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How has sociology evolved over the last 40 years? In this paper, we examine networks built on thousands of sociology-relevant papers to map sociology's position in the wider social sciences and identify changes in the most prominent research fronts in the discipline. We find first that sociology seems to have traded centrality in the field of social sciences for internal cohesion: sociology is central, but not nearly as well bounded as neighboring disciplines such as economics or law. Internally, sociology appears to have moved away from research topics associated with fundamental social processes and toward social-problems research. We end by discussing strategies for extending this work to wider science production networks.

Discourse and ideology are interrelated concepts in social sciences and the humanities and are even occasionally employed interchangeably. This paper sheds light on their relationship in academic discourse and examines the role of sociology as a scientific field in its conceptualization. Using bibliometric analysis, we examined 15,716 academic publications mentioning "discourse" or "ideology" in their title and written in English by American and British scholars between 1966 and 2015. The investigation focused on the two terms' conceptual environment, areas of usage, journals, and the organizations to which the authors were affiliated. First, we conclude that although some sociology researchers have attempted to create a sociological definition for the concept of discourse, sociologists are not its most active users. The same is true for ideology. These concepts have established niches in other disciplines (political science and history for "ideology," and educational science and linguistics for "discourse"). Second, throughout the years, the field of discourse studies has become more diversified and fragmented than that of ideology. Third, the leading organizations in both fields are prestigious American and British universities, which indicates that discourse and ideology are elements of the intellectual elites' language. Fourth, the concept of discourse was more frequently applied than that of ideology in the years 2010–2015, and we expect that it will remain popular among scholars in the next decade. As for ideology, we believe that new social challenges could foster the rediscovery of this concept in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How has sociology evolved over the last 40 years? In this paper, we examine networks built on thousands of sociology-relevant papers to map sociology's position in the wider social sciences and identify changes in the most prominent research fronts in the discipline. We find first that sociology seems to have traded centrality in the field of social sciences for internal cohesion: sociology is central, but not nearly as well bounded as neighboring disciplines such as economics or law. Internally, sociology appears to have moved away from research topics associated with fundamental social processes and toward social-problems research. We end by discussing strategies for extending this work to wider science production networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Antiracist Education in Theory and Practice: A Critical Assessment” As a set of pedagogical, curricular, and organizational strategies, antiracist education claims to be the most progressive way today to understand race relations. Constructed from whiteness studies and the critique of colorblindness, its foundational core is located in approximately 160 papers published in peer-reviewed journals in the past 15 years-identified through a comprehensive search of Academic Premier Search, EBSCOMegaFile, Education Abstracts, JSTOR, and SOCIndex. A critical assessment of these papers concludes that antiracist education is not a sociologically grounded, empirically based account of the significance of race in American society. Rather, it is a morally based educational reform movement that embodies the confessional and redemptive modes common in evangelical Protestantism. Inherently problematic, whether or not antiracist education achieves broader acceptance is open to debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the most important questions in the sociology of religion? And how would scholars answer them? This article explores what people consider the most important questions in the field. Sociologists tend to study what we can readily answer with data, but the questions that elicit the most interest turn out to be quite different. They are bigger, broader, and harder to answer empirically. A crowd-sourced poll identified what people consider the most important questions in the sociology of religion, which were then posed to scholars in the field. They provided nuanced and complex answers revealing a diversity of approaches involved in the study of religion. This unorthodox article invites the reader to listen in on dynamic conversations that bring scholars into dialogue with one another, revealing points of consensus, ongoing debate, areas where there are more questions than answers, and directions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the field of sociology harbors a dismissive attitude towards religion. Specifically it examines whether introductory sociology textbooks present the classic secularization theory over the more recent religious economies explanation of religious change. The classical secularization thesis suggests that religion is declining in importance in modern societies and may disappear completely. The religious economies perspective proposes that religion has actually become more influential and dynamic over time. While both theories are well represented in the sociology of religion literature, we explore whether generalist sociology textbooks reflect this reality. This article provides a content analysis of 31 introductory sociology textbooks published between 2003 and 2006. We assess the presence and promotion of the above theories in these textbooks. Our analysis reveals that 20 (65%) of the 31 textbooks in our study present only secularization theory, while seven (23%) of the textbooks cover both secularization theory and religious economies theory. We assess the ramifications of such a lopsided arrangement and conclude by encouraging a more open dialogue on this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that applied research still retains a second class status within the sociological community that is at least unexamined and probably unjustified. Applied research is not the corruption that some would claim, while basic research is hardly the ideal to which all sociologists should aspire. The paper begins with a discussion of the nature of applied research, moves to a demystification of basic research, and concludes with some suggestions about how a reconciliation of sorts might be accomplished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues, by way of empirical example, that the long-accepted contention that participant-observation research can best be accomplished by strangers who become like natives is by no means the only or even best approach. Rather, natives can be trained to distance themselves from their own group, making use of inherently objective sociological and anthropological perspectives. Such natives-as-strangers are more likely to be cognizant of nuances in the cultural life being studied. Using the example of the author's research among Jews, the paper also outlines some of the risks of this native-as-stranger approach, foremost among them being the tendencies to take too much for granted and to become alienated from one's native group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The section presents comments on articles featured in the August 1978 issue of The American Sociologist. Gerald D. Berreman claims that the ethics and responsibility in social science research are frustrating to discuss in print or in person: the issues are complex and highly contextual so that clear-cut rules-of-thumb are impossible to formulate; they are value-laden and controversial so that discussion often degenerates into preachment, accusation and defense. James D. Carroll noted that each of the articles is a useful contribution to the understanding of law, politics and administration of knowledge. From an analytical perspective, these papers fit well into conceptual frameworks suggested by such terms as "post-industrial society," "knowledge society," and the like. From a professional perspective, each of the papers addresses issues that researchers should be more familiar with, and that professional societies should have greater capacity to address on a systematic basis than is presently the case. From a legal perspective, the paper by Kathleen Bond addresses a constitutional question under the U.S. first amendment, which involves something of a paradox. Carl B. Klockars suggests a model of sociological research that begs the softening of a series of trained incapacities, which the sociological community has worked long and hard against substantial resistance to develop.

