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"Vulnerability" is now a widely used term in different settings—from politics and academia to everyday life. In response, a growing body of research has emerged critiquing and challenging the use of the concept in the social sciences. In this paper, we explore the use of the term vulnerability in research on children in out-of-home care and discuss the possible negative consequences of this—for the people involved and for the knowledge produced. Showing some of the problems involved in classifying these children as "particularly vulnerable", we argue that there is a need for more nuanced understandings of children growing up in out-of-home care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At this moment, humanity is confronting several global metacrises that demand a new image of science to deal with the complex problems associated with these crises. In addition to natural sciences and humanities, social sciences can become an equally efficient resource for use in this transformation if they succeed in constructing new frameworks congruent with the new reality. The purpose of this theoretical paper in the discourse of philosophy of science is to discern the features of the social sciences within a new paradigm of metamodernism. For the first time, the authors elaborate on the new principles of metamodernist philosophy and apply them to the ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology of the social sciences. The set of six transversal principles comprises the ontological principle of paradoxical simultaneity, caused by oscillation, epistemological principles of paradoxical understanding of truth and grand narratives, as well as metaxis-based thinking and dia/polylogue, axiological negotiation between rhizomatic and hierarchical social relations and values, and methodological pluralism. The last principle showcases the coexistence and interlinkage of previous stages of metamodernism. The application of these principles to the social sciences was designed from the perspectives of a specific discipline, inter/transdisciplinarity, and instrumental level of social practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of additional avenues for the development of metamodernism in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socio-environmental problems are some of the major concerns of today's society, and education is an essential area to raise awareness and mould future citizens who will be committed to sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how future primary and secondary education teachers in the area of social sciences perceive the socio-environmental problems that affect today's society, for their subsequent inclusion in the curriculum. To this end, a study was carried out by means of a questionnaire, which showed that trainee primary and secondary teachers have a high consideration of these environmental problems, with hardly any differences noted according to sex or type of degree studied. This perception is positive in terms of the subsequent inclusion of socio-environmental problems in the development of the curriculum by the participating trainee teachers, who largely prefer an autonomous model for curricular implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, discourse on quality, school effectiveness, autonomy, and accountability, among other topics, has been used to try to transform schools. This paper explores this situation from the teaching perspective of one of its authors. Using autoethnography as a research and formative strategy, a mixed category system is constructed by combining a central category ("Neoliberal school") theoretically and deductively with three other subcategories of an emergent and inductive nature according to the parameters of grounded theory. The results reflect different perceptions of neoliberal educational discourse that depend on the discursive field in question (policy framework, school, department, or classroom). The conclusions underline the potential of autoethnography for understanding the current school reality and teacher professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceal carry weapon (CCW) laws have generated a great deal of public discussion in the past decades, but little social science attention. Scholarly work on the topic has been focused on finding potential effects of such laws on crime and victimization; little has attempted to explain the trends behind the adoption of the laws. This paper attempts to fill that gap by testing a series of hypotheses grounded in minority threat approaches. Our paper examines whether changes in the racial and ethnic composition of a county predict the voting outcome of Missouri's 1999 conceal-carry referendum. Findings fail to reject the null hypothesis and show the best predictor of the vote within a county was how that county voted in the 2000 Presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International collaboration is one of the effective ways to enhance the impact of scientific research papers. In this research, international research collaboration papers published by world-class universities in the field of humanities and social sciences from 2015 to 2019 were selected as the research object, and the effective enhancement of the impact of international research collaboration papers was found to not be dependent on expanding the scale of international research collaboration, but rather on selecting researchers with different international backgrounds and from high-level institutions for collaboration. It was also discovered that, in the field of humanities and social sciences, despite a relatively low proportion of international research collaboration papers being led by Chinese scholars, the Chinese research is characterized by a higher impact compared with the research led by non-Chinese scholars. In light of this, a series of proactive measures should be taken by China's world-class universities, such as actively participating in and initiating international collaboration, selecting high-level research collaborators, and attracting scholars from different countries to engage in research collaboration in the field of humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, discussion of decolonisation and decolonial thinking has gained much traction in many countries. Scholars and students have called on their institutions to decolonise their curriculums and argued for why their respective disciplines need to be decolonised. They have recognised that the knowledge produced by the social sciences remains Western-centric. However, unlike the other social sciences, the terrorism industry, on the other hand, has not reflected on its Western centrism. This situation is especially the case with the security side of the terrorism industry, which is the most visible and arguably the most problematic side. By adopting a decolonial approach and Indonesia as a case study, this paper highlights some of the ways through which the terrorism industry reproduces Western centrism. The paper concludes by raising several issues regarding the role that the industry plays in Indonesia and urges scholars to research them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although grounded theory (GT) has emerged as a popular research approach across multiple areas of social science, it has been less widely taken up by researchers working in