Social Science Space

Calling all social scientists. How were you trained? How are you keeping up (or not) with new developments in this rapidly changing digital world? How are you training your students? This was the subject of an event sponsored by SAGE Ocean as part of the ESRC’s 2018 Festival of Social Science. Comment on the post

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.

SAGE Ocean is pleased to announce their 2nd Speaker Series titled “Violence, VR & Video Data – Experimental Research into Violent Events.” This second session will see Mark Levine discussing the use of virtual reality to study the behavior of bystanders in violent emergencies.

Efforts to assess scholarly impacts must account for the great diversity of scholarly work and ensure that researchers themselves play a leading role in selecting those indicators that best suit their work. Peter Severinson reports on work published by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences in Canada that hopes will provide guidance to university administrators, public servants, and other members of the research community undertaking the demanding work of impact assessment.

Last year Social Science Space presented more than 200 articles on the impact, infrastructure and industry surrounding social and behavioral science and research. Looking back over those articles, we’ve chosen a few of special merit. Social Science Space plans to continue to provide the latest that the new year has to offer. Stay up to date with us to see what is in store.

2017 may well be remembered as the year of alternative facts and fake news. Truth took a hit, and experts seemed to lose the public’s trust and scientists felt under siege as the Trump administration took office. Five stories, from The Conversation, showcase where scholars and scientists stand in this new climate and various ways to consider the value research holds for society.

The year 2017 turned out to be the start for mainstream behavioral economics after a leading practitioner in the field won a Nobel prize for his work. Throughout 2017, The Conversation asked experts in economics, psychology and other areas to address the power of this burgeoning field, as well as its potential for misuse. Here are some articles for your consideration.

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.

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.

The UK science policy establishment has been remarkably sanguine in the face of its government’s plans for Brexit, argues Robert Dingwall.