Social World II

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Social World II

• How We Know Things in the Social World

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Introduction

• Recall Social World I
• An introduction to the Social World
• Via access to wide variety of writing and
  thinking
• Centering on a specific issue with multiple
  dimensions

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First Part of Social World II

• Conducting primary research
• Contrast World Cultures II and its emphasis on
  primary documents
• Social sciences, and primary research

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• Project description
• Actual project grant funding
• Goal Analyze a specific set of questions as
  they apply to an actual neighborhood
• This class-students and faculty together-on a
  voyage of discovery project outcomes as a joint
  product

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• Goal of project collect, organize, interpret
  data
• Recognize the difficulties in doing so by
  examining project from a critical perspective

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• Use Halperin book to help us understand project
  better
• Project provides basis for understanding,
  evaluating other kinds of social science research

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Second Part of Course

• A critical perspective
• Whats that?
• Goal To talk more broadly about how we know
  things about the social world
• What is it?
• How can we talk about it?

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• Feynman book provides anchor for doing this.
  Talks about
• How we come to understand things
• The difficulties involved with this process

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• Quick look at what is the social world
• Human conduct and behavior, as
• Individuals
• Groups
• A set of events, processes, organizations, and
  rules of conduct that humans generate

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• We claim Events, processes, organizations, and
  rules do not speak for themselves
• Rather they need to be interpreted

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• Examples
• Is TAO old or young?
• Whos poor?

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• Niels Bohr It is wrong to think that the task
  of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics
  concerns what we can say about nature.

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• Feynman Nature doesnt care what anybody
  thinks.

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• Claim We dont have access to a Gods eye
  view of reality
• Or There is no one exactly true and complete
  description of the way the world is
• Or We can not have a privileged correct
  description of the world from an external
  perspective.

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So How Do We Understand the Social World?

• Numbers (and statistical inference)
• Collection, organization, interpretation of data
• Examples from Social World I
• Dreze and Sen, and large samples
• Gospel Hill, and small samples
• Head Start a longitudinal study
• Coleman Report

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• Issues
• Sampling
• Random?
• Representative?
• Filtering presuppositions
• Accuracy of numbers
• Accuracy/usefulness of interpretation

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• Narration
• Storytelling
• Analogy metaphor
• Facts logic
• Appeal to authority
• Examples from Social World I

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How Do We See Social World I and II?

• Social World I
• Organized around a particular issues and its
  dimensions
• Questions
• Whats the problem?
• What issues were raised, debated?
• What problems were raised by attempts to apply
  general solutions to particular problems?

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• What lessons from the past can be applied to the
  present?
• How can we
• Identify a problem?
• Analyze its elements?
• See the interrelatedness of these elements?
• Isolate important issues?
• Understand the issues involved in resolving the
  problem?

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• Social World II
• Consider possibilities, limitations of studying
  the social world from a scientific perspective
• Goal A better understanding of individual, group
  behavior

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• Skills
• Become comfortable with discussing
• What are major sources of data?
• How to
• Gather?
• Interpret?
• What are limitations of the scientific approach?

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• What ethical issues are involved in
• Gathering data?
• Applying theoretical, empirical knowledge to
  practice?
• Develop habit of systematic, critical thinking
  about the social world and about public policy
  in the social world