Explanation and Education in Social Work

Summary Social work education has to confront the problem of workingwith students in developing an understanding of the range ofexplanations that exist in the social sciences and the differentbases of these explanations. One pedagogic approach is to explorea map of categories of explanation based upon different conceptionsof the nature of social science knowledge itself. Such a map,outlined in the paper, would distinguish between physical scienceparadigms and human science paradigms and identify the differentimplications for social work of the various viewpoints. Theteacher cannot remain neutral with regard to explanation inthe social sciences; the author therefore indicates that hisown account is based on a marxist perspective     

势科学理论的普适性与科学意义——信息人社会与势科学理论研究之二

＂势＂概念的科学定义揭示了信息的本质属性,即信息量与信息势是等价的。从自然科学到人文社会科学各领域的活动,其本质都可以归结为生产更多的信息量、营造更大的信息势。势科学理论本质上是一个求导过程,其构建了一个系统的逻辑体系,使社会科学与自然科学融通起来,为人文社会科学研究提供了强有力的工具,尤其为信息科学的研究提供了真正的逻辑起点。     

The logical structure of applied social science

In the present article the logical structure of applied social sciences will be discussed. Applied sciences don't regard causes and effects but only means and ends. Therefore the logical structure of means-end-argumentations in social sciences will be shown. One can perceive also the important part of normative statements. In summarizing, we can declare that in social sciences there is partly a need to reflect on the postulate of a value-free social science. But it is not our purpose to introduce normative statements as scientific ones. What counts is a liberal attitude towards all realizable norms.     

系统创新全面发展走向世界——关于“十二五”时期中国哲学社会科学创新体系建设的思考

30多年来,中国思想解放、改革开放的伟大实践推动着哲学社会科学的创新取得了五大成就,开启了理论创新的时代。“十二五”时期,中国哲学社会科学研究将步入系统创新的新阶段,将从个别观点、个别结论的创新转换到基础理论、理论体系和方法论的创新;从单一学科、单一视野的创新转换到综合创新、交叉创新和新学科群的崛起;从无序竞争转换到有序推进。作为创新型国家建设的重要内容,哲学社会科学创新体系、创新能力建设与自然科学同为“鸟之两翼”、“车之两轮”,同样重要。中国哲学社会科学创新规划应当强化“国家意识”、建立“国家目标”、设立“国家工程”。系统创新、全面发展、走向世界,这是当代中国哲学社会科学的基本任务。     

哲学社会科学的时代定位

江泽民关于哲学社会科学的重要论述 ,明确了哲学社会科学在新时期的地位和作用。哲学社会科学具有与自然科学同样的科学本质 ,但是它又具有与自然科学不同的人文性质和功能 ,哲学社会科学的重要地位是任何其他学科无法替代的。哲学社会科学的研究应当注重理论的突破和创新。     

Challenges in Multidisciplinary Systematic Reviewing: A Study on Social Exclusion and Mental Health Policy

In the clinical sciences, systematic reviews have proved useful in the aggregation of diverse sources of evidence. They identify, characterize and summate evidence, but these methodologies have not always proved suitable for the social sciences. We discuss some of the practical problems faced by researchers undertaking reviews of complex and cross‐disciplinary topics, using the example of mental health and social exclusion. The barriers to carrying out social science and cross‐disciplinary reviews are reported and some proposals for overcoming these barriers are made, not all of them tried and tested, and some of them controversial. Using a mapping approach, a wide‐ranging search of both clinical and social science databases was undertaken and a large volume of references was identified and characterized. Population sampling techniques were used to manage these references. The challenges encountered include: inconsistent definitions of social phenomena, differing use of key concepts across research fields and practical problems relating to database compatibility and computer processing power. The challenges and opportunities for social scientists or multidisciplinary research teams carrying out reviews are discussed. Literature mapping and systematic reviews are useful tools but methods need to be tailored to optimize their usefulness in the social sciences.     

