Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Social sciences

**Qualitative and Quantitative Research: A Synergistic Approach**

Burgess argued that statistical methods and case studies are not opposed, but in fact, complementary. Comparisons and statistical correlations may suggest clues for research, and documentary materials invite the construction of more appropriate statistical indicators. This represents a complementarity in the development and innovation of the technical concerns of the Chicago school.

Thirty-five years later, in his article, *Zeithel* develops qualitative community studies, analyzes them, and opens them up quantitatively. *Sieber* raises the need to distinguish the distinctive contribution of each method to the entire inquiry, to obtain better information and greater efficiency.... Continue reading "Qualitative and Quantitative Research: A Synergistic Approach" »

Action Research and Participatory Action Research

Research Action (AR)

*a. Value of the Researcher Investigated*

The researcher investigated breaks into a relationship of interest transformers. The research results are dumped on the other observed. The relationship between subject and another transformation is observed. Pragmatic perspective (subject to the other and vice versa observed causing a symmetrical relationship).

*b. Conception of the Object*

Observe to know, though differing in the method of study. Acting to know.

*c. Logic of Research*

Social Intervention

Participatory Action Research (PAR)

*a. Value of the Researcher Investigated*

Radical transformation in the way of investigating. Exchange of roles: The other device is observed synthesizer... Continue reading "Action Research and Participatory Action Research: Methods" »

Management Philosophy

• Mid-Nineteenth Century

  Management was pyramidal, with the manager as the highest authority, dictating fixed ideas and implementation methods. Employees simply executed activities.

• Late Twentieth Century

  Managers and employees collaboratively set objectives. Employees have autonomy in organization and control, driving results.

Historical Features of Management

Administration predates Christ, originating in court administration. Mid-eighteenth-century methods persisted until 40 years ago. Subsequent industrial-level investigations led to:

• Increased use of machinery
• Centralization of production activities
• New employer-employee relationships
• Separation of customer and producer

The need for evolving goal-setting methods led to the emergence... Continue reading "Management Evolution: From Pyramidal to Collaborative" »

Organizational Characteristics of Primary Schools

1. Stages and Cycles:

• Primary education consists of three cycles, each spanning two academic years.
• These cycles are organized into areas with a global and integrative character.

2. Curriculum Areas:

• Knowledge of the Natural, Social, and Cultural Environment
• Artistic Education
• Physical Education
• Castilian Language and Literature (and, if applicable, the official regional language and literature)
• Foreign Language
• Mathematics

3. Additional Subjects:

• In one of the later courses, Education for Citizenship and Human Rights is added, with special emphasis on gender equality.

4. Second Foreign Language:

• In the third cycle, educational authorities may introduce a second foreign language.

5. Instrumental Areas:

• Areas

Marx's Theory of Labor Organization Under Capitalism

Transformation of Capitalism

Marx proposed to transform capitalism and its organization of work to establish a classless society. He believed this was possible because capitalism, despite its inherent structure of domination, had dismantled feudal institutions and the traditional organization of labor and trade.

From Trade Organizations to Industrial Production

Traditional trade organizations, focused on craftsmanship, gave way to industrial production. This shift aimed to produce goods quickly and efficiently, leading to mass production, lower prices, and wider accessibility for the population.

Taylorism and the Individualistic Mentality

The rise of industrial production also led to the emergence... Continue reading "Marx's Theory of Labor Organization and Engels' Interpretation" »

Homonymy

Three Ways in Which Homonymy Can Arise

1.1 Phonetic Convergence

Under the influence of ordinary phonetic changes, two or more words which once had different forms coincide in the spoken language and sometimes in writing as well. For example, meat and meet.

1.2 Semantic Divergence

When two or more meanings of the same word drift apart to such an extent that there will be no obvious connection between them, polysemy will give place to homonymy and the unity of the word will be destroyed. For example, pupil, meaning ward or scholar, and pupil, meaning the apple of the eye. Another example is collation, meaning comparison or light repast. It is difficult to say in particular cases where polysemy ends and where homonymy begins:

• If two words identical

The Application of Science and Policy

Marxist historical materialism investigates human society without ideological assumptions, based on empirical individuals and the relations established between them.^[7] Unlike approaches that show capitalism as a static system or as a product of natural evolution, historical materialist research reveals its historical character and therefore transitional nature in the development of mankind.

Marx and Engels applied this new conception of history to analyze political and social events of the past and their time. This led to a new wave of socialism, where the taking of sides by communism and proletarian class struggle compounded the scientific study of bourgeois society and the transition from this to a communist... Continue reading "Science, Policy, and Marxist Historical Materialism" »

What seems irreconcilable with the French Revolution—historicism and individualism, in that case identified respectively with societal privileges and rights, now naturally belong to the same family: constitutionalism, understood as the doctrine of priority rights and therefore the limits to government security purposes.

Individualistic natural law and historicism in America share a common path, essentially because they have to fight the same enemy: statism, i.e., the European synthesis, which also applies to England, joining power to make laws and sovereign power. The union for the opposite perspective of the American revolutionaries means valuing the legislator's position, and not a specific public authority authorized by the constitution,... Continue reading "The Interplay of Individualism and Historicism in the American Revolution" »

Peripheral Nationalisms

Throughout the nineteenth century in Spain, intellectual and political groups publicly differentiated the characteristics of the peripheral areas of the peninsula from the traditional state unit. These peculiarities were designated with the concepts of regionalism and nationalism, questioning the territorial structure of the state. The state model adopted by Spanish liberalism was centralized and unitary, continuing the model imposed by the Bourbons in the eighteenth-century Decree of Nueva Planta.

Faced with this standardization, a series of peripheral nationalisms arose, opposing it and defending their peculiarities as a people. They posed a new way to see Spain: diverse and multinational. Their origins lie in a cultural

Ancient Astronomical Observations

Early astronomers peered into the sky month by month, as part of a religious ritual. They noted that certain stars appear just before the sun and disappear immediately after it. These observations were repeated over the years, with meticulous measurements and annotations of the times and positions these phenomena occurred in the sky. This led to the conclusion that these cycles were repeated cyclically with each season. The sky, in essence, provided a large celestial schedule that allowed them to predict seasons favorable for hunting and navigation.

For the Egyptians, when the star Sirius appeared above the horizon before dawn, it signaled the approach of the planting season. The Babylonians, meanwhile, developed... Continue reading "Cosmic Chronicles: A Journey Through Astronomical Discoveries" »