Could Distributed Peer Review Better Decide Grant Funding?
The landscape of academic grant funding is notoriously competitive and plagued by lengthy, bureaucratic processes, exacerbated by difficulties in finding willing reviewers. Distributed […]
Educational Reforms Still Have No Answer for School System
The Gates Foundation is regrouping after its latest school improvement disappointment, but it’s not bowing out of the education reform business. As the philanthropic powerhouse led by Bill and Melinda Gates explained in their latest annual letter to the public, it ended its effort to overhaul teacher evaluation systems after determining that these efforts were failing to generate intended results.
Interrogating Ethnography – and Coming Up with the Wrong Answers?
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.
How Do We Head Off the Collateral Damage of Big Data?
Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia argue that big data quantification is now not only a mechanism for extracting information but has become an idea with social and political power in its own right. The lack of critique of quantitative methods and their application contributes to the existing and potentially coercive power of digital information systems and their attendant methods, and enhances the potential for collateral damage.
Sexual Harassment and Universities
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.
Report Offers Guidelines for Ethics of Technology Design
The big questions posed by our digital future sit at the intersection of technology and ethics. This is complex territory that requires input from experts in many different fields, including the social sciences, if we are to navigate it successfully. A new report makes an effort to give a first draft of that necessary input.
When Is It Appropriate to Call a Crime ‘Terrorist’?
Looking at the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas and the ongoing violence perpetrated by people claiming to be working for the so-called Islamic State, our David Canter examines the use of the word ;terrorism’ and asks under what contexts is it accurately applied.
Anti-Intellectualism and the Rise of the British Right
Largely missing from the debate about the growth of alt-right-ish movements and cultural currents, argues our Daniel Nehring, is sustained engagement with the consequences of the shifts that are currently underway in education.
What Does Research Say About Race, Diversity, Acceptance, and Hate?
This free collection of content from SAGE Publishing provides context in the wake of pivotal events, such as the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, that highlight the societal fault lines in the U.S. and across the globe.
