Such diverse thinkers as Lao-Tze, Confucius, and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have all pointed out that we need to be able to tell the difference between real and assumed knowledge. The systematic review is a scientific tool that can help with this difficult task. It can help, for example, with appraising, summarising, and communicating the results and implications of otherwise unmanageable quantities of data. This is important because quite often there are so many studies, and their results are often so conflicting, that no policymaker or practitioner could possibly carry out this task themselves.Systematic review methods have been widely used in health care, and are becoming increasingly common in the social sciences (fostered, for example, by the work of the Campbell Collaboration). 

This book outlines the rationale and methods of systematic reviews, giving worked examples from social science and other fields. It requires no previous knowledge, but takes the reader through the process stage by stage. It draws on examples from such diverse fields as psychology, criminology, education, transport, social welfare, public health, and housing and urban policy, among others.The book includes detailed sections on assessing the quality of both quantitative, and qualitative research; searching for evidence in the social sciences;meta-analytic and other methods of evidence synthesis; publication bias; heterogeneity; and approaches to dissemination.

Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide

During the past two decades we have witnessed a rather impressive growth of theoretical innovations and conceptual revisions of epistemological and methodological approaches within constructivist‐qualitative quarters of the social sciences. Methodological discussions have commonly addressed a variety of methods for collecting and analyzing empirical material, yet the critical grounds upon which these were reformulated have rarely been extended to embrace sampling concepts and procedures. The latter have been overlooked, qualifying only as a ‘technical’ research stage. This article attends to snowball sampling via constructivist and feminist hermeneutics, suggesting that when viewed critically, this popular sampling method can generate a unique type of social knowledge—knowledge which is emergent, political and interactional. The article reflects upon researches about backpacker tourists and marginalized men, where snowball sampling was successfully employed in investigating these groups' organic social ne...

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Sampling Knowledge: The Hermeneutics of Snowball Sampling in Qualitative Research

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

Nos últimos trinta trinta anos, houve profundas mudanças na forma como compreendemos o crime e a justiça criminal. O crime tornou-se um evento simbólico, um verdadeiro teste para a ordem social e para as políticas governamentais, um desafio para a sociedade civil, para a democracia e para os direitos humanos. Segundo David Garland, professor da Faculdade de Direito da New York University, um dos principais autores no campo da Sociologia da Punição e com artigo publicado na Revista de Sociologia e Política , número 13, na modernidade tardia houve uma verdadeira obsessão securitária, direcionando as políticas criminais para um maior rigor em relação às penas e maior intolerância com o criminoso. Há trinta anos, nos EUA e na Inglaterra essa tendência era insuspeita. O livro mostra que os dois países compartilham intrigantes similaridades em suas práticas criminais, a despeito da divisão racial, das desigualdades econômicas e da letalidade violenta que marcam fortemente o cenário americano. Segundo David Garland, encontram-se nos dois países os “mesmos tipos de riscos e inseguranças, a mesma percepção a respeito dos problemas de um controle social não-efetivo, as mesmas críticas da justiça criminal tradicional, e as mesmas ansiedades recorrentes sobre mudança e ordem sociais”1 (GARLAND, 2001, p. 2). O argumento principal da obra é o seguinte: a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças e problemas de controle social que deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das políticas criminais, o grau máximo de duração das penas e a excessivas taxas de encarceramento.

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rsocp/n20/n20a15.pdf

The culture of control: crime and social order in contemporary, society

Riedel DJ, Gonzalez-Cuyar LF, Zhao XF, Redfi eld RR, Gilliam BL. Plasmablastic lymphoma of the oral cavity: a rapidly progressive lymphoma associated with HIV infection. Lancet Infect Dis 2008; 8: 261–67. In this Grand Round, the references for the sentence “Occasionally, CD138-negative plasmablastic lymphoma cases (such as this case) have been reported” (page 265) should be 32, 34, and 38. Book Systematic reviews: CRD’s guidance for undertaking reviews in health care

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Systematic reviews: CRD's guidance for undertaking reviews in health care

