ABSTRACT
Early developments in digital computing were much influenced by the demands of social scientists for means to monitor and analyze demographic and economic features, such as those revealed in censuses. The use of computers to analyze the results of surveys is a taken-for-granted characteristic of modern social science and all except a few die-hard qualitative analysts are likely to have at least a nodding acquaintance with one of the major statistical packages, such as SPSS, SAS, Minitab or BMDP (and, even among qualitative researchers, there are many who routinely make use of such packages as NUDIST or the Ethnograph). Graduates from social science departments are employed in large numbers in occupations in which the collection, manipulation, analysis and presentation of information is the prime activity and their computer literacy may be taken for granted by employers. Yet the take-up of computer-based technology for teaching and learning in British social science, especially sociology, social policy and political studies, remains generally low. There are exceptions but, on the whole, even in those institutions which teach courses on such topics as the social implications of new developments in information and communications technology or the role of social factors in the development of new technologies, much social science is still taught in the same way as it was a generation ago. Reasons for this paradox involve both factors which are general to higher education and others which are specific to the social sciences. The pressures are both positive and negative.
