SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL POLICY: ROLES OF THE APPLIED RESEARCHER*

Research on policy impact has increasingly focused on the practical application of social science research. This paper outlines four roles—substantive expert, information processor, change agent, and scholar—which have helped to increase the potential usefulness of our research while maintaining linkages to the academic community. This paper suggests the general nature of these roles and suggests specific implementation strategies, which need to be pursued as an early and continuing aspect of the research enterprise. Balancing these multiple roles presents several analytical and ethical difficulties, but helps to establish credibility in both the scientific and policymaking communities.     

NEANDERTAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE?

The cognitive and social capacities of Neandertals have been questioned by a number of authors, while others suggest that such capacities did not differ markedly from those of anatomically modern humans in the last 30,000 years. What does the material evidence indicate? The information that can be gleaned from Middle Palaeolithic sites indicates that there were Neandertal bands of about 12–24 people that formed alliances with 10–20 other bands and had enemy relationships as well. Rituals probably helped hold alliances together. These conclusions indicate that there were language or dialect groups that were probably ethnically self‐conscious. Some of the postulated band ranges and population densities in the literature appear unrealistic. Sexual division of labour was probably pronounced and Neandertals appear to have used rudimentary status markers, including predator pelts, bird wings or claws, colorants, and a range of speciality items.     

SOCIAL SEGREGATION IN ATHENS

This paper deals with changes in the Athenian social structure, mainly in its geographical organization, between 1971 and 1981. These changes are identified by clustering all communities in the Athens region on the basis of socio-professional location quotients and then examining socio-professional ratio changes in the resulting clusters. A process of social segregation is found to be well under way although, during the same period, the Athenian social structure tended to depolarize (middle class increase). Explanatory hypotheses are formulated on the basis of industrial stagnation, tertiarization, public sector employment, housing and urban practices and policies as well as urban congestion and air pollution. Finally, a link is attempted with more recent developments and tendencies.     

ABORIGINAL SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND RECIPROCITY

This paper seeks to show that while the idea of reciprocity is fundamental in Australian Aboriginal societies, inequalities are also inherent in the kinship system itself. An attempt is then made to articulate these two aspects and to specify the form of social inequality which is characteristic of Australia. Cet article prétend montrer, d'une part, que l'idée de réciprocité est fondamentale dans les sociétés australiennes, d'autre part, que les inégalités le sont tout autant dans la mesure où elles sont insuites et fondeés dans la parenté elle-même. Il cherche aussi à montrer comment réciprocité et inégalité s'articulent entre elles. Enfin, it tente de spécifier la forme d'inégalité sociale caractéristique de l'Australie.     

关于社区地理学的若干理论问题

本文着重探析社区地理学的理论体系、研究方法体系和研究领域等理论问题,并对其进行必要的评析,旨在促进社区地理学的理论建设,以推动社区地理学的发展。     

CULTURAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL METABOLISM

The emergence of culture and cultural evolution is the result of an evolutionary process, evident also in non‐human species. What is specifically human is the dominance of cultural evolution. This does not mean that cultural evolution has replaced organic evolution, but rather that both have merged into one coevolutionary complex. Through niche construction, organic modern humans are the product of cultural evolution. This cannot be explained by adaptation to natural environment or by sexual selection. Cultural evolution with its coevolved organic traits did not so much enhance competence towards the natural environment as it did competence to develop and maintain cooperation. In the process, culture became a “system” with its own imperatives and integrating forces, differentiating into several autopoietic subsystems: the symbolic‐cognitive subsystem, the economic subsystem and the political subsystem. There are however social‐metabolic constraints that put limits on their evolutionary degrees of freedom. Culture's autopoietic reach has adaptive boundaries. The concept of social metabolism attempts to capture the unity of “persons” in a physical‐biological sense and “culture” in a symbolic sense, the decisive point being that culture must be understood as an autopoietic system sui generis. The social‐metabolic system of relations and interactions between nature, human population and culture is inherently coevolutionary. The history of social metabolism is the history of the coevolution of two autopoietic systems – an open and blind non‐orthogenetic evolutionary process.     

THE RETURN OF THE SOCIAL

This article is concerned with the social exclusion agenda in contemporary French cultural policy, exploring the relevance of aspects of postcolonial theory to an understanding of that agenda. The tensions involved in recent attempts to evolve policies addressing interculturalism, integration and “emergent” cultures (such as hip‐hop) while also staying true to the French republican tradition of universalism are illuminated by France’s problematic relationship with its colonial past. They are also shown to be related to a wider movement of post‐industrial, postmodern experimentation with aesthetic forms, from video and computer art to street arts, free parties and electronic dance music.     

LOCAL STATUS AND NATIONAL SOCIAL WELFARE

Perceptions of individual well-being are influenced by local status, i.e., one's place in the income distribution of one's reference group. In general, reference groups are smaller than the entire nation. If national social welfare is an aggregate of individual's well-being, then it is not symmetric with respect to all individuals. A geographical interpretation of reference groups means that the welfare of a family living in one region is only influenced by other families in that region. An empirical application, using states, shows that a Gini index modified to reflect local status showed much less improvement 1949-1979 than did the standard Gini.