The unique complexity of social phenomena and the uses of social science knowledge

The assertion about the peculiarly intricate and complex character of social phenomena has, in much of social discourse, a virtually uncontested tradition. A significant part of the premise about the complexity of social phenomena is the conviction that it complicates, perhaps even inhibits the development and application of social scientific knowledge. Our paper explores the origins, the basis and the consequences of this assertion and asks in particular whether the classic complexity assertion still deserves to be invoked in analyses that ask about the production and the utilization of social scientific knowledge in modern society. We refer to one of the most prominent and politically influential social scientific theories, John Maynard Keynes' economic theory as an illustration. We conclude that, the practical value of social scientific knowledge is not necessarily dependent on a faithful, in the sense of complete, representation of (complex) social reality. Practical knowledge is context sensitive if not project bound. Social scientific knowledge that wants to optimize its practicality has to attend and attach itself to elements of practical social situations that can be altered or are actionable by relevant actors. This chapter represents an effort to re-examine the relation between social reality, social scientific knowledge and its practical application. There is a widely accepted view about the potential social utility of social scientific knowledge that invokes the peculiar complexity of social reality as an impediment to good theoretical comprehension and hence to its applicability.

Inquiring how a lecturer keeps learning about their teaching:a personal case history on reflective imagination

In order to reverse the use of lecture-based teaching, it is argued that personal reflection can be used as part of the quality assurance process. This paper proposes one response to personal reflection - reflective imagination, which is summarised as an action plan with six activities. It combines two conceptual issues raised in the US, the need to think creatively about learning and the reflective mindset, and one issue raised in the UK, cultivating the entrepreneurial imagination. Reflective imagination is linked to wider social science research, the place of self and reflexivity in scholarship. Finally, a personal history case study is presented which records a visit to Harvard Business School. The visit implements the six activities associated with reflective imagination. This is a method paper exploring reflective imagination.

The representation of majorities and minorities in the British Press:a content analytic approach

A content analysis examined the way majorities and minorities are represented in the British press. An analysis of the headlines of five British newspapers, over a period of five years, revealed that the words ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ appeared 658 times. Majority headlines were most frequent (66% ), more likely to emphasize the numerical size of the majority, to link majority status with political groups, to be described with positive evaluations, and to cover political issues. By contrast, minority headlines were less frequent (34%), more likely to link minority status with ethnic groups and to other social issues, and less likely to be described with positive evaluations. The implications of examining how real-life majorities and minorities are represented for our understanding of experimental research are discussed.

University ranking as social exclusion

In this article we explore the dual role of global university rankings in the creation of a new, knowledge-identified, transnational capitalist class and in facilitating new forms of social exclusion.We examine how and why the practice of ranking universities has become widely defined by national and international organisations as an important instrument of political and economic policy. We consider how the development of university rankings into a global business combining social research, marketing and public relations, as a tangible policy tool that narrowly redefines the social purposes of higher education itself. Finally, it looks at how the influence of rankings on national funding for teaching and research constrains wider public debate about the meaning of ‘good’ and meaningful education in the UK and other national contexts, particularly by shifting the debate away from democratic publics upward into the elite networked institutions of global capital. We conclude by arguing that, rather than regarding world university rankings as a means to establish criteria of educational value, the practice may be understood as an exclusionary one that furthers the alignment of higher education with neoliberal rationalities at both national and global levels.

Motivations to deposit:two approaches to Open Educational Resources (OER) within Languages and Social Sciences (LSS) at Aston University

In Spring 2009, the School of Languages and Social Sciences (LSS) at Aston University responded to a JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and Higher Education Academy (HEA) call for partners in Open Educational Resources (OER) projects. This led to participation in not one, but two different OER projects from within one small School of the University. This paper will share, from this unusual position, the experience of our English tutors, who participated in the HumBox Project, led by Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS) and will compare the approach taken with the Sociology partnership in the C-SAP OER Project , led by the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C-SAP). These two HEA Subject Centre-led projects have taken different approaches to the challenges of encouraging tutors to deposit teaching resources, as on ongoing process, for others to openly access, download and re-purpose. As the projects draw to a close, findings will be discussed, in relation to the JISC OER call, with an emphasis on examining the language and discourses from the two collaborations to see where there are shared issues and outcomes, or different subject specific concerns to consider.

