On sources and narratives in historical social science: a realist critique of positivist and postmodernist epistemologies

Critics of the interdisciplinary enterprise of historical sociology commonly contend that the narrational accounts of past social phenomena provided by historians are inadequate to the task of theory-building and testing. In support of this negative assessment, opponents will adduce informational deficiencies in the available data (the standard positivist appraisal of historical evidence), or cite the interpretive anarchy that seemingly prevails at the narrative phase of emplotment (the skeptical, postmodernist contention that historiographic texts 'construct' rather than veridically represent the events they artfully contrive to signify). Both of these lines of criticism are unbalanced, and therefore seriously misleading as regards the epistemic foundations of historical-sociological inquiry. The 'social authenticity' and 'informational density' of historical evidence does allow for veridical reconstructions of the past, while the reflexive interpretive protocols of source criticism and the sociology of knowledge can be deployed to provide warrant for discriminating arbitrations between competing theories and narratives. The various epistemological deformations in the study of human affairs that have been encouraged by the old idiographic-nomothetic polarity - chronic ahistoricism within the social sciences, the atheoretical predilections of much conventional historiography - are rectifiable through the consolidation of a fully integrated sociological history, a unified and inclusive historical social science.     

Out with Multiple Choice and In with Essays: A More Accurate Way to Measure Reading Comprehension

The certification test for English teachers in a certain state asked candidates to identify the name of the frog in Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." If students answered this question correctly and said, Dan'l Webster, does this mean that these students would be prepared for the teaching field? Conversely, if students answered this question incorrectly, does this mean they were ill - prepared for becoming teachers? Can such an irrelevant question really point to the knowledge and abilities of future teachers? Hardly, use of unimportant questioning such as this illustrates the main problem with using a multiple choice format when assessing students. Trivial items such as names of animals and other insignificant information are often given priority over their significance in the story simply because students are not able to demonstrate what they really know in narrative form (Smagorinsky, 2002).     

Northern vietnamese households

The fact that the majority of northern Vietnamese households are small and contain only two generations is often interpreted as evidence of the effects of socialism on the Vietnamese family. The observed pattern is, however, typical of a stem household system like that of northern Vietnam, and probably predates the Revolution. Virtually all discussions of northern Vietnamese households have concentrated on cross-sectional measures of household size and structure. Such measures must be combined with longitudinal measures and measures of size as experienced by household members to give a full picture of northern Vietnamese households. On all these measures southern Vietnamese households appear significantly different from northern Vietnamese households.     

Peep show establishments, police activity, public place, and time: a study of secondary effects in San Diego, California

An empirical study was undertaken in San Diego, California, to test assumptions made by the government and by conservative religious policy advocates that there is a greater incidence of crime in the vicinity of peep show establishments. We asked two questions: (a) Is criminal activity in San Diego particularly acute at peep show establishments compared to surrounding control locations? and (b) Is criminal activity in San Diego disproportionately greater at or near peep show establishments between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. compared to other times of the day? The levels of crime activity and the expenditure of police resources were examined by measuring the number of calls-for-service (CFSs) to the police within a 1,000-ft. area on either side of the peep show establishments and comparably-sized control areas beyond the immediate 1,000-foot area. A more focused late-night (2 a.m. to 6 a.m.) analysis was also undertaken. The results showed no reliable evidence of differences in crime levels between the control and test areas, nor was there any evidence of disproportionately greater amounts of crime within the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. time period in the areas surrounding the peep show establishments. We concluded that San Diego does not have a problem with crime at the peep show establishments generally, nor is there a heightened problem with crime during the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. period. We discuss the implications of assuming that peep show establishments are associated with negative effects in the community and the possibility of viewpoint discrimination against sex communication.