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The paper offers a first-person experiential observational study by a newcomer to the use of research initiatives to combat poverty in two geographic regions and Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. Drawing on participatory action research and the tradition of ‘the animateur’ (catalyst-facilitation), the work of the sponsoring local agency, Research Initiatives Bangladesh (RIB) is described as illuminating a range of quite powerful applications. The paper is part of a larger project to bring to a western audience knowledge of the use of these methodologies in the Indo-Asian region, and some comparative reflections on them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the periodical, Sociological Methodology. Sociological Methodology is a journal that seeks to publish excellent contributions to each and every one of the many and diverse research methodologies that sociologists use in their research,or that they would want to use, if they knew of these methods or how to adapt them to sociological analysis. Many think of sociological methodology as a synonym for statistics or quantitative research methods. These Pavlovian responses are unfortunate. The editors of Sociological Methodology have consistently sought outstanding papers on all sociologically useful methods, including those that are generally perceived to be non-statistical and non-quantitative. Sociological Methodology is a refereed journal. The editor picks referees to render opinions on papers,makes editorial decisions based substantially (but not entirely) on referee reports, protects reviewers' identities from wounded authors,and does his best to protect authors from unfair, incompetent, or simply mistaken reviews. The editor also does his best to protect authors from his own errors by attending carefully to the comments of reviewers and by honoring any reasoned request for reconsideration and re-review. The system works on a web of redundant checks and balances,overseen by the editor.

This paper examines the character of the debate about 'quantitative' and 'qualitative' methods in feminist social science. The 'paradigm argument' has been central to feminist social science methodology; the feminist case against 'malestream' methods and in favour of qualitative methods has paralleled other methodological arguments within social science against the unthinking adoption by social science of a natural science model of inquiry. The paper argues in favour of rehabilitating quantitative methods and integrating a range of methods in the task of creating an emancipatory social science. It draws on the history of social and natural science, suggesting that a social and historical understanding of ways of knowing gives us the problem not of gender and methodology, but of the gendering of methodology as itself a social construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to develop a statement of those conditions that facilitate and those that obstruct the internationalization of social science knowledge. The topic merits investigations if for no other reason than that the internationalization of culture of all forms is an increasingly visible and salient phenomenon in our time. This process is evident at many levels, the spread of science and technology, fueled by the intensity of international economic competition; the diffusion of ideologies, notably those of democracy and modernization; the growth of common norms associated with growing economic and political interdependence, and the growing flow of persons through migration and tourism and the diffusion of culture, especially popular culture, through the expanded international system of the media, especially television. This paper distinguishes among three aspects of knowledge-research, training and learning - and the content and quality of knowledge. Research refers to the formal creation and codification of knowledge. Considered analytically, this activity is not attached to any special kind of social structure; knowledge has been created and codified informally, for example, in peasant agriculture and traditional crafts, and chroniclers and historians have accumulated facts and lore about societies for many centuries.

In moving health and social service programs from planning into action, it is essential to understand the extent to which the knowledge gained from research should influence the actions taken by organizations and agencies that provide services (e.g., government, nongovernment organizations [NGOs]). The complexity of the challenges in translating lessons learned from science into different service settings, as well as into public policy, requires a multifaceted approach to accelerate the integration of research with practice. In this paper, the relationship between science and service is examined within the contexts of the scientific, health practice, and policy communities largely from a public sector perspective within the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concepts of knowledge culture and epistemic culture against the background of contemporary transformations in global society. Studies of knowledge culture came to prominence in the 1970s, with the trend towards laboratory fieldwork and direct observation in the new sociology of science. If the focus in such early studies was on knowledge construction, the focus in an epistemic culture approach by contrast is on the construction of the machineries of knowledge construction, relocating culture in the micropractices of laboratories and other bounded habitats of knowledge practice. Not all places of knowledge, however, are bounded spaces, and there is a case to be made for including in the empirical agenda more distributed locations. This is done here by introducing the concept of 'macro-epistemics', to describe wider networks of knowledge generation such as what is often known as 'the global financial architecture'. The discussion concludes by moving out from macro-epistemic circuits to questions of the cultural environment of epistemic settings, and of the more general knowledge culture in which specific knowledge processes are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers have been arguing recently that the idea of what is `international' in this field has been occupied by the hegemonic discourses of Anglo-American geography and journals. This paper takes this lively debate as an indicator of the global challenges facing higher education and research and provides an analysis of the changing conditions of knowledge production, characterised by internationalisation and competition. Knowledge production is governed to an increasing degree through practices based on market-like operations. The author argues that this may lead to the homogenisation of social science publication practices, which are known to be heterogeneous and context dependent. One indicator of this homogenisation is the demand for publishing in international journals that is arising in social sciences and humanities round the world. Both `international' and `quality' are increasingly being connected with the journals noted in the Institute of Scientific Information's (ISI) databases. Starting with an analysis of the changing conditions of knowledge production in general and in human geography in particular, the author scrutinises the spatial patterns of the international journal publishing spaces constituted by the ISI. The results show specific geographies: not only the manner in which the Anglo-American journals dominate the publishing space in science but also how the publishing spaces of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities are very different. The publication space of social science journals is particularly limited to the English-speaking countries, and this is especially the case with human geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the phenomenon of institutionalized sport from a sociology of religion perspective, with the intention of providing a systematic basis for the frequent but often too-facile analogies drawn between sport and religion. Sensitizing dimensions are drawn from sport in order to render this complex phenomenon more amenable to conceptual analysis. Several prominent sociological definitions of religion are introduced, and institutional sport is assessed for "goodness of fit" with these definitions. The analytic emphasis is on symbols, but the utility of the sociology of religion foci of beliefs and practices is also detailed. Both participants and spectators are seen to symbolize, to hold beliefs, and to engage in ritual practices pertaining to sport. After finding considerable support for the general contention that sport is at least quasi-religious in nature, projections are offered for future research and for broader theoretical development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some of the findings from two national research projects which focussed on Ph.D. research in Britain. Through interviews with graduate students, supervisors and department heads, it explores the characteristic structures which index natural science and social science doctoral study in both single and multi/inter-disciplinary fields. By comparing and contrasting a 'research group approach' to Ph.D. research with the 'one-to-one' model, the research findings highlight ways in which doctoral study can be organised to minimise some of the problems routinely faced by graduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a reply to Bernd Hamm's critique of the transformation of Europe as a challenge to comparative sociology. The main thrust of Bernd Hamm's critique is that the article on the transformation of Europe is pursuing a comparative approach resulting only in the empirical description of similarities and differences between nations. Such an approach, accepting nations as the most important and meaningful entities for comparison, tends to confine research to a static and correlational logic. He asserts that it is characterized by a retrospective and conservative bias, not allowing for a true consideration of patterns of interlinkages between the units of observation nor the dynamics of change. While such an approach, according to Hamm, might have some merits, a truly fruitful comparative research within the context of Europe necessitates a significant different position, an evolutionary approach focusing on the changes going on in Europe. Here, the processes of building European institutions are particularly at issue; only by focusing on them can we contribute to the understanding of Europe as it becomes one society, and to learn lessons from such understanding. There are some specific arguments in Hamm's critique on which the author would like to comment briefly. The first concerns arguments about crisis phenomena in Europe in the first part of the paper. A second, quite important, issue raised by Hamm concerns the question whether nation-states are still the most meaningful units of observation in comparative research.

