Social science sites of the week

Here is the latest round up of new and interesting sites form social scientists

Holocaust Remembrance Day

27th January has been designated as  as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust by the United Nations as it commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp . Our special blog posting has links to resources for background information as well as a focus on the 2016 theme : Don’t stand by.

Flames for Humanities Heroes is a national art project which saw 12 groups of students across the UK create artwork that tells the stories of heroes who refused to stand by when faced by Nazi atrocities. View examples of their stunning work online

Presidential Elections in Haiti

Run off presidential elections in Haiti have been postponed for the third time. Use the links from our special election blog posting to find out more on the background and impact of this.

Councils struggling to cope with homeless people

This is the finding from the latest annual review of the extent and nature of homelessness in England published this week by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of its Homelessness monitor series. The homelessness monitor is a five year study (2011-2015), funded by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, that provides an independent analysis of the impact of recent economic and policy developments in the UK on homelessness. There are particular concerns about young homeless people

Also launched this week from Crisis as part of a new campaign Crisis- Lead London Home Manifesto for
single homeless people 2016 

On this topic see the official Uk government statistics on homelessness

They include rough sleeping, families in bed and breakfast accommodation

St Mungos publishes research on the lives of homeless people as well as policy issues

Homelessness in Europe FEANTSA is the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless is an umbrella of not-for-profit organisations which participate in or contribute to the fight against homelessness in Europe. It maintains the European Observatory on homelessness

Which offers free access to the European Journal of Homelessness

UN Demographic yearbook has statistics on household characteristics by country. Most recent covering 2014. This includes the homeless.

In which British city do people earn the most?

Find out this and other fascinating facts and figures on the economic and social indicators of Britain’s major cities by consulting the latest Cities outlook 2016  which has just been published by the Centre for Cities.

It also has a great associated data tool which enables you to generate and compare your own map. 17 main indicators are covered including

Population, Business dynamics, Productivity , Innovation , Employment, Skills, Wages , Housing,  Environment, Digital connectivity

Political TV Ad Archive,

Just launched by the Internet Archive to provide a resource for the 2016 US elections.

This fabulous  free online digital library resource where reporters can find political TV ads from key primary states in the 2016 elections. Each ad has its own page with metadata files that can be downloaded by researchers. There are also sections on the site which fact check the facts. It is possible to browse ads by candidate, sponsor . There are currently over 50 ads for Donald Trump.

Parents, Teens and digital monitoring

Find out what percentage of American parents surveyed checked their teenagers Facebook accounts, texts and emails in this enlightening new study from Pew Internet Research Centre  

The EU Kids online research network website contains a wealth of reports and data on children’s internet use. Its 2014 report 

The Berkman Digital Literacy Platform provides free access to resources for educators, parents and the public covering online safety, privacy, information quality, creativity, and copyright.

World Humanitarian Data And Trends 2015
The United Nations Office For the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Has just released the latest annual report which has overall country and regional data. The full text can be
downloaded from the website. A review of natural and conflict related disasters in 2014. Topics covered include overall funding and capacity., displacement , data collection. There is a companion site which contains visualizations and instagrams of key facts and figures. Also valuable for exploring the trends is the UNOCHA sponsored Humanitarian Data Exchange project website. Also valuable for exploring the trends is the UNOCHA sponsored Humanitarian Data Exchange project website launched in 2014 it also provides free access to some other datasets from research bodies covering conflict, disasters food security.

Why Ethnic Minorities see immigration differently.

As the prime minister announces plans to require Muslim women to learn English, this new report from the Runnymede Trust gives the perspectives of BME Ethnic Minority groups on immigration to the UK. This covers  also considers attitudes towards integration.It is based on qualitative interviews with 7 focus groups involving 65 people.

Get more links to recent grey literature and reports covering social policy, economic policy and UK government publications on our current awareness blog which is updated daily.

