As we enter our second century, it is an appropriate time for sociologists to take stock of where we have been and where we are going. Although most of this reflection appears to focus on substantive matters, Timothy Patrick Moran is right in arguing that their gaze ought to extend to how they teach graduate statistics. This article presents the…

Nanotechnology deals with machines, materials, and structures and their behaviors at the scale of atoms and molecules, or the nanoscale. By working on this scale, scientists are able to create enhanced materials with desirable properties, such as stain-resistance. The authors developed the activity described in this article to introduce middle…

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax bioterrorism mailings, the science community and others worried that technical articles might inadvertently aid those planning acts of terrorism. Some authors asked the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) for permission to withhold critical information from…

In the 1950s, under the aegis of such leading sociologists as Talcott Parsons, anthropologists like Clyde Kluckhohn of Harvard and Alfred Kroeber of the University of California at Berkeley, as well as political scientists Gabriel Almond and Lucien Pye, of Yale and MIT, respectively, the analysis of societal and political culture came to play a…

This article presents the author's acceptance address for receiving the Peter Shaw award. In this address, the author, an immigrant sociologist, tells how this award helps to resolve questions and uncertainties he has as to the degree to which he can or should consider himself an American--about the extent to which he has become a part, a member…

In investigations of the second-language writing process the aim of interviews and questionnaires has often been to find shared difficulties among them. However, in practice some writers are more successful than others. The aim of this study is to examine how some writers succeed in mastering scientific discourse in English, in a non-English…

The practice of science has been characterized as the systematic application of common sense. This view, frequently held by scientists themselves, holds that the same qualities that allow pre-industrial societies, pioneers, cast-aways, and common folk everywhere to cope with their environment and prosper also make for good scientists. However,…

Routes to economic development attract considerable attention in community and rural sociology. Social scientists draw increasingly on studies of social capital and environmental surroundings as they examine the factors that facilitate and inhibit economic development. However, few empirical analyses exist that analyze the impact of the…

The reduction in the total numbers of scientists in Russia has been accompanied by negative changes in the age structure of science cadres. According to data of the Center for Research and Statistics of Science, in 1995, the ratio of specialists of the older age cohort (above the age of sixty) and the younger age cohort (up to the age of forty)…

It has been reported that science has gone through an institutional crisis and that science in Russia as a whole has been deinstitutionalized. This article is an attempt to make use of the example of scientific organizations in St. Petersburg in order to trace the changes that have been going on in science in the past few years as a result of…

The results of a survey of the mathematics provision within UK university computer science departments are presented. In particular it is found that many academics are dissatisfied with the level of "mathematical preparedness" of their students. A number of recommendations and resources are suggested to address this. (Contains 6 figures.)

This document provides information about the participation of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering education and employment. It includes figures and tables displaying a variety of statistical information about each of these groups, and its primary purpose is to serve as an information source It offers no…

In 1998, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) launched an ambitious effort to create on-line science courses for K-12 educators that would immerse them in exciting science topics and give them access to the Museum's scientific resources (scientists, research, expeditions, collections, and exhibitions). This project, called Seminars on…

Barriers that impede effective communication between scientists and journalists include communication styles and skills, professional jargon, mistrust, time constraints, and orientation to knowledge types and "facts." Here we describe an experiment in building bridges between journalists and scientists in Southeast Asia and Japan in a…

This study used semistructured interviews and grounded theory to look for characteristics among college undergraduates that predicted persistence into Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. training. Participants in the summer undergraduate and postbaccalaureate research programs at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine were interviewed at the start, near the end,…