Complex realism in social research

Realism and Complexity in Social Science is an argument for a new approach to investigating the social world, that of complex realism. Complex realism brings together a number of strands of thought, in scientific realism, complexity science, probability theory and social research methodology. It proposes that the reality of the social world is that it is probabilistic, yet there exists enough invariance to make the discovery and explanation of social objects and causal mechanisms possible. This forms the basis for the development of a complex realist foundation for social research, that utilises a number of new and novel approaches to investigation, alongside the more traditional corpus of quantitative and qualitative methods. Research examples are drawn from research in sociology, epidemiology, criminology, social policy and human geography. The book assumes no prior knowledge of realism, probability or complexity and in the early chapters, the reader is introduced to these concepts and the arguments against them. Although the book is grounded in philosophical reasoning, this is in a direct and accessible style that will appeal both to social researchers with a methodological interest and philosophers with an interest in social investigation.

Empirical social science research increasingly involves working collaboratively with organisations beyond the university. This paper contributes to the growing international literature on doctoral collaboration by exploring how UK doctoral students in the social sciences negotiate organisational collaborations. We draw on narrative interviews and administrative data to create a series of case-study vignettes. We juxtapose these with a theorisation of disciplinary knowledge practices to show how such collaborations are at once demanding and unpredictable, but also generative of new understanding and insights. We suggest that Burawoy’s (American Sociological Review, 70(1), 4–28, 2005) model of the ‘antagonistic interdependence’ of public, critical, professional and policy sociologies is helpful as a heuristic for conceptualising doctoral student experiences of a range of different (and often contradictory) forms of social scientific knowledge. Our analysis demonstrates that both instrumental and critical forms of social knowledge can emerge from organisational partnerships and placements. We call for further attention to the ‘generative paradoxes’ (Bartunek and Rynes Journal of Management, 40(5), 1181–1201, 2014) and ‘reflective entanglements’ (Jagoda 2016) that result from doctoral collaborations, and for doctoral pedagogies that help students use these experiences to develop criticality and see it as a key skill in social research.

