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Seminar: Rectifying the Quantitative Deficit in NZ Soc Sci

By / 4 November 2010

Jointly presented by Victoria University’s School of Government, Institute of Policy Studies and the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations

Rectifying the ‘Quantitative Deficit’ in New Zealand Social Science: A Modest Proposal

A seminar by Professor Peter Davis

Friday 12 November 2010 12.30pm – 1.30pm
Railway West Wing, Room 501
No RSVP required – all welcome – feel free to bring your lunch

There is a significant “quantitative deficit” in the social sciences in New Zealand. For example, there are almost no sociology and political science departments in the country with more than one staff member having significant quantitative skills, and in almost all such departments students can get to honours level and beyond without ever having been exposed to any “non-qualitative” research skills. Yet, over the course of just five laboratory sessions spread over a standard semester in a Sociology honours class, we were able to get students with little or no previous methodological background to copy down international social survey data sets and present credible empirical analyses of issues of substance. We need to cooperate across disciplines and institutions to halt and reverse what is otherwise almost certainly a terminal decline in skills base for the social sciences.

Peter Davis is Professor, Sociology of Health and Well-Being, at The University of Auckland. He is Senior Editor (Health Policy), Social Science & Medicine. In 2003 Peter was the recipient of the New Zealand Medical Association’s highest honour, the Chairman’s Award for 2003. He also heads the COMPASS (Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences) Research Centre.

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This site is run by the Social Justice Commission of the Anglican Church.

We seek to nurture justice spirituality and imagination, and engage in advocacy in all areas of life, overcoming poverty and transforming violence.

We encourage people to think and live “justly”, and emphasise debate and action on local, national and global issues.

Although we are Anglican, our vision isn’t so much about being Anglican. It’s about living justly. Justice is about how you live your life, and being just where we are. Working together, we can all flourish.

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