This thesis makes a contribution to the debate about the status of the social sciences. Many philosophers have argued that the social sciences are unlike the natural sciences because they involve a kind of interpretative inquiry which has no parallel in the natural sciences. Stronger versions of this argument suggest that the social sciences are dominated or exhausted by interpretation. In many cases, this stronger claim is supported by an appeal to an analogy between interpretation in the social sciences and interpretation in the arts. The claim of this thesis is that the analogy between interpretation in the arts and the social sciences is not as strong as it is often thought to be. Works of art can be subjected to several distinct kinds of interpretation. Not all of these different kinds have analogues in the social sciences. In particular, conceptions of interpretation which allow for multiple incompatible interpretations of a single artwork have no corollary in the social sciences. By questioning the analogy between interpretation in the two fields, I seek to develop a limited version of naturalism in the philosophy of social science. That is, I argue that there are similarities and points of contact between the social sciences and the natural sciences. This position is strengthened by a further argument: that those who have opposed naturalism have tended to rely on an outdated and overly-rigid view of the what the natural sciences are like. The naturalism I defend is limited because it accepts that there are differences between the natural and social sciences, including the fact that there is a role (but not a dominating role) for interpretation in the social sciences.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1973. / Bibliography: leaves 220-222. / xii, 222 l illus., tables

Thesis. 1976. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Dewey. / Bibliography: leaves 602-615. / Ph.D.

Thesis. 1975. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. / Bibliography: leaves 239-246. / M.S.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

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The dual objectives of this thesis are to assess the merits of certain statistical methods as applied to sociological data and to use statistical methods to produce interesting and worthwhile substantive results. The main statistical focus of the thesis is the analysis of two-way tables, for which purpose association models and correspondence analysis are used. Some of the tables analysed require the application of quasi-association models and association models with more than one dimension. Elsewhere in the thesis a proportional hazards model and various log-linear models are fitted. The substantive focus of the thesis is the relationship between marital formation/dissolution and social stratification in modern Britain. Particular attention is paid to assortative marriage for social status, with the relationships between spouses' occupations, educational levels and social origins being considered in detail. Assortative marriage for religion and for party political identification/voting intention are also examined. The data analysed come from a variety of social surveys, including both government surveys (e.g. various General Household Surveys, and the Family Formation Survey) and academic surveys (e.g. the Oxford Mobility Survey and the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative survey). The thesis conclusively demonstrates the utility of association models, log-linear models and proportional hazards models as applied to data relating to marital formation/dissolution. Among the numerous substantive findings are that there was a significant post-war decline in the strength of the relationship between spouses' social origins, and that unemployment appears to cause an increase in the risk of marital dissolution.

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Ph.D. (Social Work) / This study constitutes a reaction to the need for measurement tools in social work in this new era of accountability. The basic objective of the study is to introduce and describe a specific research processes for the development of measurement tools for the social work profession. A second objective of the study is to introduce this process with the development and validation of a scale that can measure social functioning. The research process involved in scale development is firstly described in detail and four main phases are identified, namely the pre-development phase, development phase, validation phase and utilization phase. Each of these phases consists of main moments and research steps that are specifically adapted for use in the social work profession. For the purpose of this study, the pre-development phase mainly consists of a literature review on social functioning. The literature review produced a theoretical framework from which social functioning can be analysed. The framework makes it clear that social functioning is a theory of polarity. It further implicates a three dimensional approach where achievement, satisfaction and expectation are seen as assessment areas that can be operationalised to measure social functioning and frustration, stress and helplessness as assessment areas that can be nonoperational to measure social dis functioning. The pre-development phase concludes with a literature review on the six identified operational assessment areas in order to formulate a operational definition of each area.