“十一五”期间我国人文社会科学学术生产力分布研究——基于国家社科基金项目的数据分析

文章在＂十一五＂期间国家社科基金年度项目统计的基础上,以一种数字化管理的方式对立项课题进行统计分析来展现学科的发展态势,并与＂十五＂期间的立项情况进行比较,借以探讨我国人文社会科学研究的学术资源配置及其生产格局,在宏观上呈现人文社会科学发展状况的大致图景。     

管理科学学科结构及其发展态势

管理科学是研究人类社会各种管理活动,介于哲学、社会科学与数学、自然科学之间的交叉学科门类.管理科学已经形成和有待发展的一级分支学科、边缘分支学科,按照区位特点区分为宏观管理学科、中观管理学科、微观管理学科、边缘管理学科、隶属管理学科等五组.今后一段时间,管理学科及其学科体系在中国将明显呈现中国化、收敛式、发散式、交融式、掘进式的发展趋势.     

Team science: A qualitative study of benefits,challenges, and lessons learned

This qualitative study includes interviews with 9 team scientists to examine benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from team-based research in the social sciences. Data analyses were conducted using MaxQDA software to identify provisional and emergent themes. Benefits of team science included enhanced insights from multidisciplinary perspectives, increased scholarly productivity and impact, and mentoring of newer faculty by those with greater experience. Challenges of team science included working with individuals who had divergent philosophies and styles, increased time and effort needed to conduct the research, communicating around professional roles and responsibilities, and fit within the academic context. Lessons learned from the research included establishing relationships with potential team members prior to partnering with them, defining and documenting contributions of team members at the outset, examining institutional supports for team-based research and education, and clarifying processes around issues such as authorship and team membership. Implications are discussed as these relate to research, practice, and policy for team-based social science.     

Effect of impact factor and discipline on journal data sharing policies

Data sharing is crucial to the advancement of science because it facilitates collaboration, transparency, reproducibility, criticism, and re-analysis. Publishers are well-positioned to promote sharing of research data by implementing data sharing policies. While there is an increasing trend toward requiring data sharing, not all journals mandate that data be shared at the time of publication. In this study, we extended previous work to analyze the data sharing policies of 447 journals across several scientific disciplines, including biology, clinical sciences, mathematics, physics, and social sciences. Our results showed that only a small percentage of journals require data sharing as a condition of publication, and that this varies across disciplines and Impact Factors. Both Impact Factors and discipline are associated with the presence of a data sharing policy. Our results suggest that journals with higher Impact Factors are more likely to have data sharing policies; use shared data in peer review; require deposit of specific data types into publicly available data banks; and refer to reproducibility as a rationale for sharing data. Biological science journals are more likely than social science and mathematics journals to require data sharing.     

奥迪斯·邓肯的学术成就：社会科学中用于定量推理的人口学方法

奥迪斯·戴德里·邓肯,于2004年11月去世。他对当今社会学和人口学的量化推理实践起到了极为重要的作用。本文将在科学史的背景下追溯邓肯作为一位量化社会学家所产生的影响。将O. D.邓肯的社会科学哲学置于“总体逻辑思维”的传统中进行分析,这一传统起源于查尔斯·达尔文,其后由弗朗西斯·加尔顿引入社会科学。作为分析的一部分,我将对统计分析的两种方法加以区分（起源于两种主要的有关科学的哲学视角）：高斯或类型逻辑思维和加尔顿或总体逻辑思维,并进一步对邓肯在社会科学中的量化推理视角进行细致讨论,特别是他对于社会测量、路径分析、结构模型、计量经济学和Rasch模型的看法。本文的一个重要主题就在于O. D.邓肯很快意识到社会科学中量化方法所遇到的困难及其局限性,他尤其被内生的总体异质性所困扰。正是这种异质性使得在社会科学中通过统计分析得到具有定律性质的推论变得徒劳。因此,O. D.邓肯十分鄙视那些试图效仿物理科学来探寻假想的社会普适法则的做法,因为他坚信这种法则并不存在且毫无意义。对于O. D.邓肯来说,统计工具的主要作用在于对总体差异的系统性模式进行归纳总结。本文将大量引用O. D.邓肯过去未经发表的私人通信。     