New York Public Library digital Collections enhanced access     

From January 2016 the New York Public library provided enhanced public domain access to its online collections which include thousands of stunning historical images. See this announcing blog post which has lists of possible uses. These include usage of bulk API  data.  A great example is this 5^th Avenue now and then which compares 1911 with 2015 Google street views. The Green Book is a shocking example of racial segregation shown in maps between 1936-1944 it listed hotels restaurants and other public buildings where black travellers were welcome. The site also has many subject based collections – including Gay and lesbian history
Posters of the Russian Civil War and fashion illustrations and advertising

Also this week as part of a new exhibition the Bank of England Archive has released some of its historic photographs online. Some fascinating examples on the BBC website show the changing workplace. There is also a free Flickr site      

Social science sites of the week

Here is the latest update of social science sites of the week

Taiwan elects first woman president

To commemorate this historic event look at the links to news reports  and background academic assessments on our recent blog posting.

Only 7% of people describe themselves as feminists

According to the results from the 2016 Fawcett society state of the nation report  only 4% men , 9% women  polled labelled themselves as feminists. When asked to describe what the word meant to them a shocking 26% of the words used were negative eg irrelevant, bitchy while 22% used positive terms such as strong willed

This was based on market research Survation polled 8165 UK residents aged 18+ between 30th

November and 3^rd December 2015. The survey was

conducted via online panel. other topics covered include attitudes towards gender equality, perceptions of gender identity,

see more reports on Gender on our scoop.it page

         

However on a more positive note

EY Senior Civil Service Women Leaders Index found that the UK ranked 4^th in G20 countries amongst the representation of women in senior government official posts. The highest percentage is Canada at 46.1 the UK has 38.7%. However none had 50%

Download the full text of the report to find out more data on pay gap differentials between Uk government departments

LGBT Equality in the Workplace

Find out the best place to work in the UK by consulting the latest annual Stonewall Equality Index. The methodology examines 10 key areas: distinct areas of employment policy and practice, including networking groups, career development, training and community engagement. Interesting M15 and the security services are this year ranked top ! The Times Higher has conducted an analysis of the figures and comments on the highest ranked universities.

An economy for the 1%?

As the World Economic  Forum opens at Davos this week with the release of its 2016 Global Risks report. The risks are divided into five categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological.. Oxfam released a report that showed shows that the wealth of the poorest half of the world's population - that's 3.6 billion people - has fallen by a trillion dollars since 2010. However, not all commentators accept these see the criticism from the FT.blog. Look at poverty and Inequality data on the World Bank website. This enables some worldwide trends from  1981 onwards to be tracked.

You can see more on our new scoop.it page for reports relating to International Development studies.

How and Why you should manage your research data

A new concise guide for researchers from JISC which gives a basic introduction to the data management cycle with links to free online courses and advice. The emphasis is upon why research data management is important and what they can do to get started.

What went wrong  in the 2015 election?

View the preliminary findings from the inquiry in to the polls ordered by the British Polling Council . Its terms of reference and methodology can be viewed on the website . The BBC has also been discussing the topic this week.

Also released this week Margaret Beckettis internal  investigation of the Labour Party failure . Useful response on this from the News Statesman. LabourList (Party supporters) http://labourlist.org/2016/01/what-does-the-beckett-report-tell-us-eight-initial-thoughts/ . Prospect magazine Labour uncut blog

From a different political viewpoint

Spectator response

New LGBT Archive

“U.S. Homophile Internationalism: is a new online exhibit which can be found on the Outhistory.org website It provides free access to essays and articles from a range of magazines from the 1950s and 1960s which represented and provided access to contributions about and from  homosexuality and homosexuals from different region of the world including Russia, Asia and Africa. The exhibit focuses on the years from 1953 to 1964 and it addresses three of the most important U.S. homophile magazines of the 1950s and 1960s: ONE, Mattachine Review, and The Ladder.

Florence Nightingale letters online.

Free access to this marvellous resource which has been created as an international collaboration.

effort between the Florence Nightingale Museum in London, England, the Boston University Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, the Royal College of Nursing and the Wellcome Library. It is possible to search by keyword or browse by data and or theme. Key topics include: history of public health care,  hospitals, nursing military nursing, health care of women, For instance see this example where she discusses the role of women nurses in military hospitals and an unsent letter on a similar theme

Wikipedia celebrates 15^th birthday

Get some facts and figures on the most edited articles etc from an official website on the history. Did you know that the first photo on Wikipedia was a pair of quail!

Social Science sites of the week

Happy new year

Welcome to 2016 with the latest update of new and interesting sites for social scientists

 

New Year’s resolutions.

