Social Science Space

The recent brouhaha involving the BBC and the singer points out something the journalists and qualitative researchers share: the need to develop a common approach to the ethics of interviewing.

When Robert Dingwall was younger, sociology departments routinely taught a course on ‘industry,’, ‘work’ or ‘economic life.’ “Most of this turf has now been abandoned to business schools in the form of organization studies, where it increasingly struggles to resist the expansion of finance and accounting studies,” he says, and to our detriment.

Although it won’t see the memorials and centenary events that the World War I Armistice will, it’s worth thinking back to the ravages of the ‘Spanish flu’ of a century ago and the implications that that pandemic of the past has for infections of the future.

Increasingly, says Robert Dingwall, UK universities are taking a more paternal role in the lives of their students, taking — or perhaps resuming — more active roles in addressing their charges’ mental health, criminal conduct and self-care.

A recent critique of Alice Goffman’s influential 2014 book, “On the Run,” has, in effect, put ethnography conducted in the United states on trial. Here, our Robert Dingwall argues a case for the defense.

Developing an effective response to sexual harassment in the academic industry — by no means a new phenomenon, notes Robert Dingwall — requires us to consider questions about institutional memory, occupational cultures, and organizational silos, rather than badly behaved individuals.

Publishing remains a key part of the mission of many British learned societies, as does disseminating scholarship and staying afloat. A new report appearing in December, and previewed at a September meeting, will offer some direction for organizations trying to reduce the tension that open access may create among those goals.

England is looking at changing its organ transplant permission process from on opt-in to an opt out model. While this looks like an easy answer, says our Robert Dingwall, who part of a working group on the issue in the 90s, he doubts such a change will make any significant difference and may actually be counter-productive in terms of public confidence in the system.

Academics have been disengaged, disengaged themselves, or never been engaged with the challenges of working in, and for, very complex organizations, says our Robert Dingwall. Their distaste for administration in its various forms is a liability.

So if markets are truly good for English higher education, as many seem to think, should we follow that train of thought to its logical conclusions?

How well do sociology departments in the UK teach sociology that originated in the UK? Asking that surprisingly hard question may produce usable insights for academic Britain, argues our Robert Dingwall.

Fire safety is not just an issue for engineers. People build buildings, people live in buildings, and people use (and abuse) buildings. That creates a need for social and behavioral work to accompany every nail driven.