Previous articleNext article FreeThe Life and Career of Matthew O. HowardJeffrey M. JensonJeffrey M. JensonUniversity of Denver Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreMatthew O. HowardView Large ImageDownload PowerPointOn December 15, 2018, social work and the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research (JSSWR) lost one of its most prolific scholars, outstanding teachers, and thoughtful mentors in recent memory. Matthew O. Howard, PhD—the Frank A. Daniels Distinguished Professor of Human Services Policy Information and associate dean for doctoral education in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—passed away following a lengthy hospitalization. As an associate editor for JSSWR, Matthew had a significant impact on improving the quality and influence of the journal. He will be sorely missed by our editorial team.Matthew was a consummate scholar who possessed a singular ability to understand and conceptualize social problems of all types. His research contributed greatly to existing knowledge of the etiology, prevention, and treatment of substance abuse, alcohol dependence, and mental health disorders. And, Matthew’s provocative articles assessing the state of social work education, practice, and research set forth ideas that will affect the trajectory of social work for years to come. His passion for knowledge—conveyed quietly and effectively to countless graduate students—was felt deeply by the many lives he touched over the course of an academic career that included appointments in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, the Department of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health Sciences University, the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, the School of Social Work and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Matthew’s training in social work coincided with my own enrollment in the University of Washington School of Social Work doctoral program in 1984. Matthew and I became immediate and close friends during our graduate studies in Seattle, and we spent hours discussing social work, class assignments, and the research projects we worked on as doctoral students. Many of these conversations occurred in an alley coffee shop in Seattle’s University District, just a stone’s throw from the School of Social Work. Known by the employees as “Matt and Jeff,” we were treated as regulars who would sit at our customary window table for what was likely far too long. It was a time of great intellectual pursuit, and I had found the perfect colleague and friend with whom to share ideas and discuss future plans. It was the beginning of a personal friendship and professional relationship that lasted 34 years.Matthew entered doctoral education with a well-developed interest in understanding the etiology of alcohol and other substance use disorders. Over the nearly four decades that followed, he devoted his career to conducting basic and applied research aimed at ameliorating substance abuse dependence and co-occurring problems associated with alcohol and drug abuse. He became particularly well known for his basic research and intervention studies addressing the vexing problem of inhalant abuse (e.g., Howard, Balster, Cottler, Wu, & Vaughn, 2008; Howard, Bowen, Garland, Perron, & Vaughn, 2011; Howard & Jenson, 1999b). Matthew’s innovative and rigorous research in this area led to three grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and to widespread recognition as one of the world’s foremost experts on inhalant abuse. In recent years, Matthew extended his work to testing mindfulness-oriented interventions for people with chronic pain and opioid misuse. His coinvestigator in much of this work was Eric Garland, professor and associate dean for research in the University of Utah College of Social Work. Eric, a former student of Matthew’s at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, describes some of the important lessons he learned under Matthew’s tutelage in an accompanying article in this issue (Garland, 2019).Matthew also made significant contributions to social work education and research. In the Aaron Rosen Lecture at the 2015 Annual Conference of the Society for Social Work and Research, Matthew traced key developments in social work during the past 30 years and reflected on a vision of the field that stretched to 2044—30 years into the future (Howard & Garland, 2015). The ideas he shared in this lecture have provided a useful framework for assessing the relatively recent history of social work and addressing the challenges in educating master’s-level practitioners and doctoral students in the future. Matthew delivered a similarly thought-provoking lecture on the current state and future of social work doctoral education at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education. Ideas presented in his lectures were coupled with action. One such example is illustrated by Matthew’s early development of a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill doctoral-level course on conducting systematic reviews. Students in this class often produced publishable papers as a result of Matthew’s fastidious attention to breadth and quality. In earlier work at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, Matthew and colleagues advanced the idea of evidence-based practice as a paradigm for training MSW social work practitioners (Howard, McMillen, & Pollio, 2003). Enola Proctor, the Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor in the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, was a colleague of Matthew’s at the time. She remembers Matthew as… a brilliant scholar and dear person. Highly regarded for his excellence in the classroom at the Brown School, he was demanding yet was a frequent winner of student-elected teaching awards. Matthew used his seemingly boundless energy to better the fields of addiction research and social work practice. He had my highest respect and unending affection. His passing is a tremendous loss to our field and community of scholars [and] saddens me deeply. (E. Proctor, personal communication, January 9, 2019)In 1999, Matthew and I had the good fortune to guest edit a special issue of Research on Social Work Practice that explored the utility of clinical practice guidelines for social work practice (Howard & Jenson, 1999a). Collectively, Matthew’s lectures and published papers assessing the state of social work education and practice stimulated debate and produced tangible curricula changes in schools across the country.A prolific writer, Matthew published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers in his career. His written work also included 40 book reviews, editorials, and government reports. Matthew’s h-index of 55 and nearly 9,000 citations of his work to date illustrate just how much his scholarship was valued by colleagues. His written contributions will be recognized and used by practitioners, policymakers, and researchers for decades to come.Matthew was a fellow and a board member of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and a fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research. A proponent of interdisciplinary work, he also was a faculty research fellow in the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time of his passing. Matthew’s devotion to empirical research and scholarship is widely recognized. However, what may be most impressive about Matthew’s career is the recognition he received as both a scholar and a teacher. He was awarded eight outstanding teaching and mentoring awards from students and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Two of Matthew’s doctoral students at North Carolina (Eric Garland, University of Utah; and Carrie Pettus-Davis, Florida State University) received Doctoral Fellow Awards from the Society for Social Work and Research. Matthew connected with his students by combining high scientific standards with a compassionate approach to helping people succeed. He was soft-spoken, but his ideas and words carried great weight and influence.Matthew’s service to the fields of social work and addiction was also exemplary. He reviewed manuscripts for more than 60 different academic journals in his career. He was on the editorial boards of more than 50 journals—including serving a JSSWR associate editor for the past several years—and he previously served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Service Research, Social Work Research, and the Journal of Addictive Diseases. Matthew also was vice president and served on the Society for Social Work and Research Board of Directors from 2005 to 2008.The task of summarizing the life and career of a prolific and impactful scholar, teacher, and mentor like Matthew is daunting. Mark Fraser, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the founding editor of JSSWR, was a longtime friend, collaborator, and colleague. Reflecting on Matthew’s career, he recalls,As a scholar and a teacher, Matthew was eloquent and encyclopedic. Students flocked to his classes. A gentle spirit who treasured collaboration with others, his greatest joys came in exploring new ideas and reading recent research. In the profession as a thought leader, Matthew was a tour de force. At once, he was creative, insightful, sensitive, critical, and thorough. Matthew was—quite simply—incomparable. (M. Fraser, personal communication, January 8, 2019)Tangible accomplishments like those summarized here do not tell the complete story of a person. Matthew had an uncanny ability to effectively express his strong personal beliefs and ethical values in everyday interactions with friends and colleagues. He had a deep interest in applying the lessons gained from his own empirical work to promote fairness and equity for all people. Matthew’s invaluable input and feedback to students and colleagues about their ideas, papers, or projects came with great civility and kindness. He was an insatiable reader whose knowledge extended to topics well beyond social work or the addictions. In this sense, one could discuss a wide range of topics with Matthew with the preordained understanding that he had very likely already read much of what had been written on the topic. Matthew’s longstanding practice of underscoring written text with yellow highlighters was applied to thousands of empirical and conceptual articles and manuscripts during his career.On a personal level, Matthew enjoyed taking walks, listening to music, and reading novels and poetry. His wry sense of humor often left many of his closest friends and colleagues writhing in laughter. I was among them.JSSWR is proud to count Matthew as one of its most influential associate editors and contributors. His place as an important teacher and scholar in social work education and research is secure. Matthew’s many contributions will be discovered anew by emerging scholars for decades to come. His presence in social work and the broad field of the addictions will be missed by us all.NotesJeffrey M. Jenson, PhD, is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research and the Phillip D. & Eleanor G. Winn Endowed Professor Children and Youth at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.Correspondence regarding this article should be directed to Jeffrey M. Jenson, University of Denver, 2148 S. High St., Denver, CO 80208 or via e-mail to [email protected]ReferencesGarland, E. L. (2019). Standing on the shoulders of giants: Matthew O. Howard as a mentor and his influence on the science of mindfulness as a treatment for addiction. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research. Advance online publication. doi:10.1086/702654First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHoward, M. O. (2016, March 31). Hot topics in doctoral education. Presentation at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education, Chapel Hill, NC.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHoward, M. O., Balster, R., Cottler, L. B., Wu, L., & Vaughn, M. G. (2008). Inhalant use among incarcerated adolescents: Prevalence, characteristics, and predictors of use. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 93, 197–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.08.023First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarHoward, M. O., Bowen, S., Garland, E. L., Perron, B. E., & Vaughn, M. G. (2011). Inhalant use and inhalant use disorders in the United States. Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, 6, 18–31.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHoward, M. O., & Garland, E. L. (2015). Social work research: 2044. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 6, 173–200. https://doi.org/10.1086/681099First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarHoward, M. O., & Jenson, J. M. (1999a). Clinical practice guidelines: Should social work develop them? Research on Social Work Practice, 9, 283–301. https://doi.org/10.1177/104973159900900302First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarHoward, M. O., & Jenson, J. M. (1999b). Inhalant use among antisocial youth: Prevalence and correlates. Addictive Behaviors, 24, 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0306-4603(98)00039-2First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarHoward, M. O., McMillen, J. C., & Pollio, D. (2003). Teaching evidence-based practice: Toward a new paradigm for social work education. Research on Social Work Practice, 13, 234–259. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731502250404First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle Scholar Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research Volume 10, Number 1Spring 2019 Published for the Society for Social Work and Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/702653HistoryPublished online February 04, 2019 © 2019 by the Society for Social Work and Research. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