Graduate students learn to be sociologists in part by doing research. Many undergraduate institutions whose roles have been primarily defined by teaching have inadequately addressed the need of their students to obtain research experience. When such opportunities are available, and when they are properly structured and coordinated with the undergraduate curriculum, advantages accrue to both students and the profession. This paper examines curricular and extracurricular ways to strengthen undergraduate research opportunities as preparation for graduate school. It is suggested that such preparation is also beneficial to many students who do not go on to graduate school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that the selection of appropriate statistical procedures is at best haphazard without a careful consideration of the consequences of one's research, and that significant distortions often will result when applied concerns are ignored. I advance the hypothesis that typical conceptions of basic research in sociology preclude the proper use of statistics. From this it follows that mainstream, quantitative sociology can begin to save itself only by taking seriously the question of applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because highly technical expositions of significance tests are readily available, sociologists will proceed from an elementary and non-technical statement that emphasizes the meaning and interpretation of the tests. First and foremost, a test of significance is a formal procedure for making a decision between two hypotheses about some characteristic of a population parameter on the basis of knowledge obtained from a sample statistic of that population. Either the null hypothesis or the alternative hypothesis may be derived from the substantive theory in question, though it is conventional that the theory being tested that is, the researcher's hunch, or the possibility he thinks most interesting is identified with the alternative hypothesis. This means that null hypotheses are usually set up for the express purpose of seeing if there is empirical warrant for their rejection or nullification so that the alternative hypothesis can be accepted hence the term null hypothesis. Testing for significance involves a comparison of the difference between the sample statistic and the parameter specified by the null hypothesis with a theoretically determined sampling distribution. This comparison allows estimation of how often such a difference would occur if difference were due to random errors in the sample selection process sample error.

