Great Expectations: The Social Sciences in Great Britain

by Commission on the Social Scien

• ISBN13: 9780765808493
• ISBN10: 0765808498
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-08-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Great Expectations reviews the status of the social sciences in Great Britain at the beginning of the twenty-first century. While making clear that work opportunities for social scientists are substantial and that levels of intellectual performance equal that of graduates in physics, it provides a hard hitting, empirically grounded examination of a near crisis situation. The report goes far beyond what one expects in commissioned reports, arguing that the academic treadmill, driven by excessive accountability, reduces the originality and quality of much academic research. The implications for the United States are transparent.

Table of Contents

Key points	p. 5
Preface	p. 16
Acknowledgements	p. 17
	p. 19
Introduction	p. 20
What are the social sciences and what are they for?	p. 24
What have the social sciences contributed to British society?	p. 35
Social science and devolution	p. 43
The health and value of British social sciences	p. 52
Social sciences and the outside world (aka society)	p. 85
Social science in practice	p. 92
Who speaks for the social sciences?	p. 100
The future of the social sciences	p. 108
	p. 121
The nature, scale and financial support of the social sciences in Britain - a statistical summary	p. 122
References	p. 154
Members of the Commission	p. 157
Individuals who helped us	p. 158
The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) and Frascati Manual definitions of the social sciences	p. 160
Assumptions used in calculating social science incomes	p. 161
Acronyms used	p. 164
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