Social Science Space

The generation of knowledge by professors. The transformative conversations that happen outside of the classroom. The advancements in our understanding of society. How can you put a value on any of these things?

Derek Bok has called on universities to be ‘ethical beacons’ shining out in their communities, but that shine is tarnished in oh-so-many ways in institutions of higher education around the world, notes Professor Sir David Watson.

Whether it’s the DREAM Act in the United States or the crackdown sought by the UK Visas and Immigration in Britain, universities are becoming a flashpoint of immigration policy.

Where should we draw the line between normal data gathering about university students–with the intent of helping them, of course–and outright intrusiveness?

King’s College London’s Alexandre Afonso looks at the so-called marketization of higher education with disdain–not because of its advent but because it hasn’t gone far enough.

In the past 15 years and across successive governments in the United Kingdom, the concept of value for money has been internalized throughout higher education. Here, the author of “Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought” outlines why it is a problem to use student choice and value for money as a means of holding universities to account.

Some of the top institutions in Europe have dropped down the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2013. The UK and US continue to dominate while leaders in France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, Belgium, Ireland and Austria have seen their stars fade. The results are likely to spur on advocates of a scheme to produce a measurement of university excellence that better reflects the strengths of universities outside the US and UK.

Taking the top spot in the THE rankings for the third year in a row is the California Institute of Technology. Oxford has also maintained its position in joint second place but in a tussle between the East and West coasts of the US, Harvard has pushed Stanford into fourth place, having regained its position next to Oxford at number two.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma, of the University of Vermont, discusses the ways a Dean can provide support for sustainability research and initiatives […]

Why academics’ misunderstanding of the epistemology and politics of science is leading them to silently and uncritically support the politics of the powers that be.

Do the Humanities not have an intellectual basis as legitimate and rigorous as that of the natural and social sciences? And are not the Humanities in fact an essential part of higher education? Try considering the Humanities as a form of Human Relations.

The humanities and social sciences in America could use a white knight, but instead they got a white elephant.

Studying ourselves is something the British do exceptionally well: specialists flock here from all over the world seeking answers to fundamental questions from our unique series of cohort birth studies, and no one else has anything quite like them.