Social Science Space

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.

The American Academy of Political and Social Sciences recognizes William Julius Wilson for his work on race, stratification, and disadvantage in the U.S.

As an academic, you are a brand not only as a matter of choice, but, increasingly, due to powerful institutional imperatives that are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

SAGE’s Global Publishing Director, Ziyad Marar talks with Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds about the one year anniversary of Social Science Bites.

The recent and on-going reforms of higher education are enforcing an individualisation of academic labour. That academics would gamely play along with such a system is astonishing.

Sociology is a brand. To survive or even thrive in the academic marketplace, sociology needs to take care of its image. But at what cost?

Survey researchers are increasingly unable to get people to respond to surveys. This is a real worry because nonresponse can lead to biased research and because nonresponse poses a significant threat to the federal statistical system in its entirety.

Federal surveys have been getting more expensive to administer, in part because the number of people who actually respond to surveys has been progressively declining.

The British Academy recently published a guide for students encouraging those studying the humanities and social sciences to become statistically savvy.

Quantitative Skills (QS) can take you far in academia and the research world, giving you the keys to unpick complex phenomena and critically evaluate other studies. These Q&As with established professors, early career researchers and PhD students reveal the importance of QS within their diverse fields.

Quantitative Skills (QS) give ‘empirical grit’ to the work of charities and third sector organisations. Here, Sharon Witherspoon, Director of the Nuffield Foundation and 2011 Winner of the British Academy President’s Medal and Aleks Collingwood, Programme Manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, explain how QS have been crucial to their careers.