Social Science Space

Textbooks now play a crucial role in teaching in the social sciences. Their importance is mirrored by their abundance; there is an enormous variety of textbooks on the most commonly taught subjects. The rise of the ‘textbook industry’ is not necessarily a good thing, though.

Racially integrated schools offer a number of benefits for students: they are able to expand their cultural outlooks, gain new friends, learn about those who are different, and get better educations at schools with better resources than they would otherwise attend. However, students may struggle with making friends, interacting across racial lines, developing an ethnic identity and with academic achievement

While parts of Aditya Chakrabortty’s recent piece in the Guardian were sensible and informed, its central claim was unfair – that social science disciplines have been unable or unwilling to explore, explain, and confront the ‘Great Financial Crash’ of 2007-9

The Guardian yesterday published a set of worrying facts. Even though consumers of higher education pay almost three times as much in tuition fees than they did six years ago, face-to-face with lecturers in class has barely increased

Microsoft opens up new research center targeting social scientists for hire, what social science can do for India, the social science of archaeology and much more on this Weekly Overview of Social Science News.

The challenge of writing popular psychology came home to me recently when I accepted the invitation to write Forensic Psychology for Dummies

For there to be some sort of global sociology there would need to a recognition of socio-culturally disparate forms of knowledge and institutional settings.

Since its earliest days there has been a great deal of writing about online activism and the possibility of forming active publics via the Internet.

Over the last ten years I have encountered a range of racist discourse in the teaching environment.The first often emanates from international students who inadvertently make inaccurate generalisations based on racial difference. The second is formed within the seminar room, and emanates from British students towards international students.

I find it ironic that interesting current debates about sociology’s Eurocentrism and calls for a more truly global sociology take place in journals and books that are likely to be inaccessible at many, many universities around the world.

Last Saturday, I went to the theatre to a see a touring production based on Arthur Ransome’s novel, Swallows and Amazons…. it prompted a number of thoughts about risk and risk management in the contemporary world.

In June 2011, I was lucky enough to deliver the inaugural LSE Big Questions Lecture. I chose to lecture on […]