Careers in the Social Sciences

Thought experiments enable students to think about persistent social issues by drawing on both knowledge and imagination. In this article, the author provides examples of thought experiments found in literature for adults and middle school students, a rationale for doing thought experiments in the classroom, a step-by-step procedure to follow, and a rubric for evaluating student work. A sample of one student's work illustrates the process. The author also recommends several nonfiction books that can be used to jump-start thought experiments. By encouraging students to link past experiences with present concerns, thought experiments illustrate the relevance of the social studies.     

Social Sciences Education Practices: Cognitive Perceptions of Prospective Classroom Teachers

Abstract

There are many factors that affect the perceptions of students enrolled in the classroom teaching programs of education faculties concerning the concept of social studies teaching. The most important of these factors are the instructors they observed in the faculty and their previous educational lives. In this context, this study aimed to determine the characteristics of “an ideal social studies instruction” according to the cognitive structures of prospective teachers and to model an ideal social studies instructor according to these qualities. This research was designed as a case study, which is one of the qualitative research designs. The study group was selected by criterion sampling and consisted of 121 prospective teachers in their final year at two state universities located in the Marmara region of Turkey. A word association test, an open-ended questionnaire, and student drawings were used as data collection tools. When the results of the study were examined, the concepts of history, society, culture, people, and geography came to the forefront in the participants’ cognitive perceptions toward social studies. It was determined that the characteristics they attributed to an ideal social studies instructor were gathered under the standard of professional responsibility and informed action. The student drawings revealed that the instructor figures were mostly well-groomed and smiling, they were usually shown in museums and historical buildings. Lastly, as future social studies instructors, the prospective teachers felt adequate in terms of the professional responsibility and informed action standard, and inadequate concerning the content knowledge standard.     

Cosmopolitism and Localism in the Brazilian Social Sciences

This article analyzes the main trends of sociology and political science in Brazil. It uses as empirical data the workgroups and the bibliographical reviews sponsored by the Associação Nacional de Pós‐Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (ANPOCS), a scientific association that organizes much of the debate in the Brazilian social sciences in the last 40 years. From these data, it is verified that sociology and political science in Brazil combine a universalist vocation, in relation to its themes and problems, with an almost exclusive focus on Brazilian society. It is also considered that the current coup d'État imposes new interpretative challenges to Brazilian social sciences, which can no longer consider stable or irreversible the process of democratization of society and its political institutions. Cet article analyse les grandes tendances de la sociologie et de la science politique au Brésil. Il se fonde sur des données empiriques venant de groupes de travail et de recensions bibliothécaires sponsorisés par l'Associação Nacional de Pós‐Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (ANPOCS), une association scientifique qui a organisé la plupart des débats dans les sciences sociales brésiliennes au cours des 40 dernières années. Il en découle que la sociologie et la science politique au Brésil combinent une vocation universelle, en relation avec ses thèmes et ses problèmes, et un focus presqu'exclusivement centré sur la société brésilienne. Il est aussi démontré que le coup d'État en court impose de nouveaux défis interprétatifs dans les sciences sociales brésiliennes, qui ne peuvent plus considérer le processus de démocratisation de la société et de ses institutions politiques comme étant stables ou irréversibles.     

社会科学中的因果分析

休谟提出的因果问题影响了两个半世纪的科学哲学讨论,即人类如何从有限经验观察推论必然因果关系?密尔从方法论角度阐释了因果推论的逻辑,指出只有在其他因素相同的条件下,经验相关才能推论因果,为现代随机分组试验设计奠定了基础。实验方法在社会科学中应用有限,更为常用的是观察数据统计分析和个案数据定性分析。复杂统计模型用统计控制模拟实验控制,也能有效检验因果命题。定性分析是理论与经验的反复碰撞,有利于提出新理论或新假设。本文强调,因果解释一定包括机制解释,而机制解释一定是理论解释。因果理论不是对经验相关的简单归纳,而是思想飞跃。检验因果理论的基本逻辑是:从理论演绎因果命题,再演绎相关假设,然后用统计数据检验之。最后讨论整合理论、定性、定量的三点定位原则。     

Public Sociology and the Public Turn in the Social Sciences

Public sociology broadly conceptualized is a form of intellectuality involving dialogue between sociologists and the publics with whom they are concerned. Beyond this broad framing, what type of dialogue, with what purpose, which public(s), and the functions of intellectuals and the knowledge they produce are widely contested. In this essay, I explore the politics of academic disciplines, knowledge, and discourse as it has emerged within the debate over public sociology, while also highlighting what public sociology and the rise of other ‘public’ disciplines tells us about these themes in relationship to the possibility of public culture.     

American Conservatism and Government Funding of the Social Sciences and the Arts*

The efforts of the Reagan Administration to cut government funding for the arts and the social sciences reflects not only a general desire to curtail government spending but also a specific conservative effort to “defund the Left” by eliminating especially those programs regarded by conservatives as the basic source of liberal and radical social change in the United States. This paper examines the conservative animus against government support for the arts and the social sciences. The discussion has four parts: The first traces the history of contemporary American conservatism and identifies its central ideological themes. The second argues that the belief that government and intellectuals are the two main sources of liberal social change has led conservatives to target government programs allegedly guilty of social activism and to develop their own relatively autonomous counterintellectual network. The third examines how this political agenda and institutional structure have influenced conservative opposition to government funding of the social sciences and the arts. The final part suggests some implications our analysis has for defending the social sciences and the arts.     

上海社会组织发展机制和体制改革研究

上海社会组织的发展不仅需要创新模式,更需要突破传统体制机制的制约。上海需探索成立市级社会组织管理服务中心,建立社会组织管理服务的第三方评价制度;出台政府购买服务的指导目录,制定政府购买服务的办法,建立政府购买服务资金的增长机制;加大社会组织人才扶持力度,出台公益人才扶持政策,打造公益人才培训基地;制订免税扩围政策,如细化免税对象、扩大免税内容、简化免税审批流程;建立扶持社会组织发展的资金体系,如建立支持草根社会组织的扶持资金、支持企业设立公益基金、设立社会组织发展的公共资金专户;开展社会组织改革创新试点,建立国际社会组织集聚园区,开展服务于外来人口的社会组织综合创新试点,建立与国际对接的志愿者服务体系。     

Social Security Reform

Abstract

Despite recent economic gains for women, a substantial gender gap in financial security during old age remains, making women more dependent than men upon Social Security. Social Security plays an important role in providing for women's economic security. The implications for women of several proposed changes in Social Security policy, including the call for the partial privatization of Social Security via the introduction of individual accounts, are analyzed. Many of the proposals would have the effect of asking women, particularly low-income women, to shoulder a disproportionate share of the risks and burdens associated with the changes.     

Tomorrow's Social Needs and Social Work Education

This paper presents a rationale and educational plan for teaching statistical orientation (not statistics per se) by means of a series of practice questions that are, at the same time, basic statistical questions. These questions include, for example, measures of central tendency, “What can typically be expected of the client's problem behavior?” and measures of variability, “What range of variation from the typical is typical?” Set in a context of practice, these types of questions do not seem to provoke the hostility among social work students that often typifies their reaction to traditional statistics courses.