Rowland Atkinson and John Flint are researchers at the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow. Both have an interest in the spatial distribution and experience of social exclusion and have been commissioned to devise a methodology for tracing residents who leave regeneration areas in Scotland. •In its simplest formulation snowball sampling consists of identifying respondents who are then used to refer researchers on to other respondents. •Snowball sampling contradicts many of the assumptions underpinning conventional notions of sampling but has a number of advantages for sampling University of Surrey Sociology at Surrey

Accessing Hidden and Hard-to-reach Populations: Snowball Research Strategies

The Flight of the Creative Class

A logistic regression model of individual neighbourhood dissatisfaction was developed using data from the 1997/98 Survey of English Housing. Housing satisfaction and the general appearance of the neighbourhood were closely associated with neighbourhood dissatisfaction, although perceptions of noise, friendliness, community spirit, schools and crime were also important. Although sociodemographic factors were much less important than residential perceptions in helping to predict dissatisfaction, the type of neighbourhood remained a significant independent predictor of dissatisfaction even when residents' views were taken into account. Some factors were more important in different areas: in particular, residents in less affluent areas were more sensitive to unfriendliness and crime. There were also indications that owner-occupiers were less satisfied in areas where they had a lower tenure share. The paper concludes that neighbourhood policies with a broad spectrum of goals are required, that pay careful atte...

What Makes People Dissatisfied with their Neighbourhoods

This paper focuses on the question of whether it is worse to be poor in a poor area or in an area which is more socially mixed; in short, does living in a deprived area compound the disadvantage experienced by its residents, and do area effects contribute to social exclusion? The idea of social areas having direct or mediated effects on the lives of their residents continues to interest and challenge academic and policy debates on the effect of concentrated poverty and on the creation of more mixed and, thereby, more sustainable neighbourhood forms. However, area effects remain contentious and British research evidence is scant. Following a review of the theoretical and empirical understandings of the relationship between households and neighbourhoods, the paper presents survey data from a comparative study of deprived and socially mixed neighbourhoods in Glasgow and Edinburgh. These data provide evidence that supports the area effects thesis, in particular in relation to area reputation and employment. The paper concludes that, with certain caveats, living in areas of geographically concentrated poverty creates additional problems for residents.

Disentangling Area Effects: Evidence from Deprived and Non-deprived Neighbourhoods:

The new urban colonialism / Rowland Atkinson and Gary Bridge -- Mapping neoliberal American urbanism / Elvin K. Wyly and Daniel J. Hammel -- From social mix to the politics of distance : urban policy and gentrification in Canada / Tom Slater -- Heritage and gentrification : remembering 'the good old days' in postcolonial Sydney / Wendy Shaw -- 'Studentification' : the gentrification factory? / Darren P. Smith -- Gentrification in post-communist cities / Ludek Sykora -- Exploring the substance and style of gentrification : Berlin's 'prenzlberg' / Matthias Bernt and Andrej Holm -- Outside the core : gentrification in Istanbul / Tolga Islam -- Gentrification and neighbourhood dynamics in Japan : the case of Kyoto / Yoshihiro Fujitsuka -- Another 'Guggenheim effect'? : central city projects and gentrification in Bilbao / Lorenzo Vicario and P. Manuel Martinez Monje -- Local limits to gentrification : implications for a new urban policy / Kate Shaw -- Poland and Polonia : migration and the re-incorporation of ethnic aesthetic practice in the taste of luxury / Jerome Krase -- Outside the metropole : gentrification in provincial cities or provincial gentrification? / Paul Dutton -- A curious blend? : city revitalization, gentrification and commodification in Brazil / Silvana Rubino -- Out of squalor and towards another urban renaissance? : gentrification and neighborhood transformations in southern Europe / Petros Petsimeris -- The order and simplicity of gentrification, a political challenge / Erik Clark.

Rowland Atkinson

Papers

Accessing Hidden and Hard-to-reach Populations: Snowball Research Strategies

The Flight of the Creative Class

What Makes People Dissatisfied with their Neighbourhoods

Disentangling Area Effects: Evidence from Deprived and Non-deprived Neighbourhoods:

Gentrification in a Global Context: The New Urban Colonialism