Try  the RSA social brain quiz to find out what new year’s resolution you should choose and how you can stick to it.

It is based on the findings of a recent Royal Society report Easier Said than done – why we struggle with healthy behaviours and what can be done about it. This 33 page report has some practical tips on positive lifestyle changes to encourage healthy walking, eating, sleeping and talking which are based on psychological research

See some links to insights from psychology research on our recent blog posting.

Central African Republic elections.

Elections finally took place on the 31^st December. Find out more about the human rights background plus get news reports and  press releases from the 2015 election observation teams on our elections blog.

Fat Cat Tuesday

On the 5^th January 2016 top bosses salaries  FTSE CEOS will already have exceeded the average annual pay of many workers (£27,645) according to the High Pay Centre

Find out how your wages compare using their pay calculator

Price Waterhouse Cooper conducts regular surveys on the state of executive pay in the UK

According to a recent survey from CIPD 71% of employees think CEO pay is too high in the UK.

In an associated report on the behavioural impact of high wages on CEO behaviour and motivation CIPD recommended that pay rises became evidence based.

NCVO conducted an inquiry into executive pay in the charity sector. The final report from 2014 can be downloaded from their website

Norton Rose Fulbright maintain a UK Corporate Governance portal which as a really useful collection of links to recent reports from the UK government, trade associations and other bodies on executive pay. These cover regulation, performance related pay and ethics related issues.

First Anniversary of Charlie Hebdo attacks

Twitter coverage of the anniversary

The University of Oxford has translated and made free on the Internet a book on tolerance. With extracts from key French philosophers and writers. The original text was

La Société Française d'Etude du Dix-Huitième Siècle (ed.), Tolerance: le combat des Lumières (Paris: SFEDS, 2015). Contents include:

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, 1789
Voltaire, ‘Prayer to God’, from Treatise on Tolerance, 1763
Three aphorisms from Denis Diderot, Philosophical Thoughts, 1746; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748; and Voltaire, Portable Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
Nicolas de Condorcet, 'On Admitting Women to the Rights of Citizenship', 1790
John Locke, Letter on Toleration, 1686

Harvard University is in the middle of creating a physical and virtual archive of materials relating to the 2015 attack. See an explanation of the archive on its own pages. This page has some preliminary data visualizations of georeferenced tweets using the Je suis charlie hashtag

New York Times Learning Network lesson plans to encourage students to consider concepts relating to journalism and blasphemy

Newsmuseum – has archived front pages of over 900 newspapers which enables some brief comparison of coverage and headlines across the world. January 8^th 2015 coverage and

January 12^th Coverage

The Internet Archive has preserved over 3,000 pages from a variety of institutions and social media preserving contemporary responses to the attacks

What makes cities competitive?

Find out by downloading a recent working paper from the World Bank

Kilroy, Austin Francis Louis; Mukim, Megha; Negri, Stefano. 2015. Competitive cities for jobs and growth : what, who, and how. Competitive cities for jobs and growth. Its objective is to create a knowledge base on what  makes cities competitive, to improve the understanding of  job creation at the city level, and to establish a foundation for

a community of practice on this topic

The A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index (GCI) ranks 125 cities according to 27criteria  across five main themes  business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement.

JLL’s Global300 cities has a ranking of cities worldwide attracting the most commercial real estate activity.

Cities of Opportunity Price Waterhouse Cooper ranks 30 leading cities in terms of social and economic factors such as cost, transport infrastructure, safety, ease of doing business

‘Many Postgraduates are overwhelmed by their workloads’

According to the results of the latest Postgraduate Taught Experience survey published by the Higher Education Academy 72,000 students from over a 100 institutions took part giving their opinion on workloads, motivation, and quality of teaching and learning.

Some potentially interesting points arising for service providers problems relating to workload – can libraries help students organise their time / research more effectively/ develop time management skills?

Employability – large numbers of students mention that a key motivation in enrolling was to improve career prospects. Can libraries highlight / teach skills that will help students in the workplace or find jobs?

Find more free reports on HE education, teaching and learning on our scoop,it page

Agents of Future Promise: children’s burden or benefit?