哈贝马斯对社会科学的方法论反思

康德对自然与精神的划界，导致价值从认识论隐退，从而使实证主义有机可乘，以知识论取代了认识论，这让哈贝马斯感到震惊，于是，哈贝马斯通过重新考察认识论，以兴趣为导向作认识的基础，力图恢复认识论的价值意义。为此，他分析西方实证主义兴起对社会科学产生的重大影响，运用自然科学的方法探究社会科学，认为把价值从社会科学中驱除的做法，危害着社会科学自身存在的价值，应该通过辨析自然科学方法使用在社会科学上的危害性，提出社会科学应该采用批判解释学，摆脱自然科学方法论阴影，从而克服社会科学所产生的危机。     

Philosophical Anthropology Can Help Social Scientists Learn from Empirical Tests

Popper's theory of demarcation has set the standard of falsifiability for all sciences. But not all falsifiable theories are part of science and some tests of scientific theories are better than others. Popper's theory has led to the banning of metaphysical and/or philosophical anthropological theories from science. But Joseph Agassi has supplemented Popper's theory to explain how such theories are useful as research programs within science. This theory can also be used to explain how interesting tests may be found. Theories of rationality may be used to illustrate this point by showing how they fail or succeed in producing interesting and testable hypotheses in the social sciences.     

学习贯彻党的十七大精神为繁荣发展哲学社会科学作贡献

党的十七大报告博大精深,实践性、科学性都很强,是马克思主义的纲领性文件。报告第七部分明确指出了哲学社会科学的发展方向,充分表明党中央对哲学社会科学工作的高度重视和对哲学社会科学工作者寄予的厚望。不断深入学习和研究十七大报告提出的历史经验、理论观点、战略举措以及主要问题和矛盾,已经成为我们哲学社会科学工作者义不容辞的责任。     

New Perspectives on the Study of the Authority Relationship: Integrating Individual and Societal Level Research

The concept of authority crosses many social sciences, but there is a lack of common taxonomy and definitions on this topic. The aims of this review are: (1) to define the basic characteristics of the authority relationship, reaching a definition suitable for the different domains of social psychology and social sciences; (2) to bridge the gap between individual and societal levels of explanation concerning the authority relationship, by proposing an interpretation within the framework of social representations. The authority relationship can be conceived as a negotiation of meanings and it is closely linked to shared value orientation and the attribution of meanings negotiated within a society. We assume that the authority relationship is socially constructed and represents both a shared representation of society and a normative principle of social life. A multidisciplinary approach is adopted, crossing definitions and studies provided in sociology, political science, law and social psychology.     

关于重建中国政治学理论体系的思考

政治学理论体系的意义不在于系统介绍有关政治现象的各类知识 ,而在于通过探讨、论述政治学研究的目的、对象、方法及基本范畴 ,为研究现实政治提供正确的理论与方法。基于人类政治需要及政治规律的特殊性质 ,政治学的研究目的应是正确认识人民根本利益 ,即具有二重性的社会共同利益 ;政治学的研究对象应是涉及二重性社会共同利益的所有社会生活领域 ;政治学的研究方法 ,既需要自然科学的实证方法 ,也需要哲学的形而上思维 ;同时 ,政治学研究也相应需要新的概念工具 :政治需要、二重性社会共同利益、政治真理、政治规律等     

发扬成绩，总结经验，为繁荣发展哲学社会科学事业做出新贡献

在全国人民喜迎中华人民共和国60华诞之际，中国社会科学院举行学术报告会，隆重庆祝新中国成立60周年。1949年中华人民共和国的诞生，开辟了中国共产党领导全国人民建设新社会、创造新文明的伟大时代，也开启了中国哲学社会科学发展的新纪元。     

