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What are the social sciences? What do they do? How are they practised in Australia? The Poor Relation examines the place of the social sciences - from economics and psychology to history, law and philosophy - in the teaching and research conducted by Australian universities. Across sixty years, The Poor Relation charts the changing circumstances of the social sciences, and measures their contribution to public policy. In doing so it also relates the arrangements made to support them and explains why they are so persistently treated as the poor relation of science and technology.
This high-quality reference on significant research in Australian social sciences is divided into three main sections: economics, sociology and political science. Each section examines the significant research in the field. The volume views the research within the context of broader debates about the social sciences and the ways in which more recent institutional changes have altered how they are defined, taught and researched.
Why do parents who have high levels of education tend to have children who perform better at school, stay at school longer, and end up with more desirable jobs? Researchers have evidence of how distinct factors affect educational and occupational success, but significantly less understanding of the actual mechanisms involved. This work uses new Australian data to investigate those mechanisms, examining how cultural participation and parental encouragement affect adolescent and adult stratification outcomes in advanced modern society. Crook develops theoretical accounts of the possible mechanisms linking family background with socioeconomic success and tests competing hypotheses using a synthetic approach drawing on the strengths of the two distinct traditions of social stratification research.