This paper situates metatheorizing in a postpositivist approach to social science. Postpositivism contends that social science is organized around competing traditions, which are comprised of generalized discourse and research programs. Following an examination of the relations between discourse and programs, the dynamics fueling social scientific competition are outlined. Because that competition is subject to recurrent distortions and there[ore cannot insure that the best arguments win, it is proposed that metatheorizing assume an adjudicative posture and evaluate the conflicting claims of rival schools. This suggestion is elaborated in the context of Ritzer's pioneering work on metatheorizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postmodern claims for the lack of general coherence in social life and therefore in social research are merely a version of recurrent attempts to accept incoherence as adequate in explanations. Incoherence, however, is less sharply distinguished from the synthetic and generalizing theories that it is held to have replaced than its proponents and critics suppose. Generalizing approaches, in fact, were built around contradictions that contributed to their instability and facilitated postmodern fragmentation. In this paper we demonstrate the central contradictions in social theory, showing their common occurrence in apparently opposed positions. Both postmodernism and what it seeks to replace are features of a conservative and unproductive social science. We trace the contradictory continuties through major modern schools of social theory in order to clear the ground for a progressive social science which accepts contradictions as problems that must be solved creatively in the practice of social research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a comment to the study by Robert J. Johnson and Frederic D. Wolinsky regarding their evaluation of the "Journal of Health and Social Behavior" relevant to the observations connected with the period from 1977 to 1987. Is is claimed that the decline of the the periodical's stature based on attempts to broaden its scope of journal coverage, reduction in subscription and changes in editorial policy. There is an implication that two committee reports caused a decline in citation which serves as the author's measure in stature. The frequency of citation of particular articles depends on many things including the content, quality of reported work, the author's reputation, the number of investigators and the visibility and reputation of a journal. It is argued that the change in the journal's image has lessened its visibility in the stress area and reduced the impact of some papers.

In this thoughtful paper, Mechanic discusses the differences between quantitative and qualitative researchers, focusing on health-related issues. It should, of course, be evident to readers that the issues he discusses have applicability far beyond medical sociology. The same issues arise in all kinds of social research and the excellent examples he gives can be expanded easily to examples in areas including education, criminology, industrial relations, social stratification, and others. In my reading of his paper, Mechanic discusses both differences between methods at a single point in time and differences in measuring process across time. As a quantitative survey researcher, I will comment on my perceptions of the similarities and differences between observational and survey methods for cross-sectional research. I then discuss some methods for bridging the gap that do not involve diaries. Finally, I discuss procedures for measuring process using observational and diary methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information related to November 1986 issue of the journal "Sociology." Sociology is, however, a general journal, so it is expected that papers should not be on topics only of interest to specialists in a particular field, and that work in specialized areas should as far as possible be written in a way which makes it accessible to those outside that field. There could be a useful role for articles whose aim is to introduce specialist work of potentially wider interest to the sociological general reader, and we should like to encourage those who normally submit elsewhere to write them. The journal has already institutionalized the `Trend Report'. In addition to this, bibliographical surveys, which might help to update those whose primary commitment is to teaching as well as to inform those whose central interests are elsewhere, would be welcomed, as would short articles on practical issues of research method. It would be helpful if proposals for articles of this kind could be discussed in advance with the Editor; offers, or ideas which others might act on, will be welcomed. Some work of this kind may be invited; it will all, however, be subject to the usual refereeing process.