SOCIAL SCIENCE: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ITS PURPOSE AND PROCESS IN WATERSHED PLANNING Nels Paulson, PhD Associate Professor of Sociology University of Wisconsin-Stout
Jan 17, 2016
SOCIAL SCIENCE: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ITS PURPOSE AND PROCESS IN WATERSHED PLANNING
Nels Paulson, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Wisconsin-Stout
WHAT IS SOCIAL SCIENCE?
You are probably familiar with these: Social science is certainly a research
oriented way of making sense of the world through surveys, interviews, observations, focus groups, textual analysis, etc., but it’s more than that, too.
Emerged out of enlightenment and August Comte’s attempts to impress women with his new “religion”: Sociology
Believed in positivism and social laws. We can predict the future if we
systematically evaluate our social world.
WHAT IS SOCIAL SCIENCE?
So we collect and analyze data systematically We also must recognize and understand the
“social laws” that exist (i.e. social theory) This comes out of research, but you don’t always
have to do any extra research to predict what will likely occur in the future
Ideally- need to know both theory and research Save money and time and can be more
accurate Example: Farmer Led Councils We might like to know if it would be successful in
South Fork of the Hay River How can we figure this out?
THEORY: DURKHEIM AND SOLIDARITY
With mechanical solidarity you have high collective conscience, but low social morphology
Which means, among other things, that new ideas don’t happen often (and you get bad biases)
Organic solidarity is the opposite (social morphology)
But this can lead to, among other things, anomie…
HAY RIVER FARMER LED POSSIBILITY
Need to have people connected to community (high mechanical solidarity) in order to gain collective conscience
Need those most connected to also be open to new ideas (like BMPs) for social morphology
Call it the “Joel Salatin” effect (farmer highlighted in Food Inc.)
Need to also know more about the Joel Salatins in a watershed, to any extent they do exist in the watershed
Need to also know more about characteristics of those working on watershed and whether they can accommodate the needs of the Joel Salatins
Access to local farmer let initiatives eases transition to BMPs
Not at all Very much
Not important
Extremely important
Social network graph of access to farmer led initiatives easing transition to BMPs correlated with importance of improving soil health
Table 1: Correlations for access to local farmer led initiatives, social connections, neighbor/acquaintance participation in BMPs, and betweenneess centrality
Important to protect
water quality
even if it harms my personal livelihood
Willing to pay more
to improve water quality
Protecting the
environment will
threaten jobs for
people like me
Improving soil
health.
Guaranteeing land usage
for future generation
s.
Impacts to short run
profit margin
Impacts to short run
yield
Lack of training/
information
Existing policies
SubsidiesBMP
Training
Access to local farmer-led initiatives
Pearson Correlation 0.436* .500** -0.192 0.417* 0.253 -0.25 -0.178 0.056 0.339 .539** 0.378
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.054 0.025 0.404 0.06 0.269 0.275 0.441 0.81 0.144 0.012 0.122 N 20 20 21 21 21 21 21 21 20 21 18Social connections
Pearson Correlation -0.08 0.399* .445** 0.08 0.134 -0.131 -0.005 .460** .546** 0.223 0.359
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.737 0.081 0.043 0.729 0.563 0.571 0.982 0.036 0.013 0.332 0.144 N 20 20 21 21 21 21 21 21 20 21 18Neighbor/acquaintance participation in BMPs
Pearson Correlation -0.042 0.208 -0.073 0.309 0.398* -0.195 0.028 0.024 0.308 0.045 .480**
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.862 0.38 0.752 0.173 0.074 0.397 0.902 0.919 0.186 0.847 0.044 N 20 20 21 21 21 21 21 21 20 21 18Betweenness Centrality
Pearson Correlation 0.235 0.003 -0.226 0.123 0.252 -0.43* -0.475** 0.004 -0.131 0.226 .673***
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.293 0.99 0.289 0.567 0.235 0.052 0.029 0.987 0.582 0.325 0.002 N 22 23 24 24 24 21 21 21 20 21 18*Correlation is significant at the 0.10 level (2-tailed).**Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).***Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
HAY RIVER FARMER CHARACTERISTICS
HAY RIVER WATERSHED CONSERVATION WORKER CONSTRAINTS
“The government funding sources tend to want to pay for practices and not for people. It’s just the philosophy. A lot of what we’re talking about is people work. The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough money to cost-share the practices, it’s all this relationship building and people work…I mean, going out and knocking on doors, talking to people. Increasingly, there is not money for that. The money is all to pour concrete and put up fences and put up gutters and plant stuff and put in structures…And…there is one [planner] and he has a lot of plans that are on his plate.”
HAY RIVER WATERSHED CONSERVATION WORKER CHARACTERISTICS
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Strongly Agree
45.5%
9.1%
27.3%18.2%
.0%
I have the authority to effectively improve water quality.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR WATERSHED PLANNING?
Each watershed has characteristics that are social, economic, cultural, and political
These follow “social laws”, but humans are hard to predict and some social theory suggests contradictions exist that make context important
Need anthropological, sociological, economic, political science, and other social science disciplines to evaluate those characteristics
Understand all people and institutions, including yourselves (not just program evaluation, but really institutional capacity and community capacity evaluation)
THANK YOU.