the fields of urban planning and design. The application of GT enables uniquely innovative insights to be gained from qualitative data, but it has attracted criticism and brings its own challenges. This paper proposes a methodology that could be applied by other researchers in the field of urban research. Utilising constructivist GT as a qualitative approach, this research investigates how cultural memory impacts the psychosocial well-being and quality of life (QoL) of users of, and visitors to, historic urban landscapes (HULs). Based on the findings, it can be posited that the application of GT yields a rich and nuanced understanding of how users of HULs experience the settings in which they live, and the impact and significance on human psychosocial well-being of the cultural memories incarnated within such settings. The current paper also contends that GT enables researchers studying the built environment to construct inductively based theories. Lastly, the practical implications of developing GT for application to HUL management are discussed, both in regard to how users experience the contexts in which they live and the impact of such contexts on well-being and quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to assess students' social representations of forced migration as a relevant social problem in the last year of primary education and the opportunity for its curricular inclusion. The study was carried out by means of a questionnaire, filled in by 6th-year primary education groups (11–12 years old) (n = 70), in a state-supported private school in the city of A Coruña (Galicia, Spain). The questionnaire was supported by three pictures of forced migrations from the media. In this case, the children had to interpret the pictures through a series of questions that sought to investigate their representations, the causes they identify in this social problem, their opinions, and possible solutions. Finally, the opportunity for the inclusion of social problems as curriculum content was addressed. The study shows that the students are in favor of migrants, that they use concepts from the social sciences in their arguments—albeit simple ones, and that they are in favor of the curricular inclusion of social problems, in which they develop representations through different sources of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers across the social sciences have long been interested in families. How people make decisions such as who to marry, when to have a baby, how big or small a family to have, or whether to stay with a partner or stray are questions that continue to interest economists, sociologists, demographers, and anthropologists. Human families vary across the globe; different cultures have different marriage practices, different ideas about who raises children, and even different notions of what a family is. Human behavioral ecology is a branch of anthropology that is particularly interested in cultural variation of family systems and how these differences impact upon the people that inhabit them; the children, parents, grandparents. It draws on evolutionary theory to direct research and generate testable hypotheses to uncover how different ecologies, including social contexts, can explain diversity in families. In this Special Issue on the behavioral ecology of the family, we have collated a selection of papers that showcase just how useful this framework is for understanding cultural variation in families, which we hope will convince other social scientists interested in family research to draw upon evolutionary and ecological insight in their own work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skill shortage is a crucial social issue which needs to be analyzed thoroughly in any organization. In this paper, the problems related to the skill shortage are analyzed and possible solutions are provided to deal with the problem of skill shortages effectively. This paper will facilitate in helping the organization to find the right talent for the organization thus removing or decreasing the problem of skill shortages. The paper begins with the importance of skills shortage from a theoretical point of view. The problems associated are highlighted and analyzed. The factors which are an integral part of skill shortages are elaborated. Also, an in-depth analysis is carried out by considering the organizations, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys as a case study. In the final section, various solutions and approaches are laid down to tackle the problems incorporated with skill shortages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on social regeneration is a very specific area that needs more attention in the tourism and social sciences literature. Whilst much research has focused attention on tourism developments and regeneration efforts, this work is more concerning with the physical transformation of spaces (such as upgrading facilities and infrastructures) or expanding investments in tourism and visitor attractions. Planners and policy makers are concerned with maintaining a competitive advantage, resulting in policies and investments aimed at developing spaces in transition for the purpose of economic gain and/or image revival. To go beyond the focus on economic impacts of tourism-led regeneration, the purpose of this special issue is to address the importance of, and the need to, critically assess issues, problems and solutions surrounding social regeneration resulting from tourism change, developments or initiatives. More research considering how members of a community and event attendees engage with spaces and places transformed for tourism is needed. Paying closer attention to intangible impacts to extend recent debates surrounding tourism initiatives, involvement and futures is needed, emphasizing improved welfare and empowering local communities and its residents. The papers included in this special issue all put emphasis on the community and/or local residents and how they are impacted by tourism investments or initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the first to describe the structure and content of the English language social science literature on food safety in China. To do this research we systematically searched Web of Science and Scopus, the most comprehensive indexes, using the terms “Food Safety” AND “China” OR “Chinese”. To focus our search results, we used the index features available on Web of Science and Scopus, and limited results to the English language, peer-reviewed journal articles, social sciences, and published in the period of 2009 to 2015. This resulted in 272 selected journal articles, with a final data set of 185 articles for review. A food safety system model we developed was used to classify and present the findings derived from content analysis of abstracts, titles, and keywords. Our findings show that the research reviewed is unevenly distributed across the components of the food safety system model. The greatest proportions of the literature reviewed focused on consumers, primary and secondary producers and products, and government legislators and regulators, respectively. Smaller proportions focused on food wholesalers, retailers, researchers, educators, and the media. Few of the articles reviewed used a model of the food safety system. None identified an explicit knowledge transfer strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]