Robert Fox

Bio: Robert Fox is an academic researcher from University of Oxford. The author has contributed to research in topics: Internationalism (politics) & Vocational education. The author has an hindex of 16, co-authored 68 publications receiving 1007 citations. Previous affiliations of Robert Fox include Lancaster University.

Technological Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology

Abstract: In this volume, scholars from these two very different traditions are brought together. Never before has a single volume contained such a distinguished and diverse group of historians of technology.

The Organization of Science and Technology in France, 1808-1914

Abstract: Introduction: The institutional basis of French science in the nineteenth century Robert Fox and George Weisz Part I. The University: 1. The emergence of the Ecole Normale Superieure as a centre of scientific education in the nineteenth century Craig Zwerling 2. Reform and conflict in French medical education, 1870-1914 George Weisz 3. Educational qualifications and university careers in science in nineteenth-century France Victor Karady Part II. Technical education: 4. Education for the industrial world: technical and modern instruction in France under the Third Republic 1870-1914 C. R. Day 5. Apollo courts the Vulcans: the applied science institutes in nineteenth-century French science faculties Harry W. Paul 6. From 'corps' to 'profession': the emergence and definition of industrial engineering in modern France Part III. The advancement and diffusion of science 7. The development of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle of Paris c. 1800-1914 Camille Limoges 8. The savant confronts his peers: scientific societies in France 1815-1914 Robert Fox 9. The prize system of the Academy of Sciences 1850-1914 Elisabeth Crawford Part IV. A Foreign Perspective: 10. The organisation of science and technology in France: a German perspective Peter Lundgreen Bibliography Index.

Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists

Abstract: The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities-long an analytic problem for philosophers and sociologists-is here examined as a practical problem for scientists. Construction of a boundary between science and varieties of non-science is useful for scientists' pursuit of professional goals: acquisition of intellectual authority and career opportunities; denial of these resources to "pseudoscientists"; and protection of the autonomy of scientific research from political interference. "Boundary-work" describes an ideological style found in scientists' attempts to create a public image for science by contrasting it favorably to non-scientific intellectual or technical activities. Alternative sets of characteristics available for ideological attribution to science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution: science can be made to look empirical or theoretical, pure or applied. However, selection of one or another description depends on which characteristics best achieve the demarcation in a way that justifies scientists' claims to authority or resources. Thus, "science" is no single thing: its boundaries are drawn and redrawn inflexible, historically changing and sometimes ambiguous ways.

The New York Review of Books

Abstract: It comes as something ofa surprise to reflect that the New York Review ofBooks is now over twenty years old. Even people of my generation (that is, old enough to remember the revolutionary 196os but not young enough to have taken a very exciting part in them) think of the paper as eternally youthful. In fact, it has gone through years of relatively quiet life, yet, as always in a competitive journalistic market, it is the controversies that attract the interest of the reader and to which the history (especially an admittedly impressionistic survey that tries to include something of the intellectual context in which a journal has operated) must give some attention. Not all the attacks which the New York Review has attracted, both early in its career and more recently, are worth more than a brief summary. What do we now make, for example, of Richard Kostelanetz's forthright accusation that 'The New York Review was from its origins destined to publicize Random House's (and especially [Jason] Epstein's) books and writers'?1 Well, simply that, even if the statistics bear out the charge (and Kostelanetz provides some suggestive evidence to support it, at least with respect to some early issues), there is nothing surprising in a market economy about a publisher trying to push his books through the pages of a journal edited by his friends. True, the New York Review has not had room to review more than around fifteen books in each issue and there could be a bias in the selection of

Implementing, embedding, and integrating practices: An outline of Normalization Process Theory.

Abstract: Understanding the processes by which practices become routinely embedded in everyday life is a long-standing concern of sociology and the other social sciences. It has important applied relevance in understanding and evaluating the implementation of material practices across a range of settings.This article sets out a theory of normalization processes that proposes a working model of implementation, embedding and integration in conditions marked by complexity and emergence. The theory focuses on the work of embedding and of sustaining practices within interaction chains, and helps in understanding why some processes seem to lead to a practice becoming normalized while others do not.

A Complete Bibliography of Publications in Isis, 2000{2009

Abstract: accademiche [38]. Ada [45]. Adrian [45]. African [56]. Age [39, 49, 61]. Al [23]. Al-Rawi [23]. Aldous [68]. Alex [15]. Allure [46]. America [60, 66]. American [49, 69, 61, 52]. ancienne [25]. Andreas [28]. Angela [42]. Animals [16]. Ann [26]. Anna [19, 47]. Annotated [46]. Annotations [28]. Anti [37]. Anti-Copernican [37]. Antibiotic [64]. Anxiety [51]. Apocalyptic [61]. Archaeology [26]. Ark [36]. Artisan [32]. Asylum [48]. Atri [54]. Audra [65]. Australia [41]. Authorship [15]. Axelle [29].

Materiality and Change: Challenges to Building Better Theory about Technology and Organizing

Abstract: Researchers have had difficulty accommodating materiality in voluntaristic theories of organizing. Although materiality surely shapes how people use technologies, materiality's role in organizational change remains under-theorized. We suggest that scholars have had difficulty grappling with materiality because they often conflate the distinction between the material and social with the distinction between determinism and voluntarism. We explain why such conflation is unnecessary and outline four challenges that researchers must address before they can reconcile the reality of materiality with the notion that outcomes of technological change are socially constructed.