This section introduces a series of articles on financing sociological research. The late Alvin Gouldner presented us with a fundamental paradox that those who supply the greatest resources for the institutional development of sociology are precisely those who most distort its quest for knowledge. The problem of financing sociological research is not the burden of individual researchers, it is the challenge to a discipline and a profession that must take account of a shifting cultural-political climate and be accountable to a restive public. The paper by Martin Bulmer examines the unique role of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, under the directorship of Breadsley Ruml, in distributing relatively large amounts of money for social research during the 1920s. Highlighting the entry of more direct federal government support for basic social science research, Roberta Balstand Miller's paper, The Social Sciences and the Politics of Science: the 1940s, examines the debate about the inclusion of the social sciences in the legislation that established the National Science Foundation.

To what extent do sociologists collaborate? Has this changed over time? What factors contribute to research collaboration among sociologists? To answer these questions, we examine trends in collaboration over a 70 year period and empirically test a variety of explanations for the increase in collaboration that we find. We analyze data collected from a stratified random sample of articles in two leading sociology journals between 1935 and 2005 ( n = 1274). Most of our analyses are descriptive and display trends over time. However, we pool the data across all years and estimate logistic regression models to assess the relative contribution of various factors. We find that the importance of geographical location has been waning since the 1950s, although the growth in cross-place collaborations stagnated between 1980 and 2005. We find that quantitative research is more likely to be collaborative, as are projects requiring data collection, though this may change because the collaboration rate among secondary data users is increasing at a faster rate. We find no significant gender differences in rates of collaboration, although male sole-authorship remains the most common form of publication. We also find the institutional prestige of coauthors is typically higher than that of sole-authors. Our results elucidate the extent of collaboration in sociology and reveal how several factors have contributed to this major shift in work organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Detroit Area Study (DAS) has served for 25 years as one model of how a sociology faculty can combine productive research and graduate training within a single small unit. This paper outlines the current structure and costs of DAS, describes its math advantages and limitations, and suggests several ways in which other universities might develop units that are similar but not identical to DAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between original research reports and discussion of these same reports in textbooks Through a systematic search of textbooks dealing with a particular sociological generalization, the authors are able to return to the original sources upon which the textbook accounts are based and to compare what is contained in both. Serious errors of commission and omission are revealed in the textbook treatments of the primary research material The authors conclude by suggesting ways in which textbooks may reflect more accurately future developments and trends in the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents a text of a research paper about the successful completion of survey research projects in an urban setting, presented in the Research and Theory Section of the National Council on Family Relations annual meeting held in St. Louis, Missouri on October 26, 1974. Increasingly, the successful completion of a survey research project in an urban setting requires an exchange strategy by which the subjects of that research and the community in general define their social situation and have some control in the relationship between themselves and the researcher. For those who are engaged in survey research in urban settings, there is no easy escape from resistance to their studies. All of this comes at a time when there is a greater need than ever before for information which could come from survey and community research to deal with problems such as poverty and poor health. Yet resistance to survey threatens to make such research extremely difficult or impossible. Some of the charges which had led to this resistance include the invidiousness of some of the findings which have portrayed ethnic minorities and low-income people in portraits unappealing to the subjects, to threats to individual and group privacy, failures of the outside investigators to consult with individuals and groups within the communities in question, and the sponsorship of research when it is perceived by residents of the communities to be establishment oriented.