I am a social researcher who uses both theoretical and empirical enquiry not so much to describe the social as to understand the conflicts involved in constructing an order that appears to us as ‘social’. I seek to address the paradox of doing social research: for the social is not something concrete at which we can point, but a dimension of how whatever in our life is concrete holds together as a world. Media are crucial to what hangs together as a world – and in ways that much social research to this day still ignores. Media are in the contemporary era irrevocably ‘digital’: they take forms that automatically bring possibilities for recombination, retransmission, and reworking by multiple actors. As such, and unavoidably, digital media can be woven tight into the fabric of social life much more than previous media. But what does this mean for the social world, that is, for our possibilities to enhance or undermine how we live together today?

Contributions of M. N. Srinivas to the understanding of changing nature of caste, village and politics have been well documented and continue to be under focus several decades after his scholarly formulations on them. This article is an attempt to focus on the nature of changes that are occurring in the realm of his contributions to the field of social science research methods—especially to the tradition of intensive field research whether in rural or urban locales. Not only have the field sites’ amenability to research has undergone a major change, the institutional context in which social research is practised have radically transformed. This article is an attempt to track some such changes in both the contexts and to reflect upon the emerging challenges to social science research in general and the idea of ‘field’ research in particular. One of the questions it raises and attempts to answer is: Is sociology and social anthropology becoming more dependent on secondary data, and the source becoming a web than the field?