During 2015 researchers at the University of Leeds, Cardiff and Huddersfield. Examined ideology in the portrayal of children in British and French history from the 19^th century to the post war era. The project website now has videoed discussion from the end of project workshop help in September 2015. Topics covered include toys and gender, toys and the British empire, the Vichy regime and children, the use of children to envisage the future in wartime Britain.

Top 100  Global Innovators.

Thomson Reuters has just released its annual ranking of the most innovative global organisations .  It analyses patent  and citation data across four main criteria: volume, success, globalization and

influence using Thomson Reuters solutions including Derwent World Patents

Index (DWPI), Thomson Innovation and Derwent Patent Citations Index (PCI). The site includes breakdowns by region and industry as well as details on the methodology used.

Coming soon: 2016 US elections.
RealClearPolitics: Election 2016

This site from RealClearPolitics offers readers daily updates on polls, interviews, speeches, and other news related to the 2016 election. It currently includes polls relating to the Republican and Democratic nominations.

Stunning images of Earth

As Tim Peake and space continue to dominate the news. View some amazing images of earth from the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. The site also has some free downloads of lunaserv mapping

Social Science sites of the week

Here is the latest update of new and interesting web sites for social scientists

Star wars for social scientists.
Thomson Reuters has produced a summary of recent research indexed in web of science which has a star wars theme.

These include E. Bui, et al., "Is Anakin Skywalker suffering from borderline personality disorder?" Psychiatry Research, 185 (1-2): 299, 2011.

For more links on recent articles and research covering the economic and cultural studies of star wars see our recent blog posting.

Spanish elections.
Our recent election posting links to the news stories and places where analysis of the results can be found.

Saudi Arabia elects its first women councillors.
We have links to the results and analysis on the election blog.

Year in Twitter 2015
Official website from Twitter where you can trace key trends, most influential stories and individuals
See also an annual review on open access the Creative Commons report 2015
See more reports on trends in Media and communication using our Media scoop.it page

Open the Door: social science research for development and a sustainable future
New publication from the European Commission. Download the full text in pdf from the website. Provides descriptions and examples of key EU research programmes in these fields. Each entry include details of partners, description and outcome.

How do the media cover international migration stories?
The report, Moving Stories, is published by the Ethical Journalism Network and reviews media coverage of migration in the European Union and in 14 countries across the globe. It finds that in general coverage is poor. It refers to a concentration on sensationalism, a failure to highlight the coming Syrian refugee crisis and a sudden focus on humanitarian crisis after the death of a child refugee.

On the 18th December the United Nations marked international Migrants day

European commission statement
IOM Statement
The International Organization for Migration launched a midnight vigil to mark the occasion. They also used twitter https://twitter.com/iamamigrant to collect positive stories of migrants and record the vigil. Further case studies and stories can also be viewed on their associated website
British Red Cross Positive images – educational tool kit for teachers.
International Committee Red Cross- Pushed to the limits photoessays shows the hardship that pushed people to become migrants.
IFRC petition to protect humanity by protecting migrants

For up to date statistics see the Global Migration Data Analysis Centre this produced infographics and links to major publications such as the IOM World Migration report

How far have we come? lessons from the 1965 Race relations Act
Free access to this collection of essays from the Runnymede Trust. The 26 page pamphlet covers the socio-legal context of the act, the implementation of the act in the 21st century and the relationship between the act and the Magna Carta.

Bedroom tax
The Final Report from the Evaluation of the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (often referred to as the 'bedroom tax'), carried out jointly by CCHPR and Ipsos Mori, has been published. The report explores the effects of the cuts to Housing Benefit for working age social housing tenants who are deemed to be under-occupying their home. It found hardship to the extent that some clients had cut back on food.

For background information on the policy see the House of Commons Briefing paper on under occupancy of social housing
Advice for consumers from Shelter.
Other research include:
University of Manchester qualitative study on children in Manchester which found a negative impact on schooling.
Briefings from the Chartered Institute of housing
National Federation of Housing

Christmas digital archives
Try browsing the New York Philharmonic digital archives
Which contains for examples of Christmas carol concerts . It contains the full archive of all printed programmes from 1842 onwards.plus numerous photographs and 1,767 scores marked by Leonard Bernstein, Andre Kostelanetz, and others
Historic images of Christmas cards from the V& A museum collections
Geffreye Museum Christmas Past gallery which has historic images of 400 years of social history of the Christmas decoration of homes.