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Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965-2009. By Zachary M. Schräg. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. xvi, 245 pp. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8018-9490-9.)
Today, nearly any scholar who desires to include surveys or interviews in her or his research must complete ethics training courses, submit a study design to institutional review boards (irbs), and adjust the research as necessary to avoid undue risks to her or his subjects. Ethical Imperialism explains how a set of regulations initially intended to protect human subjects from the risks of biomedical and psychological experimentation came to be extended to the social sciences. The lumping of social science research subjects into the same category as human subjects, who may face real physical or psychological harms, has rightfully been controversial. Intent on discovering exactly how this...