This paper will argue for routine, reciprocal and meaningful partnerships between the University and the local community. Participation in both policymaking and the generation of knowledge has traditionally been dominated by over-represented groups, drawing on the limited expertise of professionals and practitioners. However, an increasing body of…

Coleman is the father of much social scientific analysis of education. There is a great deal to admire in his work, which is the reason that this essay begins in praise as the author reflects on the "Equality of Educational Opportunity" study (EEOS). Coleman did nearly all of his work before the advent of the causal revolution in social…

This editorial introduces a special section of the "Journal of Learning Analytics," for which Neil Selwyn's keynote address to LAK '18 has been written up as an article, "What's the problem with learning analytics?" His claims and arguments are engaged in commentaries from Alfred Essa, Rebecca Ferguson, Paul Prinsloo, and…

The past 50 years have witnessed a growing presence of critical theory within different social science academic departments across the western world. The joint existence of a theory committed to exposing and criticizing various inequalities of the social order within academic institutions based on traditional hierarchies and prestigious…

Purpose: This paper aims to attempt to provide an overview of the valuable scientific contribution on learning organization in social science from the perspectives of Professor Silvia Gherardi and discusses the evolution of Silvia's work over her long career. Design/methodology/approach: With the collaboration of this leading scholar, Professor…

Amidst deep cuts to public spending, the UK Coalition government announced in 2010 that it would be substantially reducing its subsidy of social science within higher education. As part of the same deficit reduction strategy, the government is cutting funding to local authorities, disproportionately hitting urban councils in the most deprived…

The paradigm for formulating educational policy adopted by Bischoff and Shores, which appears to be the prevailing one, appears to offer no role to the citizen, rendering the paradigm suspect. The authors' honest admission of the limitations of social science knowledge undercuts the argument for the usefulness of research in this area.

Over the past 50 years, an evolution has occurred in the instruction of wilderness professionals and practitioners within the higher education realm. The National Wilderness Conference, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, provided a timely opportunity to discuss the current and future role of higher education and wilderness…

This response considers together simultaneously occurring discussions about causal inference in social work and allied health and social science disciplines. It places emphasis on scholarship that integrates the potential outcomes model with directed acyclic graphing techniques to extract core steps in causal inference. Although this scholarship…

Students drink from two separate streams. When studying "diversity" in political science, sociology, and history, they learn about demographic trends, changing notions of identity, and attempts to overcome historical injustices. They learn to view human differences through historical, legal, moral, and ethical lenses. These teachings…

In validating uses of testing, it is helpful to distinguish those that rely directly on the information provided by scores or score distributions ("direct" uses and consequences) versus those that instead capitalize on the motivational effects of testing, or use testing and test reporting to shape public opinion ("indirect" uses and consequences).…

I take the opportunity provided by John Brekke's (2012) article to respond to the general assumptions and approaches that may be brought when considering the question of a science of social work. I consider first, what should be our frames of reference, our communities of interest, or our boundaries of inclusion, for such a discussion?…

Arguments for the value of case study are vitiated by assumptions about the need for generalisation in the warrant of social scientific inquiry--and little generalisation is legitimate from case study, although an argument exists for the role of the case in the establishment of a form of generalisation in a certain kind of theory, a line of…

The author appreciates the opportunity to reply to Professor Eppley's comment on her paper that was recently published in the "Journal of Research in Rural Education" (Stockard, 2011b). Eppley's paper contains numerous statements that misrepresent both the content of the author's original paper and the social science literature as well as a number…

John Brekke challenges the field and profession of social work to define and develop the "science of social work". This response to Brekke's paper identifies the premises undergirding a discussion of the science of social work related to (1) a definition of "science";; (2 ) an organizing principle for social work; (3) a…