The structure of an undergraduate major and student learning: A cross-institutional study of political science programs at thirty-two colleges and universities

Is there a relationship between the way an undergraduate major in the social sciences is structured and student learning? In this paper, I address the relationship between the structure of the undergraduate major and student learning using data from the political science discipline. To assess the impact of the structure of the major on student achievement, a 29-item electronic questionnaire was employed. I find a very strong relationship between the degree to which a political science major program is structured and student knowledge, even when controlling for plausible alternative explanations for student performance. The results support the notion that majors that are characterized by a sequenced set of courses, the existence of a senior seminar or capstone course, and a required research methodology course taken early on in a Student's career, better prepare political science students than do relatively unstructured majors.Is there a relationship between the way an undergraduate major in the social sciences is structured and student learning? This is an extremely important and central question for social scientists in higher education for two reasons: (1) in this era of “assessment,” social science disciplines are coming under increasing pressure to demonstrate their utility in undergraduate education; (2) unlike other factors that affect student success (such as student ability and ambition) departments can more easily manipulate the structure of undergraduate majors (at least relatively speaking). Thus, understanding the relationship between the structure of the undergraduate major and student development is potentially a key element in instituting effective reforms in the undergraduate curriculum at colleges and universities across the country.In this paper, I address the relationship between the structure of the undergraduate major and student learning using data from the political science discipline. Indeed, there has been considerable interest in recent years in political science as to whether the structure of the undergraduate major has an impact on student learning. Some scholars have argued that the way a major is structured directly affects student development. For instance Wahlke (1991) criticized those political science undergraduate programs that had only a few required courses and other courses were offered as electives without any effort at sequencing them. Indeed, both the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) report on the Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the report produced by the APSA Task Force on Political Science (Wahlke, 1991), noted that unstructured programs are incapable of promoting the necessary skills required of political science students. The AACU report argued that only a consciously structured major that promotes sequential learning creates the “building blocks of knowledge that lead to more sophisticated understanding and … leaps of the imagination and efforts at synthesis” (AACU, 1985, p. 24). The development of thinking skills cannot be accomplished “merely by cumulative exposure to more and more … subject matter”. Majors which emphasize breadth at the expense of depth result in “shallow learning unless students also grasp the assumptions, arguments, approaches, and controversies that have shaped particular claims and findings” (Wahlke, 1991, p. 49).Thus, how a political science major is structured is posited to be related to student learning. However, despite this assertion, relatively little empirical work has been done that systematically examines the relationship between the structure of the major and the development of political science undergraduates. Some works have described programs that seek to emulate the recommendations made by the APSA Task Force and AACU reports, but do not offer evidence that such programs have a positive impact on student learning (Breuning, Parker, & Ishiyama, 2001). Other works have sought to establish a connection between the structure of the major and student reasoning styles by comparing two institutions (Ishiyama & Hartlaub, 2003). However, no studies to date have systematically compared across a number of institutions to demonstrate an empirical connection between the structure of the political science major and student learning. This paper seeks to investigate the purported connection between the structure of the political science major and some aspects of student learning by analyzing data collected from a survey of (32) colleges and universities from across the United States.     

Reflections on the history of the Royal Society Te Apārangi

This paper uses the author’s own recently published history of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (the Royal Society) to reflect on the history of the organisation from a social sciences perspective. The Royal Society’s organisational ‘reinvention’ of itself has reflected the changing place of science and other forms of knowledge in New Zealand. The shift from the nineteenth-century amateur pursuit of knowledge to science as a specialised professional occupation resulted in the reshaping of the organisation at the turn of the twentieth century. There was a further reconstitution of the Royal Society in the 1960s; its structure no longer corresponded to the changes that had taken place in science during the twentieth century. Following the restructuring of science in the 1990s and the increased recognition that different forms of knowledge were integrated and embedded in society, the Royal Society reinvented itself once more with the inclusion of the social sciences and the humanities within its remit.