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Science of Science and Reflexivity
01 Jan 2004-
TL;DR: Bourdieu's "Science of Science and Reflexivity" as mentioned in this paper argues that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit.
Abstract: Over the last four decades, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu produced one of the most imaginative and subtle bodies of social theory of the postwar era. When he died in 2002, he was considered to be a thinker on a par with Foucault, Barthes, and Lacan a public intellectual as influential to his generation as Sartre was to his. "Science of Science and Reflexivity" will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal "An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology." In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in "Science of Science and Reflexivity" are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths; he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century; and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces. A masterful summation of the principles underlying Bourdieu's oeuvre and a memoir of his own scientific journey, "Science of Science and Reflexivity" is a capstone to one of the most important and prodigious careers in the field of sociology."
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01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, a Beitrag behandelt in Fachzeitschriften veroffentliche Nachrufe als Datenmaterial, die das wissenschaftliche Personal fur die (soziologische) Fachgeschichte sichtbar macht.
Abstract: Der Beitrag behandelt in Fachzeitschriften veroffentliche Nachrufe als Datenmaterial, die das wissenschaftliche Personal fur die (soziologische) Fachgeschichte sichtbar macht. Nachrufe eroffnen einen spezifischen Blick auf die Konstruktion wissenschaftlicher Biografien und Lebensleistungen. Die besonderen Hintergrunde der Produktion und Rezeption dieses Genres konnen produktiv genutzt werden, wenn die Analyse reflektiert, dass es sich hier nicht um dokumentarische Darstellungen von Biografien handelt, sondern um ihre Narration und Bewertung. Die diesen Vorgangen zugrunde liegenden Regeln illustrieren die ansonsten weitgehend implizit bleibenden Kriterien, die an wissenschaftliche Biografien und Lebensleistungen angelegt werden.
01 Sep 2014
TL;DR: This article divided the post-World War II era into three periods: 1945 to 1969, 1970 to 1999, and 2000 to 2012, and examined the practice and location of scholarship on the history of sociology in each of the periods identified.
Abstract: Dividing the post-World War II era into three periods: 1945 to 1969, 1970 to 1999, and 2000 to 2012, this chapter describes the changing nature of scholarship on the history of sociology and the changing position of this scholarship in the discipline of sociology at large. To facilitate this description, it introduces the period divisions, data sources, and terminology, used in this analysis. The chapter clarifies the use of some terms to describe the historiography of sociology in the post-World War II era. It examines the practice and location of scholarship on the history of sociology in each of the periods identified. A historian of sociology comparing his or her subfield as it was in 1945 with conditions in 2012 would be struck, almost inevitably, by the prodigious growth and rich variegation of scholarship on the history of sociology.
01 Jan 2022
TL;DR: A growing number of critical analyses from within science have been published of how science was organized as a system and discussing its problems, despite, or paradoxically because the growing size of its endeavour and its growing yearly output as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Gradually since 1990 a growing number of critical analyses from within science have been published of how science was organized as a system and discussing its problems, despite, or paradoxically because the growing size of its endeavour and its growing yearly output. Because of lack of openness with regards to sharing results of research, such as publications and data but in fact of all sorts of other products, science is felt by many to be disappointing with respect to its societal impact, its contribution to the major problems humanity is facing in the current times. With the financial crisis, in analogy, also the crisis of the academic system as described in Chap. 3 was exposed and it seemed that similar systemic neoliberal economic mechanisms operated in these at first sight seemingly different industries. Most of these critiques appeared with increasing frequency since 2014 in formal scientific magazines, social media and with impact reached the leadership of universities, government and funders. This raised awareness and support for the development of new ways of doing science, mostly intuitively and implicitly, but sometimes explicitly motivated by pragmatism aiming for societal progress and contribution to the good life.
22 Jul 2020
TL;DR: This paper explored sixteen coach educators' journeys and experiences, understandings, practice, role, and reality from a variety of sports and levels of coach education in the United Kingdom and found that their practice, roles and realities were prescriptive, highly structured, repetitive and pressurised and they viewed coach education as being decontextualised and low impact.
Abstract: There is a paucity of research focusing on the professional coach educator and their voices rarely feature in the coaching literature. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore sixteen coach educators’ journeys and experiences, understandings, practice, role and realities from a variety of sports and levels of coach education in the United Kingdom. As such, the research enabled this sample of coach educators’ voices and experiences to be heard and for their socialisation processes from childhood to be investigated. The coach educators were interviewed using semi-structured interviews that provided exploratory insights into them and their biographies. The data were analysed thematically through inductive and deductive processes. Themes were identified that related to the coach educators’ journeys and lives as well as their understandings of coach learning and coach education. To offer a more sophisticated appreciation of coach educators and coach education the sociological framework of Pierre Bourdieu was adopted. The analysis showed that their beliefs and perceptions had been formed, inculcated and reproduced as a result of taken-for-granted and doxic experiences (Bourdieu, 1977) as athletes, learners, coaches and in coach education and tutor training (and tertiary education in some cases). The participants expressed that their practice, roles and realities were prescriptive, highly structured, repetitive and pressurised and they viewed coach education as being decontextualised and low impact. The participants suggested that knowledge of ‘learning’ was important for coaching and coach education and associated it with contextualised and situated practice. However, analysis showed that the coach educators’ pedagogical knowledge was somewhat limited, confused and lacked conceptual understanding. As such, this typically positioned the professional coach educator as being unreflective, unreflexive and compliant as they appropriated legitimate (but questionable) methods. The findings highlighted there is a need to further examine coach educators’ experiences, understandings, tutor training and to conduct much-needed critical inquiry with coach developers and those occupying senior SGB positions.
01 Jan 2020
TL;DR: In this article, Demeter presents a great volume of empirical data on the science output of different world regions, showing that the center/periphery structure of the field of knowledge production is rather similar in the case of all disciplines with the absolute hegemon position of the US, the UK and other developed countries of Western Europe.
Abstract: In this chapter, Demeter presents a great volume of empirical data on the science output of different world regions. Analysis shows that while different disciplines have a different distribution of academic capital, the center/periphery structure of the field of knowledge production is rather similar in the case of all disciplines with the absolute hegemon position of the US, the UK and other developed countries of Western Europe. Demeter also argues that the exclusion of the periphery and the excessive brain drain and reeducation practices maintain global North hegemony to a great extent, while potentially causing even the most successful peripheral authors to lose their authentic voices. As counterexamples, the author presents the more adaptive, state-funded tactics of some BRICS countries.