Where does science and technology studies (STS) belong? In "A Place for Science and Technology Studies," Jane Calvert takes readers through eight different rooms--the laboratory, the conference room, the classroom, the coffee room, the art studio, the bioethics building, the policy room, and the ivory tower--investigating the…

Amidst trends that emphasize languishing patterns in teen mental health, there is a bright spot: social science research indicates that adolescents who develop relationships with adult mentors demonstrate increased signs of flourishing. This social science research on mentors, though limited to school performance outcome goals, offers a lifeline…

In this paper, I discuss and critically assess how the relationship between philosophy of science and qualitative methods is presented and discussed in research on qualitative research methods education (QRME) and qualitative methods textbooks. I argue that both typically convey the idea that philosophy of science guides or influences the use and…

Participatory action research (PAR) investigates issues through collaboration and cooperation between academics and nonacademic community members. Recently, awareness of such approaches has increased as the need for transformative research and contribution to social goods has become clear. However, participatory methods have been deployed unevenly…

This paper describes an innovative and replicable approach to teaching qualitative research through archived oral histories. Undergraduates with no research experience were able to pursue individual research questions and prepare a public conference presentation within one semester. In so doing, this approach overcame the barrier of a shortened…

When honors faculty share experiences from their own research, students learn that making mistakes and trying again is an important part of the learning process. This brief article shares a class exercise that successfully develops research proficiency.

Research terminology is an under-examined challenge in the teaching of social science research methods and statistics courses. An important problem in research terminology is that many of the common terms have more than one meaning in English, which students often confuse. For example, the words random, pretest, validity, and regression have more…

This study aims to motivate researchers, teachers and learners to utilize critical social research methodology in the field of second language learning and teaching in which neoliberalism and neocolonialism have been profoundly embedded and overwhelmingly dominant. Therefore, critical reflection (CR), participatory action (PAR) and emancipatory…

Course: Media Theory and Methods. Objectives: (1) To understand and apply social justice perspectives and pedagogical strategies to the study of content analysis. (2) To recognize and transform how social scientific practices in content analysis contribute to the marginalization of specific gender and sexuality portrayals on television.

Although the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has been challenged on methodological, theoretical, and ethical grounds, these criticisms have been largely ignored by teachers and textbook authors. Recent revelations arising from an analysis of the SPE archival materials, however, not only strongly support these past criticisms but also question the…

The author explores the mystery of how and why John Dewey's "The Sources of a Science of Education" came to be lost or forgotten, and why that work is still so important today.

This teaching note describes the design and implementation of an activity in a 90-minute teaching session that was developed to introduce a diverse cohort of first-year criminology and sociology students to the use of documents as sources of data. This approach was contextualized in real-world research through scaffolded, student-centered tasks…

Traditionally, when ontology is taught in a graduate studies course on social research, there is a tendency for this concept to be examined through the process of lectures and readings. Such an approach often leaves graduate students to grapple with a personal embodiment of this concept and to comprehend how ontology can ground their research.…

It remains a dilemma for social work educators to teach research so that it can be embraced by students as an integral part of social work practice. This article reports on an initiative to design a research course focused on the integration of research with practice. Drawing on developments in data mining and techniques in secondary data…

Family history research connects very well with multicultural curriculum because it opens up the multiple experiences of members and communities of a society, as well as helping to make visible the historic construction and ongoing legacy of unequal relationships. The author of this article began to play with what she later called "critical…