The Contribution of Empirical Research to Law

Over the years the research endeavours in social sciences have been directed towards producing profound discoveries about humankind and the society they live in. Now-a-days qualitative research has been flourishing in many fields of the social sciences. Rapid social change and the resulting diversification of life scenarios are increasingly confronting social researchers with new social contexts and perspectives. There is a specific relevance for qualitative research to the study of social contexts and life situations. This has lead to the development of several social theories and social research methods which have still continued to develop in order to understand the diverse social problems. The challenge for social scientists and researchers worldwide is to continue in the search for a unified consensus on what methodology is to be adopted for research for meeting the emerging diverse needs of humankind and the society. This thought has led to the proliferation of pluralism or multi-method research in which the researcher synthesizes multiple research methodologies in order to study social problems in a holistic way. This concept of pluralism in research has to a greater extend subverted methodological tribalism which had existed till the recent past. This paper focuses on the philosophical assumptions as guidelines to research paradigms have influenced the development of social research theory and social research methods towards pluralism. This paper intends to explore pluralism in qualitative Social Science researches as it may be applied methodologically and philosophically. In this context, the paper heeds a thought on refocusing pluralistic qualitative research in terms of its needs and demands based on the level and depth of the study undertaken. Key Terms: Qualitative research, methodological pluralism, research paradigms, philosophical assumptions

BackgroundThe prevalence of skin diseases among prisoners in Taiwan has rarely been investigated. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of skin diseases by sex in a sample of prisoners in Taiwan.MethodsWe included 83,048 participants from the National Health Insurance Program. The outcomes were measured using the clinical version of the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision. For prevalence, we presented absolute values as well as percentages. We also conducted an X2 test to assess sex differences and age group differences in the percentages of skin and subcutaneous tissue diseases.ResultsThe prevalence of skin diseases was 42.25%, higher than that in the general population. The prevalence of skin diseases among male prisoners was higher than that among female prisoners (p < 0.001), and the prevalence of skin diseases among prisoners who were ≤ 40 was higher than that among prisoners who were > 40. Among all cases diagnosed with skin disease, the top three diseases were contact dermatitis and other types of eczema, cellulitis and abscess, pruritus, and related conditions. Male prisoners had a significantly higher prevalence of all types of skin diseases than female prisoners.ConclusionsSkin diseases are common in prisoners in Taiwan. Therefore, early prevention and appropriate treatment are needed. Male-specific skin products are also needed, given the differences in the prevalence of skin diseases among male and female prisoners.

Paul Lazarsfeld contributed to unemployment research, public opinion and market research, mass media and communications research, political sociology, the sociology of sociology, the history of empirical social research, and applied sociology. His methodological innovations—reason analysis, program analyzer, panel analysis, survey analysis, elaboration formula, latent structure analysis, mathematical sociology (especially the algebra of dichotomous systems), contextual analysis—are of special importance. This study responds to the critiques of Lazarsfeld's ‘administrative research’ by Theodor W. Adorno, of ‘abstract empiricism’ by Charles W. Mills, and of the ‘Columbia Sociology Machine’ by Terry N. Clark. The paper discusses the merits of the team‐oriented style of work presented in Lazarsfeld's ‘workshop,’ his teaching by engaging in professional activities in social research and methodology, and his consecutive foundation of four research institutes, Vienna's Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle, the Newark University Research Center, the Princeton Office of Radio Research, and the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University in New York. By his manyfold activities, Paul Lazarsfeld decisively promoted the institutionalization of empirical social research. All these merits make him the founder of modern empirical sociology.

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in female inmates entering the criminal justice system. However, in reality, empirical research in the criminal justice system focuses more on male prisoners than on female prisoners. This situation leads to a lack of discussion and debate about female prisoners in literature or secondary sources. In relation to that, this concept paper aims to fill the gap by identifying crime factors based on gender perspective, the impact of women's involvement in crime and the need for a rehabilitation program that is responsive and sensitive to gender aspects. In this conceptual paper, a large amount of literature has been dedicated to understanding women's involvement in crime and the implications of such behavior. This concept paper concludes with a recommendation to introduce gender-responsive and gender-sensitive programs to help female prisoners become productive, law-abiding and able to reintegrate with the community.

