A Geohistorical Study of ‘The Rise of Modern Science’: Mapping Scientific Practice Through Urban Networks, 1500–1900

Using data on the ‘career’ paths of one thousand ‘leading scientists’ from 1450 to 1900, what is conventionally called the ‘rise of modern science’ is mapped as a changing geography of scientific practice in urban networks. Four distinctive networks of scientific practice are identified. A primate network centred on Padua and central and northern Italy in the sixteenth century expands across the Alps to become a polycentric network in the seventeenth century, which in turn dissipates into a weak polycentric network in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century marks a huge change of scale as a primate network centred on Berlin and dominated by German-speaking universities. These geographies are interpreted as core-producing processes in Wallerstein’s modern world-system; the rise of modern scientific practice is central to the development of structures of knowledge that relate to, but do not mirror, material changes in the system.

Use of the meeting street school screening test and the myklebust pupil rating scale with first-grade black urban children

This study hypothesized that: (a) the MSSST would identify the same proportion (15%) of high-risk children in a group (N = 580) of first-grade urban black children as estimated for the general population; (b) the Myklebust would discriminate between high-risk (N = 22) and low-risk (N = 21) children within the minority group using the MSSST as the criterion variable; and (c) Myklebust ratings for the high-risk and low-risk young minority children would approximate ratings reported elsewhere for older white suburban samples of high-risk and low-risk children. All three hypotheses were confirmed. The MSSST may be appropriate for minority group children. The small number of teachers (N = 6) participating in the Myklebust ratings makes generalization about it hazardous without further replication.