Social science

Marianne Franklin on a guide to help people escape the attentions of public and private bodies capturing and capitalising on our online actions

Wageningen University president and author of Hamburgers in Paradise: The Stories Behind the Food We Eat on her appetite for good books, from Primo Levi to Claudia Roden.

Survey also finds that women do more work with the general public than male researchers

Book of the week: Beneath a bourgeois veneer is a secret history of defunct jobs and fascinating lives, says Paul White

'Confrontational policies' will have long-term consequences on universities' international collaborations, claims academic

A small tax hike for the cream of 1 per cent could fund college for the poorest, says Danny Dorling

Increase led by growth in number of international students

An intellectual tag team helped to steal workers’ time, bodies and then souls, Philip Roscoe learns

Through a series of ‘creation stories’, E. Stina Lyon hears how individuals are breaking ground as they form families

Book of the week: Ethics aside, no useful information is to be gained from ‘coercive questioning’, says Steven Rose

Labour ex-minister criticises the view that UK ‘can’t afford English identity’

The latest detention of Miguel Ángel Beltrán is viewed by many scholars as an attack on academic freedom

Marcus Chown on a brief, critically important guide to economic literacy

A Welsh town’s Boiz, Geeks and Emos are in urgent need of new scripts, finds John Field

Cait MacPhee on personal accounts of gender trouble in the sciences

The responses to a UK-wide survey show how life chances are diverging, argues Danny Dorling

Adam Afriyie urges policymakers to test their preconceived ideologies against evidence

Author of new book The Cunning of Uncertainty fears pressure for scientific certainty is leading researchers to make promises they cannot deliver

Caroline Osella on a fieldwork-based study of the attachments that develop among those in shanty towns

Richard Murphy praises a bold effort to halt tax-dodging by the 1 per cent

Howard P. Segal on a brilliant study exploring the conflict between free speech and instruction guides that may be used for violence

Policymakers in US and UK told not to jeopardise the nations’ strength in the fields

Danny Dorling sees how bricks and mortar became part of the arsenal with which the US fought the Cold War

Helen Bynum lauds an exploration of the moral and social aspects of science through the evolution of a leading publication

A new paper finds that more than half of economic studies are unreproducible. But there could be even deeper issues with the discipline, says David Matthews

Inequality in income lowers the life expectancy of everyone in society, says Marcus Chown

From living rent-free to Madoff’s fraud, a study of scams forces us to face our sins, says Dick Hobbs

Fears that discipline is particularly susceptible to statistical ‘hacking’ of data to gain a positive result

Director Jeremy Farrar argues that current research culture damages scientists’ ability ‘to dream’

Jonathan Mirsky on the treaties and extraterritoriality imposed on China in the decades after the Opium Wars

When it comes to meritocracy in free market capitalism, people don’t hate the game, they hate the players, says Angelia Wilson

Jane Appleton on how youths feel about the organisational decisions and interventions that are supposed to help them

Flora Samuel on a revelatory call for researchers to embrace context, culture and the unknown

Views of early career social scientists will be collected with a view to improve support for those starting out in academia

Even in the academy, your class background will always be a factor in how you are seen, says LSE’s Lisa Mckenzie

It’s communal, kinky, defiant – but whatever it is, don’t call it that, says Kalle Berggren

A study of the predatory nature of markets holds up a mirror to the field, says Victoria Bateman

Joanna Williams on a study embracing technology and introducing a provocative concept of learning

Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015-2016 subject tables will be revealed over six weeks

Joanna Lewis on a portrait of British blubbering from medieval mystics to the death of Diana

Lisa Mckenzie on a sobering American ethnography written with understanding and respect

Time and temperament are explored in a masterly study of an old game of thrones, says Les Gofton

A work of distinction offers fresh insights into the hedonism and hangovers, says Richard J. Williams

Kenn Nakata Steffensen takes an in-depth look at the challenges facing Japan’s public universities

Stomach-churning detail reminds us of the blood, sweat and tears in clothes, says Shahidha Bari

Philip Altbach warns that ‘you can’t starve a higher education system’ without grave consequences

Major/minor course designed to improve graduates’ employment prospects

Emma Rees lauds an essay collection that highlights the American scholar’s game-changing writing

Gemma Edney on the arguments for the academic study of a genre too often dismissed for being à l’Américaine

Universities to scale back liberal arts and social science courses

Tara Shears on the career thrills and frustrations of a female scientist who made history at Berkeley

This survey shows how textbook materials often reveal more about the ‘home’ culture than they do about the one being taught. Sylvia Jaworska writes

A study of anti-masturbation campaigns reveals many unexpected allegiances, says Heike Bauer

Caron E. Gentry praises a work that reveals the contributions of female Muslims

Discipline may fund women fairly because of a better awareness of the ‘ingrained, institutionalized male culture of universities’

The causes of and solutions to disparity in income are eclectic, says Victoria Bateman

Digital learning may be the future, but the present is more uncertain, says  Sandra Leaton Gray

Howard Segal admires the travelogue of a self-confessed ‘professional disaster tourist’ covering a variety of global wastelands

Early experience of class has a large effect on the working lives of graduates, discovers Huw Morris

Acknowledging aid workers’ motives does not diminish their extraordinary efforts, says Monika Krause