The paper deals with the relationship between academic, applied and practical knowledge in the field of applied psychology, which has the potential to contribute to economic and social development. The aim of the analysis is to make an initial insight into the dominant topics and social relevance of research activities in the field of work psychology in Serbia in the period of significant social changes (1995-2019). The material for the analysis consisted of abstracts of papers in the field of work psychology, which were presented at two leading national conferences - Empirical Research in Psychology and the Meeting of Psychologists of Serbia (N = 657). The thematic analytical procedure was used for the construction of the code system used for defining the criteria for collecting relevant data. Exploratory sequential design and comparative longitudinal analysis were used for data processing. The general conclusion based on qualitative data analysis suggests the existence of social relevance of research activities in the field of work psychology in this period. The results of the analysis were also considered from the perspective of some recent models of strategic planning and social development. The obtained results indicate the emergence of new topics and areas, as well as the existence of a link between significant social changes and research activities in the field of work psychology in this period. Some elements of the new paradigm of the positive human resource development practice are highlighted. The paper concludes with discussing the broader theoretical-methodological and practical implications of the obtained findings for work psychology.

One of the distinguishing features of the discipline of sociology is its concern with met­ hods and methodology. By contrast with disciplines as various as history, anthropology, art criticism and economics, sociologists are often criticised for being excessively concer­ ned with methodological preoccupations and with spending unnecessary time and effort establishing the basis of the knowledge and research findings which they present. This preoccupation really needs no defence. From the time at least of Max Weber onwards, a healthy debate has gone on among sociologists, at both the level of general methodology and in relation to particular research methods, about the “scientific” basis of sociological knowledge and about the warrants for the statements which sociologists make. If sociology is justifiably self-reflective about its methodological stance, a further is­ sue which receives widely differing answers is whether sociology is characterised by use of particular methods. Is there one method which is most characteristic of the discipli­ ne, which embodies its approach and which is most characteristic of what sociologists do when they conduct empirical social research? Arguably the reason that economists and anthropologists are less preoccupied with methods is that there is a greater degree of agreement about the methods which are used, and to a considerable extent taken for granted, by members of the discipline. In anthropology, for example the mystique around “field work” as a rite de passage is a very strongly held principle, while many an­ thropologists have traditionally maintained that they are studying “other” cultures than their own, and are not equipped to carry out studies of their own society. [This view has always been disputed and is not held by some younger social anthropologists]. This note is concerned with the relationship between sociologists and one parti­ cular research method, large scale social survey research, typically using large natio­ nal samples selected using probability methods. These reflections are prompted by my own sociological career over the last forty years, coming into sociology from the study of history in the early 1960s, pursuing an interest in research methods throug­ hout most of the intervening period, and in the later years of full time employment working intensively for much of my time over a five year period on two projects con­ cerned with disseminating information about large-scale UK social survey research to the UK academic community. This recent experience has made me acutely aware of the ambivalence of perhaps a majority of UK sociologists toward survey research, and an awareness that the principal UK academic developments in survey research are not necessarily being carried out by sociologists. One does need to distinguish between disciplines, one of which is sociology, re­ search methods, one of which is survey research, and techniques of investigation, such as questionnaire construction and interviewing, which are part of the building blocks of particular methods. The degree of fit between discipline and method varies, and a

Social informatics: Beyond emergence

Social informatics is the body of research that examines the design, uses and consequences of information and communication technologies in ways that take into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts. This article draws upon some 25 years of systematic, analytical and critical research about information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social change to illustrate key ideas from social informatics research.

This article presents a review of the literature on science and religion in Nordic countries. Seventy‐seven articles, books, and chapters on the topic were collected from five major scholarly databases between 1997 and 2018. We scrutinized how research in this data set was engaged with social scientific research. Most of the research was not social scientific. It was primarily philosophical, theological, and historical research; very little presented empirical and theoretical social scientific research. The studies reflected societal discussions, bringing out some cultural dimensions and social issues, but not specifically in the Nordic context. Some societal aspects were highlighted, such as ethics and climate change, but these were not necessarily tied to the Nordic societies. We propose that in the Nordic context there seems to be a need for social scientific research on science and religion. This research could use theoretical perspectives from, for instance, sociology, science and technology studies, higher education studies, and anthropological research.