Families 'at risk' and the family nurse partnership:the intrusion of risk into social exclusion policy

This article considers why the family nurse partnership (FNP) has been promoted as a means of tackling social exclusion in the UK. The FNP consists in a programme of visits by nurses to low-income first-time mothers, both while the mothers are pregnant and for the first two years following birth. The FNP is focused on both teaching parenthood and encouraging mothers back into education and/or into employment. Although the FNP marks a considerable discontinuity with previous approaches to family health, it is congruent with an emerging new approach to social exclusion. This new approach maintains that the most important task of social policy is to identify quickly the most 'at-risk' households, individuals and children so that interventions can be targeted more effectively at those 'at risk', either to themselves or to others. The article illustrates this new approach by analysing a succession of reports by the Social Exclusion Unit. It indicates that there is a considerable amount of ambiguity about the relationship between specific risk-factors and being 'at risk of social exclusion'. Nonetheless, this new approach helps to explain why British policy-makers may have chosen to promote the new FNP now. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.

The investigation of the sensitivity gradient of the visual field, as a function of stimulus dynamic range, in the normal and abnormal eye

The study utilized the advanced technology provided by automated perimeters to investigate the hypothesis that patients with retinitis pigmentosa behave atypically over the dynamic range and to concurrently determine the influence of extraneous factors on the format of the normal perimetric sensitivity profile. The perimetric processing of some patients with retinitis pigmentosa was considered to be abnormal in either the temporal and/or the spatial domain. The standard size III stimulus saturated the central regions and was thus ineffective in detecting early depressions in sensitivity in these areas. When stimulus size was scaled in inverse proportion to the square root of ganglion cell receptive field density (M-scaled), isosensitive profiles did not result, although cortical representation was theoretically equivalent across the visual field. It was conjectured that this was due to variations in the ganglion cell characteristics with increasing peripheral angle, most notably spatial summation. It was concluded that the development of perimetric routines incorporating stimulus sizes adjusted in proportion to the coverage factor of retinal ganglion cells would enhance the diagnostic capacity of perimetry. Good general and local correspondence was found between perimetric sensitivity and the available retinal cell counts. Intraocular light scatter arising both from simulations and media opacities depressed perimetric sensitivity. Attenuation was greater centrally for the smaller LED stimuli, whereas the reverse was true for the larger projected stimuli. Prior perimetric experience and pupil size also demonstrated eccentricity-dependent effect on sensitivity. Practice improved perimetric sensitivity for projected stimuli at eccentricities greater than or equal to 30o; particularly in the superior region. Increase in pupil size for LED stimuli enhanced sensitivity at eccentricities greater than 10o. Conversely, microfluctuation in the accommodative response during perimetric examination and the correction of peripheral refractive error had no significant influence on perimetric sensitivity.

The role of national culture in advertising's sensitivity to business cycles:an investigation across continents

The authors conduct a systematic investigation into the cyclical sensitivity of advertising expenditures in 37 countries, covering four key media: magazines, newspapers, radio, and television. They show that advertising is considerably more sensitive to business-cycle fluctuations than the economy as a whole. Advertising behaves less cyclically in countries high in long-term orientation and power distance, but it is more cyclical in countries high in uncertainty avoidance. Furthermore, advertising is more sensitive to the business cycle in countries characterized by significant stock market pressure and few foreign-owned multinational corporations. The authors provide initial evidence on the long-term social and managerial losses incurred when companies tie ad spending too tightly to business cycles. Countries in which advertising behaves more cyclically exhibit slower growth of the advertising industry. Moreover, private-label growth is higher in countries characterized by more cyclical advertising spending, implying significant losses for brand manufacturers. Finally, an examination of 26 global companies shows that stock price performance is lower for companies that exhibit stronger procyclical advertising spending patterns.

Social software in Higher Education:the diversity of applications and their contributions to students' learning experiences

Higher education institutions are increasingly using social software tools to support teaching and learning. Despite the fact that social software is often used in a social context, these applications can significantly contribute to the educational experience of a student. However, as the social software domain comprises a considerable diversity of tools, the respective tools can be expected to differ in the way they can contribute to teaching and learning. In this review on the educational use of social software, we systematically analyze and compare the diverse social software tools and identify their contributions to teaching and learning. By integrating established learning theory and the extant literature on the individual social software applications we seek to contribute to a theoretical foundation for social software use and the choice of tools. Case vignettes from several UK higher education institutions are used to illustrate the different applications of social software tools in teaching and learning.

