Hijacking the Policy-Making Process: Political Effects of the International Fertility Decision-Making Study for 2010s' Japan (XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology, July 2018, Toronto)
Hijacking the Policy-Making Process: Political Effects of the International Fertility Decision-Making Study for 2010s' Japan (XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology, July 2018, Toronto)
Full Paper: https://researchmap.jp/mugn3y18m-58901/
Date: 2018-07-16 (Monday) 15:30-17:20
Location: 202D (MTCC North Building), Metro Toronto Convention Center
Title: Hijacking the policy-making process: political effects of the International Fertility Decision-Making Study for 2010s' Japan
Author: Tanaka Sigeto (Tohoku University)
Abstract:
Studies that compare social conditions in a certain country with those of other nations can result in national feelings of inferiority or superiority. Comparative studies thus often serve as political devices. Owing to the development of the Internet and translation technology, large-scale, cross-national surveys have become a low-cost means to manipulate public opinion.
In this paper, I introduce the case of the political use of the International Fertility Decision-Making Study (IFDMS) in Japan. IFDMS was conducted in 2009-2010 by researchers from Cardiff University and Merck Serono, a global pharmaceutical company. IFDMS prepared a questionnaire in 13 languages for 18 countries, targeted at both men and women who were trying to conceive. It featured questions regarding medical knowledge about pregnancy. According to the published results, the respondents who lived in Japan exhibited a lower level of knowledge about conception than those in other countries. Based on this result, medical authorities in Japan insisted that, because of the lack of knowledge, the Japanese people had thoughtlessly postponed childbirth, resulting in fertility decline. The government accordingly created a new outline of population policy in 2015, in which it referred the results from IFDMS to advocate sex education for youth in order to encourage early marriage.
However, IFDMS is unreliable. It has many defects including mistranslations in the questionnaire. Nevertheless, results from IFDMS were accepted as reliable scientific findings in conferences and journals in the field of natural sciences in Europe, bypassing scrutiny by social science researchers in the targeted countries. Language differences also prevented the accurate understanding of the research results. The case of the political effect of IFDMS thus teaches us that social impacts of comparative studies may be deceptive and nullify social scientific efforts to accurately perceive the society in which we live. (See http://tsigeto.info/misconduct/#ifdms for details.)
Keywords: cross-national survey, translation, science communication
Conference: XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 2018, Toronto)
Session Selection: Current Research in Comparative Sociology, Part 1 (RC20: Comparative Sociology)
Information on the conference site: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2018/webprogram/Paper101040.html
Status: Accepted as a distributed paper [2017-11-30]
URL: http://tsigeto.info/18x
Created: 2017-09-19.
Revised: 2017-11-30 on paper acceptance.
Revised: 2018-07-16 Link for the full paper.
Created: 2017-09-20.
Revised: 2017-09-30.
Revised: 2017-11-30 on paper acceptance.
Revised: 2018-02-02 Date and location added.
Full Paper: https://researchmap.jp/mugn3y18m-58901/
Date: 2018-07-16 (Monday) 15:30-17:20
Location: 202D (MTCC North Building), Metro Toronto Convention Center
Title: Hijacking the policy-making process: political effects of the International Fertility Decision-Making Study for 2010s' Japan
Author: Tanaka Sigeto (Tohoku University)
Abstract:
Studies that compare social conditions in a certain country with those of other nations can result in national feelings of inferiority or superiority. Comparative studies thus often serve as political devices. Owing to the development of the Internet and translation technology, large-scale, cross-national surveys have become a low-cost means to manipulate public opinion.
In this paper, I introduce the case of the political use of the International Fertility Decision-Making Study (IFDMS) in Japan. IFDMS was conducted in 2009-2010 by researchers from Cardiff University and Merck Serono, a global pharmaceutical company. IFDMS prepared a questionnaire in 13 languages for 18 countries, targeted at both men and women who were trying to conceive. It featured questions regarding medical knowledge about pregnancy. According to the published results, the respondents who lived in Japan exhibited a lower level of knowledge about conception than those in other countries. Based on this result, medical authorities in Japan insisted that, because of the lack of knowledge, the Japanese people had thoughtlessly postponed childbirth, resulting in fertility decline. The government accordingly created a new outline of population policy in 2015, in which it referred the results from IFDMS to advocate sex education for youth in order to encourage early marriage.
