Search

Background: We are witnessing increasing demand from governments and society for all sciences to have relevant social impact and to show the returns they provide to society. Aims and objectives: This paper reports strategies that promote social impact by Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research projects. Methods: An in-depth analysis of six Social Sciences and Humanities research projects that achieved social impact was carried out to identify those strategies. For each case study, project documents were analysed and qualitative fieldwork was conducted with diverse agents, including researchers, stakeholders and end-users, with a communicative orientation. Findings: The strategies that were identified as contributing to achieving social impact include a clear focus of the project on social impact and the definition of an active strategy for achieving it; a meaningful involvement of stakeholders and end-users throughout the project lifespan, including local organisations, underprivileged end-users, and policy makers who not only are recipients of knowledge generated by the research projects but participate in the co-creation of knowledge; coordination between projects' and stakeholders' activities; and dissemination activities that show useful evidence and are oriented toward creating space for public deliberation with a diverse public. Discussion and conclusions: The strategies identified can enhance the social impact of Social Sciences and Humanities research. Furthermore, gathering related data, such as collaboration with stakeholders, use of projects' findings and the effects of their implementation, could allow researchers to track the social impact of the projects and enhance the evaluation of research impact.

The dialogic nature of human beings has widely been argued in the scientific literature. Language, as a cultural and psychological tool, has the potential to construct social meanings, including those related to love, attraction and desire. In these emotional dimensions of the self, people use 'the language of desire', defined as the capacity of language to raise attraction and be desired, while the 'language of ethics' is used to describe what is 'good' and 'ethical'. This article examines a dialogic intervention with 11-13-year-old children named Dialogic Literary Gatherings and explores its affordances to articulate both forms of language toward nonviolent models. 28 sessions from two elementary schools were analyzed, along with three focus groups with students. Main findings outline that dialogic features enable the emergence of the language of desire in combination to the language of ethics toward nonviolent relationships.

Recently, the need to contribute to the evaluation of the scientific, social, and political impact of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research has become a demand of policy makers and society. The international scientific community has made significant advances that have transformed the impact of evaluation landscape. This article reviews the existing scientific knowledge on evaluation tools and techniques that are applied to assess the scientific impact of SSH research; the changing structure of social and political impacts of SSH research is investigated based on an overarching research question: to what extent do scholars attempt to apply methods, instruments, and approaches that take into account the distinctive features of SSH? The review also includes examples of European Union (EU) projects that demonstrate these impacts. This article culminates in a discussion of the development of the assessment of different impacts and identifies limitations, and areas and topics to explore in the future.

We decide to start this article with the narrative of Laura Ruiz-Eugenio due to the coincidence that in 1999, the year in which the first issue of the Journal of Educational Science was published, she graduated in Social Education and began to collaborate in CREA´s researches. We include at the end, the story of Nerea Gutierrez as one of the researchers who more recently has been linked to the line of research on educational actions evidence-based.

Over a decade ago, researchers in Roma studies shifted their approach, from an exclusionary stance to a more communicative one. Despite major positive changes since then, researchers still do not adequately reflect the voices of the majority of the world's Roma. In this article, we draw on a communicative mixed methods case study, conducted within the INCLUD-ED project in one of Spain's most underprivileged neighborhoods, to show how it was possible to engage in intersubjective dialogue with grassroots Roma throughout the entire research process. Through such engagement, it is possible to develop new knowledge that can transform local conditions, as they shift from diagnosing social exclusion to identifying the approaches that work best to reduce it.

Reproduction theories emphasised the idea that schools reproduce relations of oppression. Later, postmodernism has increased the language of impossibility by analysing all educational actions in terms of power relations. Therefore, educational actions in line with any of those sociological approaches cannot act as tools that schools and communities need today to tackle inequalities from education and thus contribute to social inclusion. But sociology of education is already on the move. It has become dialogic, studying and showing that, actually, there are Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) worldwide that challenge structures and provide all children with the education they deserve to not only have equal chances but also, and more importantly, equal results. This dialogic sociology of education develops in dialogue with social agents and, as a result, has greater chances to improve their lives. (Contains 5 notes.)

The critical communicative methodology (CCM) is a methodological response to the dialogic turn of societies and sciences that has already had an important impact in transforming situations of inequality and exclusion. Research conducted with the CCM implies continuous and egalitarian dialogue among researchers and the people involved in the communities and realities being studied. To this dialogue, researchers bring existing scientific knowledge, and the researched subjects contribute knowledge from their lifeworlds. In this process, new understandings emerge informing solutions to many social problems. Later, social actors lobby for the development of effective social policy based on those solutions. This article presents the CCM, its main principles, techniques, and achievements relating them to the life and person of Jesus Gomez ("Pato"), who deeply engaged in the development of this methodology, always with passion and intellectual rigor and a profound commitment to social justice. (Contains 3 notes.)

Gender-based violence affects 1 in 3 women worldwide and is the leading cause of death among women. Journalism has a duty to provide fair and coherent information and has a huge effect on peoples' perceptions. This study examines how one excellent journalism practice contributes to social impact and overcomes sexual harassment. Social impact is considered a crucial factor for evaluating the impact of science. This concept is used to evaluate journalism practice, while the contribution is made through an analysis of the social impact achieved following the RTVE documentary "Voices against Silence" (Golden Globe Award at the 2018 World Media Festival, Hamburg). Implementing the social impact of social media (SISM) methodology and additional interviews (14), this study examines evidence of this documentary's social impact by exploring citizens' voices through social media (Twitter and Facebook) and interviews with people whose lives have been impacted by watching this documentary. The evidence collected is linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 to overcome sexual harassment. The results indicate this documentary had a social impact by contributing to overcoming sexual harassment and improving trust in journalism as well as providing a reputation for journalistic coverage, which also leads to social impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Europe manifests both an older modern form of racism (inferiority of certain ethnicities) and a postmodern form (impossibility of equitable dialog among races). Antiracist education using a relativist approach actually promotes postmodern racism. A dialogic approach emphasizing equal rights is preferable. (SK)

Summarizes adult education projects in Spain from Friends of the Country Societies in 1793 to Luzuriaga's Free Institution of Education. Describes present reform movements in the post-Francco era and various models: open education, popular schools, public adult education, peasant schools, popular universities, and centers for culture promotion. (SK)