The relationship between student-centred lectures, emotional intelligence, and study teams:a social telemetry study with mobile telephony

A student-centred approach to teaching has been conceptualized as a key driver in higher education to facilitate understanding of concepts and improve attainment. The occurrence of student study team behaviours is diagnostic of this approach to teaching. However, the extent to which team behaviours are performed outside the parameters of formal teacher-learner environments remains under-researched. This is problematic as it is unclear whether study teams are maintained outside the confines of lectures, and the extent to which they impact on individual student grades. A naturalistic observational study was carried out that utilized short message text service communication as a means to record the frequency of team behaviours within informal environments. The findings suggest the frequency of team behaviours: 1) were positively associated with student grades; 2) increased after lectures independently rated as low in employing a student-centred focus; and 3) were facilitated by students' trait emotional intelligence.

DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder:in search of essential behaviours for diagnosis

Background: Despite initial concerns about the sensitivity of the proposed diagnostic criteria for DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; e.g. Gibbs et al., 2012; McPartland et al., 2012), evidence is growing that the DSM-5 criteria provides an inclusive description with both good sensitivity and specificity (e.g. Frazier et al., 2012; Kent, Carrington et al., 2013). The capacity of the criteria to provide high levels of sensitivity and specificity comparable with DSM-IV-TR however relies on careful measurement to ensure that appropriate items from diagnostic instruments map onto the new DSM-5 descriptions.Objectives: To use an existing DSM-5 diagnostic algorithm (Kent, Carrington et .al., 2013) to identify a set of ‘essential’ behaviors sufficient to make a reliable and accurate diagnosis of DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) across age and ability level. Methods: Specific behaviors were identified and tested from the recently published DSM-5 algorithm for the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO). Analyses were run on existing DISCO datasets, with a total participant sample size of 335. Three studies provided step-by-step development towards identification of a minimum set of items. Study 1 identified the most highly discriminating items (p<.0001). Study 2 used a lower selection threshold than in Study 1 (p<.05) to facilitate better representation of the full DSM-5 ASD profile. Study 3 included additional items previously reported as significantly more frequent in individuals with higher ability. The discriminant validity of all three item sets was tested using Receiver Operating Characteristic curves. Finally, sensitivity across age and ability was investigated in a subset of individuals with ASD (n=190).Results: Study 1 identified an item set (14 items) with good discriminant validity, but which predominantly measured social-communication behaviors (11/14). The Study 2 item set (48 items) better represented the DSM-5 ASD and had good discriminant validity, but the item set lacked sensitivity for individuals with higher ability. The final Study 3 adjusted item set (54 items) improved sensitivity for individuals with higher ability and performance and was comparable to the published DISCO DSM-5 algorithm.Conclusions: This work represents a first attempt to derive a reduced set of behaviors for DSM-5 directly from an existing standardized ASD developmental history interview. Further work involving existing ASD diagnostic tools with community-based and well characterized research samples will be required to replicate these findings and exploit their potential to contribute to a more efficient and focused ASD diagnostic process.

On the F word:a corpus-based analysis of the media representation of feminism in British and German press discourse, 1990-2009

Research in social psychology has shown that public attitudes towards feminism are mostly based on stereotypical views linking feminism with leftist politics and lesbian orientation. It is claimed that such attitudes are due to the negative and sexualised media construction of feminism. Studies concerned with the media representation of feminism seem to confirm this tendency. While most of this research provides significant insights into the representation of feminism, the findings are often based on a small sample of texts. Also, most of the research was conducted in an Anglo-American setting. This study attempts to address some of the shortcomings of previous work by examining the discourse of feminism in a large corpus of German and British newspaper data. It does so by employing the tools of Corpus Linguistics. By investigating the collocation profiles of the search term feminism, we provide evidence of salient discourse patterns surrounding feminism in two different cultural contexts. © The Author(s) 2012.

Project Proposals Development – Entrepreneurship and Reflection in Teaching Information Technology

This work presents a model for development of project proposals by students as an approach to teaching information technology while promoting entrepreneurship and reflection. In teams of 3 to 5 participants, students elaborate a project proposal on a topic they have negotiated with each other and with the teacher. The project domain is related to the practical application of state-of-theart information technology in areas of substantial public interest or of immediate interest to the participants. This gives them ample opportunities for reflection not only on technical but also on social, economic, environmental and other dimensions of information technology. This approach has long been used with students of different years and programs of study at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Plovdiv University “Paisiy Hilendarski”. It has been found to develop all eight key competences for lifelong learning set forth in the Reference Framework and procedural skills required in real life.