Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
Washington and Social Science: Will a Wall Derail Budget Train?
The U.S. Congress is focused on passing its suite of appropriations bills — including funding for NSF and the Census — before the end of the current fiscal year, and is further along on that path that has been common in recent years. But a presidential threat to shut down government may upset that plan.
Why the Chinese Government Should Read Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer’s examination of ‘militant’ societies, argues our Robert Dingwall, proves to be a cautionary tale for the present Chinese government and its attempts to micro-manage society through the ‘social credit’ scheme.
Why We Sometimes Hate the Good Guy
Everyone is supposed to cheer for good guys. We’re supposed to honor heroes, saints and anyone who helps others, and we should only punish the bad guys. But is the expression ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ really accurate? New research shows we often do, in fact, punish those who do good deeds.
Sir Cliff Richard, the BBC and the Ethics of Interviewing
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.
Competition of Academics
The managerialist logic that has permeated universities has had a clear impact on academic work. To Senia Kalfa, Adrian Wilkinson and Paul J. Gollan, academia has become like a game, with academics competing with each other for a handful of permanent positions & focused completely on accumulating the capital needed to secure one.
Paying for the Good Stuff
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.
The Promises and Limitations of Measuring Research Impact
How can the impact of an academic article be measured? It seems that everyone wants to find an answer to this question – from the researcher and author teams that create research articles, to the editors and peer reviewers who curate them, to the societies and publishers who ensure that the articles are released to the world.
Academia to be Accountable for Sustainable Finance
The academic world has the power to transform events in redefining its social mission, by responding to this highly ambitious EU action plan with the emergence of courses that match the expectations not only of businesses but, above all, society.
