and learners view idioms as odd pieces of language that lack a uniform character and do not receive due attention in language syllabi and curricula. Teachers give different ratings on the pedagogical value of idioms, but they generally show low interest in teaching them.

scholarly journals Political Disagreement and Minimal Epistocracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam F. Gibbons
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Political Disagreement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Crucial Assumption

Despite their many virtues, democracies suffer from well-known problems with high levels of voter ignorance. Such ignorance, one might think, leads democracies to occasionally produce bad outcomes. Proponents of epistocracy claim that allocating comparatively greater amounts of political power to citizens who possess more politically relevant knowledge may help us to mitigate the bad effects of voter ignorance. In a recent paper, Julian Reiss challenges a crucial assumption underlying the case for epistocracy. Central to any defence of epistocracy is the conviction that we can identify a body of political knowledge which, when possessed in greater amounts by voters, leads to substantively better outcomes than when voters lack such knowledge. But it is not possible to identify such a body of knowledge. There is simply far too much controversy in the social sciences, and this controversy prevents us from definitively saying of some citizens that they possess more politically relevant knowledge than others. Call this the Argument from Political Disagreement. In this paper I respond to the Argument from Political Disagreement. First, I argue that Reiss conflates social-scientific knowledge with politically relevant knowledge. Even if there were no uncontroversial social-scientific knowledge, there is much uncontroversial politically relevant knowledge. Second, I argue that there is some uncontroversial social-scientific knowledge. While Reiss correctly notes that there is much controversy in the social sciences, not every issue is controversial. The non-social-scientific politically relevant knowledge and the uncontroversial social-scientific knowledge together constitute the minimal body of knowledge which epistocrats need to make their case. 

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