Dear all,
See below, and, also attached as a word document.
Best
Bent
Call for papers - Special Issue of Social Policy and Administration on
Evaluation and Evidence in Social Policy, 2013
Introduction
The call for social policy to be more evidence-based is now a central
part of academic and policy discourse, but it is often not always clear
what this means. Policy-documents often cite academic work, but usually
only that work that supports the policies that are being advocated, and
although some countries have a long history of taking account of
social-scientific views in policymaking, more Anglo-Saxon countries have
more often employed policy advisors and had little regard for evidence
and evaluation.
Within social policy, significant questions exist as to how evidence
should be collected, evaluated and reviewed to explore whether
particular policies are working or not. The conventional approach is to
attempt to put in place control groups to compare to intervention
groups, utilising experimental methodologies, and to review or making a
meta-analysis of existing work according to pre-set criteria, especially
with regard to methods. However, there are significant questions as to
whether experimental methodologies can be applied to complex, human
systems, and standard systematic reviews often struggle to find
appropriate criteria for assessing more qualitative work, or which makes
innovative methodological decisions.
Whereas evaluation and quantitative studies has been done to a large
degree in labour market policy and health care, it is less prevalent in
other areas of social policy.
As such, there are considerable debates which the special edition would
like to pick up on. We are interested in contributions that combine
methodological and empirical analysis to exploring the following questions:
1. What counts as evidence in policy-making? What are the shortcomings
of evidence in policymaking, and what are the implications of this?
2. How can existing research be used to improve policymaking? What
methods should be use, and how can they take account of the wide range
of social scientific methods?
3. What is the relationship between evidence, evaluation and review in
social policy? Does this represent a coherent methodological position,
or do we need to rethink what these terms mean?
4. Examples of use and misuse of evidence and evaluation in Social Policy
5. Evaluation and evidence also in relation to the more vulnerable and
disadvantaged groups where data often are lesser available and where
social relations and interaction more important for outcome.
Please send abstracts to before 1st of November, 2011:
Professor Ian Greener, Durham, [log in to unmask]
Professor Bent Greve, Roskilde, [log in to unmask]
Final papers will have to be handed in at the latest at the 1st of
September, 2012
--
Bent Greve
Professor i samfundsvidenskab med særligt henblik
på analyser af velfærdsstat og velfærdssamfund Professor in welfare
state analysis
Institut for Samfund og globalisering Department of Society
and globalisation
Roskilde Universitet, Universitetsvej 1
4000 Roskilde. Danmark
Ph. 0045 46742585/22958814
Fax 0045 46743080
www.ssc.ruc.dk
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