Social science

Steph Grohmann’s ‘revenge eviction’ gave her vivid, first-hand experience of the trials and consolations of occupying unused buildings, finds Matthew Reisz

Ever since it emerged from English departments in the 1970s, media studies has been routinely dismissed as the archetypal ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree. But in an era of fake news and media hegemony, has this multifaceted subject finally found its place in the zeitgeist?

Recent controversy over the future directions of both Stanford and Melbourne university presses have raised questions about the role of in-house publishing arms in a world of commercialisation, impact agendas, alternative facts – and ever-diminishing monograph sales. Anna McKie reports

Historic prompts on how to keep overbearing expectations at arm’s length should be taken up by modern academics, says Michael Marinetto

Business and management schools are highly successful in financial terms, and provide valuable income to their wider universities. But opinion remains sharply divided on how successful they have been intellectually. Here, five business academics give their views on whether their discipline has done enough to earn the respect of the academy and wider society

Colleagues may look askance at ‘the death squad’, but while teaching and research into one of life’s only two certainties may be taxing, it is also vital, Matthew Reisz hears

Gradual changes to lifestyles will not save the planet. Universities need to go beyond Cambridge's recent lead and think bigger, says Peter Harper

The use of VR in psychology experiments is being driven not just by increasingly affordable technology but also by concerns about the reproducibility of many real-world studies. But do humans really behave in the virtual world as they do in reality? And does it matter? David Matthews investigates

Apparent moves to increase university autonomy will have the opposite effect given the government’s authoritarian tendencies, says Jarosław Płuciennik

Big datasets linking higher education participation to a range of socio-economic factors are useful and fascinating, but their translation into policy remains fraught 

Political scientists typically see politics as an exercise in consensus-building. But Chantal Mouffe tells John Morgan that the left must learn from right-wing populists’ exploitation of “them and us” narratives if it is not to be vanquished by them

US government funding $7.6 million (£5.9 million) project designed to give policymakers a quick indication of reproducibility

Portland State University’s investigation of a researcher who published hoax papers misses the point of ethical oversight, says Jeffrey Flier

The Canadian government’s excessive policing of privacy makes it intolerably onerous to access its datasets, says Karen Robson

Maintaining a breadth of curricular offerings is crucial if subjects outside the sciences are to retain their attraction in the digital age, says Dean Forbes

Dutch figures show just how little time professors get for their own research. It may be easier to pursue your intellectual interests outside the university system, says THE reporter David Matthews

THE data show that Russia’s research influence in social sciences is waning, while other nations are failing to progress

Jonathan Haidt tells Matthew Reisz how a moral culture of ‘safetyism’ took root in today’s students, who view the use of any word that can cause offence as an act of violence

Reporter Matthew Reisz considers the legitimate concerns – and the sheer sexism – that often greet research among stigmatised groups

Immersive ethnographic research often produces gripping accounts of life on the edge, but verifying such work can be problematic. Matthew Reisz examines how ethnographers can produce work that is both credible and robust

Growing pressure to publish only in elite tier ignores the vital importance of lesser-ranked titles to academia and society, says Adam Graycar

Matthew Reisz meets Andrea Pető, recent recipient of the Madame de Staël prize, a scholar at Hungary’s Central European University whose feminist probing into the dark corners of Hungary’s past is provoking strong reactions in the ‘illiberal democracy’

German students – and academics – still go along with controversial mainstream theories in order to get ahead, researcher argues

The entanglement of the university and tech worlds faces increased scrutiny following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Could joint positions in industry and academia offer a workable and ethically defensible way forward? David Matthews reports

The EU’s proposal for its next research and innovation funding framework focuses too narrowly on technology, say Gabi Lombardo and Jon Deer

Only a completely new institutional structure will see teaching and research on organisations become a proper, socially responsible subject, and not merely a cash cow, says Martin Parker

For insight into the ‘pervasive dislocation’ of people’s lives today, the sociologist Jeff Ferrell rode the rails across the US. He tells Matthew Reisz about life on the road and the limits of mainstream research

The former LSE director tells Matthew Reisz that colleagues at Sciences Po sense an opportunity in Brexit, that the French should not fret over league tables and that academics, policymakers and bankers must talk more

If elements of society feel they have no stake in humanities and social science research, their support for it will evaporate, warns Musa al-Gharbi

Following individuals’ paths in and out of different institutions shows that most students eventually graduate, say Ross Finnie, Richard E. Mueller and Arthur Sweetman

Social scientists’ scepticism about research oversight also relates to the curiously bad press it gets in Western literature, writes Katarzyna Kaczmarska 

Parochialism makes sense from a career point of view, but is disastrous for public discourse, say Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Mitchell L. Stevens

The new chair of the Campaign for Social Science on ethnic minorities, the similarity between law and academia and universities swallowing the management textbook

Matthew Reisz considers different styles of scholarship and whether we are forced to choose between them

Social scientists must create a culture in which individuals regularly observe, analyse and interpret their own data, says Geoff Mulgan

Social scientists are innovating to ensure their research is relevant, but more must be done, says Rick Delbridge

The publication game that researchers are obliged to play has stripped the purpose out of social research. Time to change the rules, says Yiannis Gabriel

Economists’ stock plummeted with the financial crash. The authors of a new book suggest that reading novels could sharpen their insights, while four academics consider how the field might need to change

Texas-born scholar Angelia Wilson talks to Matthew Reisz about the changing face of political studies, Trump and the Christian Right, and a Bible Belt road trip

To defend the values of reason from political attack we need to be more discriminating about the claims made in its name, says John Hendry

Former LSE director on how he overcame academic struggles to become Bill Clinton’s favourite political theorist, and the future for Labour

Comparing free-market politics with state socialism may be an intellectual dead end, says Aniko Horvath

June Purvis on the female pioneers on the frontline in the war to end all wars

East Asia’s most iconic garment is as dynamic as any Western mode of dress, finds Joy Hendry

Matthew Feldman on a timely history that roams over the Continent

Job hunting? Like it or loathe it, LinkedIn is key and emotional labour is mandatory, says Philip Roscoe

Prostitutes need the help of economists to argue for the rights and protections that other workers take for granted, says Victoria Bateman

Without more conservative perspectives in the academy, lawmakers will increasingly ignore and potentially defund social science, says Musa al-Gharbi

The principles of scepticism and open-mindedness are vital in a post-truth world, an expert on experts tells Matthew Reisz

Discriminating in hiring practice against particular intellectual perspectives is no less sinister than discriminating against particular political persuasions, says Glenn Geher

Researcher argues for the importance of getting to grips with the male organ

US and UK campuses are putting their corporate interests before the public good, says Paul Bernal

Book of the Week: Emma Rees praises an effort to show how to turn personal traumas into political resistance

Sarah Wise on how the insanity plea developed in English law and why ‘homicidal mania’ became acceptable to experts

During a hospital stay, Emily Michelson learned why the humanities and sciences are in no way opposites

Social science must return to qualitative research to understand social and political shifts, say Pamela Prickett and Elaine Howard Ecklund

Contributors hope resource will encourage students to avoid ‘assimilationist’ mindset

In an era of post-truth politics, academics and their research still have a vital role to play in influencing policy, says Graeme Reid