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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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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Using the entire population of professors at universities in the province of Quebec (Canada), the article shows that, after they have passed the age of about 38, women receive, on average, less funding for research than men, are generally less productive in terms of publications, and are at a slight disadvantage in Terms of the scientific impact of their publications.
Abstract: Using the entire population of professors at universities in the province of Quebec (Canada), this article analyzes the relationship between sex and research funding, publication rates, and scientific impact. Since age is an important factor in research and the population pyramids of men and women are different, the role of age is also analyzed. The article shows that, after they have passed the age of about 38, women receive, on average, less funding for research than men, are generally less productive in terms of publications, and are at a slight disadvantage in terms of the scientific impact (measured by citations) of their publications. Various explanations for these differences are suggested, such as the more restricted collaboration networks of women, motherhood and the accompanying division of labour, women's rank within the hierarchy of the scientific community and access to resources as well as their choice of research topics and level of specialization.

172 citations


Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

  • ...Finally, it should be recalled that what counts as ‘legitimate’ or ‘important’ research is still a function of the dominant agents of a scientific field (Bourdieu 2004)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how different research paradigms exist within mixed methods research (MMR) and trace paradigmatic differences at the level of methods, ontology, and epistemology.
Abstract: This article challenges the idea that mixed methods research (MMR) constitutes a coherent research paradigm and explores how different research paradigms exist within MMR. Tracing paradigmatic differences at the level of methods, ontology, and epistemology, two MMR strategies are discussed: nested analysis, recently presented by the American political scientist Evan S. Lieberman, and praxeological knowledge, inspired by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. These strategies address two different epistemological problems, namely, the problem of causal inference and the problem of double hermeneutics. Consequently, the research designs as well as the understandings of the “qualitative component” differ noticeably. Realizing such differences at the ontological, epistemological, and methodological level contributes to discussions on how to move forward MMR, embracing differences instead of imposing homogeneity.

163 citations


Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

  • ...(Bourdieu, 2004, p. 116) In other word, the mixing of methods should solve the basic epistemological problem of the social sciences, namely, that the research object is a research subject, and has an understanding of his/her own social reality that sometimes competes with the researcher’s…...

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  • ...Researchers tend to produce what Bourdieu terms scholastic fallacies, forgetting that people do not act with the knowledge available to researchers (Bourdieu, 2000, 2004)....

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  • ...This implies, Bourdieu argues, moving from the opus operatum, that is, analyzing structures and regularities, to the modus operandi, that is, analyzing principles of production of these regularities inherent in practice (Bourdieu 1973, 2004)....

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  • ...…of historical epistemology relies almost entirely on epistemological assumptions of the way knowledge must be constructed by breaking with common sense, and (in Bourdieu’s version) by using the complementary of scientific and practical perspectives and knowledge (see also Bourdieu, 2000, 2004)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors express serious reservations regarding the increasingly popular Bourdieu-inspired notions of institutional habitus and family habitus in education research, arguing that they threaten not only to overstretch and reduce the explanatory power of the French thinker's concepts but also stifle analysis of the kinds of struggles and complexities that both he and the researchers in question spotlight.
Abstract: This paper expresses serious reservations regarding the increasingly popular Bourdieu‐inspired notions of ‘institutional habitus’ and ‘family habitus’ in education research. Although sympathetic to the overall theoretical approach and persuaded of the veracity and importance of the empirical findings they are used to illuminate, it argues that, from a Bourdieusian point of view, they actually present several difficulties that threaten not only to overstretch and reduce the explanatory power of the French thinker’s concepts but to stifle analysis of the kinds of struggles and complexities that both he and, somewhat contradictorily, the researchers in question spotlight. Bourdieu had his own ways of making sense of the themes raised, and although there is indeed a need to push him further than he went, to say what he did not and to emphasise what he would not, this has to be guided by consistent logic and not simply pragmatic empiricism.

159 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article compares, within a data-set of German research units, citation and co-publication indicators as a proxy for the unobserved quality dimension of scientific research and suggests that, although there is a strong partial correlation between citations andCo-publications within a multivariate setting, it cannot use reasonably normalised co- publications indicators as an alternative proxy for quality.
Abstract: This article deals with the role of internationally co-authored papers (co-publications). Specifically, we compare, within a data-set of German research units, citation and co-publication indicators as a proxy for the unobserved quality dimension of scientific research. In that course we will also deal with the question whether both citations and co-publications are considerably related. Our results suggest that, although there is a strong partial correlation between citations and co-publications within a multivariate setting, we cannot use reasonably normalised co-publication indicators as an alternative proxy for quality. Thus, concerning quality assessment, there remains a primer on citation analysis.

158 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the multiple synergies between international practice theory and diplomatic studies and suggest what a practice theory of diplomacy may look like, discussing a variety of existing works through their common objective to explain the constitution of world politics in and through practice.
Abstract: This introductory article explores the multiple synergies between international practice theory and diplomatic studies. The timing for this cross-fertilizing exchange could not be better, as the study of diplomacy enters a phase of theorization while practice scholars look to confront the approach to new empirical and analytical challenges. The article first defines diplomacy as a historically and culturally contingent bundle of practices that are analytically alike in their claim to represent a given polity to the outside world. Then the key analytical wagers that practice theory makes are introduced, and debates currently raging in the discipline are briefly reviewed. Next, it is suggested what a practice theory of diplomacy may look like, discussing a variety of existing works through their common objective to explain the constitution of world politics in and through practice. Finally, a few research avenues to foster the dialogue between diplomatic studies and practice theory are outlined, centered on...

156 citations


Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

  • ...Practice theorists generally agree that scholars ought to be reflexive in the study of practice, for instance by subjecting their own research to the same sociological analysis that they perform (e.g. Bourdieu, 2004; see also the debate around ‘autoethnography’)....

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