However, IFDMS is unreliable. It has many defects including mistranslations in the questionnaire. Nevertheless, results from IFDMS were accepted as reliable scientific findings in conferences and journals in the field of natural sciences in Europe, bypassing scrutiny by social science researchers in the targeted countries. Language differences also prevented the accurate understanding of the research results. The case of the political effect of IFDMS thus teaches us that social impacts of comparative studies may be deceptive and nullify social scientific efforts to accurately perceive the society in which we live. (See http://tsigeto.info/misconduct/#ifdms for details.)
Keywords: cross-national survey, translation, science communication
Conference: XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 2018, Toronto)
Session Selection: Current Research in Comparative Sociology, Part 1 (RC20: Comparative Sociology)
Information on the conference site: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2018/webprogram/Paper101040.html
Status: Accepted as a distributed paper [2017-11-30]
URL: http://tsigeto.info/18x
Created: 2017-09-19.
Revised: 2017-11-30 on paper acceptance.
Revised: 2018-07-16 Link for the full paper.
Created: 2017-09-20.
Revised: 2017-09-30.
Revised: 2017-11-30 on paper acceptance.
Revised: 2018-02-02 Date and location added.
Related articles
- 7月21日(日)連続勉強会:「国難」のなかのわたしたちのからだ 第4回「人口政策に組み込まれた「不妊」」(東京麻布台セミナーハウス) (2019-07-21)
- 5月11日(土)連続勉強会:「国難」のなかのわたしたちのからだ 第3回「優生保護法の負の遺産」(東京麻布台セミナーハウス) (2019-05-11)
- 研究報告「「少子化」観の形成とその変化:1974年から現在まで」(2019-03-24 東京 <連続勉強会:「国難」のなかのわたしたちのからだ> 第2回) (2019-03-24)
- Preprint: Monthly Labour Survey Misconduct since at Least the 1990s (Tanaka S. 2019-03-05) (2019-03-06)
- 「毎月勤労統計調査」は90年代以前から改ざんされていた?: データ改ざんに甘い社会 (wezzy 2019-02-07) (2019-02-09)
- 「少子化」論の変遷:日本社会は何から目を背けてきたのか (科学技術社会論学会 第17回年次研究大会 2018-12-08 東京) (2018-09-19)
- Fake Information for the 'Egg Aging' Propaganda: The Role of Experts and Journalists in Its Emergence, Authorization, and Radicalization (XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology, July 2018, Toronto) (2018-07-17)
- Hijacking the Policy-Making Process: Political Effects of the International Fertility Decision-Making Study for 2010s' Japan (XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology, July 2018, Toronto) (2018-07-16)
- 研究報告「ライフプラン冊子には何が書いてあるのか」(2018-04-01 東京 <連続勉強会:「国難」のなかのわたしたちのからだ> 第1回) (2018-04-01)
- Gender Inequality and Family-Related Risks: From the Perspective of Law and Ideology (Contemporary Japan Speaker Series, King's College London) 2018-01-25 (2018-01-25)
- 「10歳の壁」の虚妄:箕面市「子ども成長見守りシステム」データから読みとるべきこと (2018-01-13)
- 『学術の動向』22巻8号 (2017年8月) 記事「非科学的知識の広がりと専門家の責任: 高校副教材「妊娠のしやすさ」グラフをめぐり可視化されたこと」 (2017-12-19)
- Locating Family in the Gender Equality Politics: A Focus on Economic Situation after Divorce in Japan (Symposium "The Impact of the Humanities and Social Sciences: Discussing Germany and Japan" in Tokyo) 2017-11-14 (2017-11-14)
- Science as a Vital Point of Democracy: Lessons from the 'Egg Aging' Panic in 2010s Japan (2017-10-31)
- ウィメンズヘルスリテラシー協会 (2017-09-22)
Comment:
Leave your comment
All items are optional (except the comment content). Posted comment will be immediately published, without preview/confirmation.
To pass my SPAM filter, include some non-ASCII characters more than 1% of Your Comment content. If you cannot type non-ASCII characters, copy & paste the star marks: ★☆★☆★☆.
Trackback:
http://blog.tsigeto.jp/tb.php/343-b9be381c