This paper has attempted to outline the present situation and trends in scholarly cooperation between Latin American and U.S. social science, tracing significant changes in recent years, and identifying policy-shifts in foundations and other granting agencies as a primary cause of such changes. It has briefly analyzed the current structure of international cooperation. Finally, it has presented the most coherent position running contrary to growing optimism, which would predict a mutually advantageous cooperative framework.
Changes implemented by foundations and granting agencies have carried cross-national cooperation to a level beyond which U.S. scientific establishments cannot or are not likely to go. In other words, the alternative to the new forms of cooperative research is probably no cooperation at all. Tins is, in essence, what the radical critique argues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the reasons why the social sciences were excluded from the legislation that established the National Science Foundation in 1946. Although the social sciences had been used increasingly before the war in the interest of rational social planning by the federal government and had been supported during the war, they nevertheless were weaker after the war than before it. The failure to include the social sciences in NSF was due to three factors. opposition by key scientists, conservatives' fears that social science research would emphasize potential political problems such as racial inequality, and the failure of social scientists to make a strong bid for their inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the conventional academic wisdom that supports the "publish or perish" doctrine. Employing a theoretical framework derived from Berger and Luckmann (1966), other sources of legitimation are analyzed. While the doctrine is related to themes in the larger culture (i.e., a high mass production/consumption economy), this does not fully explain why research and publication receive such determined support from faculty, particularly since alternative means of evaluation exist. An explanation of the publish or perish doctrine is offered in terms of the use of esoteric knowledge (its product) to enhance and preserve professional authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The section presents the response of the authors to criticisms on their articles published in the August 1978 issue of the journal The American Sociologist. According to Richard M. Stephenson, the responses to the papers illustrate very well Berreman's observation that ethical problems in research are complex, highly contextual, and controversial. Joan Cassell claims that the activities of federal regulators, and their local offspring, Institutional Review Boards, have frequently been sufficiently misguided or irrelevant so as to confirm some researchers in their feelings of abused righteousness. Researchers are faced with what might be called ethical overkill. Kathleen Bond addresses the question as to why confidentiality is considered an important principle by social scientists. First, a concern for the "autonomy and integrity of persons," which Bradford Gray points to in his discussion of the conclusions of the Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects, dictates that researchers should not divulge information about respondents. Persons chosen to participate in a research project should not be exposed to the possibility of having information about them used for other than research purposes; similar persons not chosen to participate in research projects are not exposed to this risk. Second is a practical concern. It is usually assumed that people will not participate in social research if they suspect that their names will be published in research reports or that information about them as individuals will be passed on to other persons for decision-making or other purposes.

This article provides information on sociology and social policy, including the interdependence of the theory, the role of policy analysis in industrial society and the hazards of research on controversial issues.

Even though Howard S. Becker has consistently declined to be labeled in any other way but as a sociologist, he has made numerous statements that evidence his methodological and epistemological proximity to Symbolic Interactionism. Participant observation is Becker's research method of choice. Becker's insistence that sociologists should interpret and confer meaning to situations, accords with some basic principles of Symbolic Interactionism. So does his recommendation to avoid generalizations that are not context-bound. On the other hand, Becker's Symbolic Interactionism departs both from standard accounts of Symbolic Interactionism, and Stryker's version of it, in that it makes use of notions of its own, such as social world, structures of interaction, conventions, and interpretive communities. Becker's appreciation of Blumer, finally, is explicitly stated. It is limited, however, by some fundamental reservations that concern Blumer's conceptual and theoretical system, and his research method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a commentary on an article about the protection of human subjects in field social science research. The paper raises some important questions regarding limitations place on field researchers in the form of policies concerning the protection of human subjects. Most social scientists would agree that field research strategies occupy an important role in attempts to explain and predict human behavior. The paper does little to enlighten readers about the reality of any such threats by such policies regarding human subjects protection in general, and policies concerning approval of field studies in particular. One common misconception held by many sociologists is that researchers must routinely obtain signed statements of informed consent. Alternatively, the requirement of informed consent may be waived when the existence of a signed consent document would be the only record linking the subject and the research and that the only significant risk would be potential harm resulting from breach of confidentiality. The protection of human subjects is a difficult and complex task. However, the importance of such issue for the discipline requires a careful examination of the facts and acquaintance with various procedures on a first-hand-basis.

The article discusses the journal space available to sociologists. The journal space available to sociologists has increased very substantially in the past decade or so, primarily through the founding of specialized sociological journals and interdisciplinary ones related to sociological specialties. There may be a scarcity of publication outlets for sociologists in some specialties and for those who write on some topics, but for most sociologists, there are ample outlets for most if not all of the reasonably good papers they can produce, including some rather offbeat, nonmainstream ones and those reporting replications. Of course, there is a scarcity of space in the most prestigious and conspicuous journals, as there will be as long as there is a distinct prestige hierarchy among sociological journals. The very high rejection rates of some sociology journals result not from an absolute scarcity of space available to the discipline but from the distinct prestige hierarchy of the journals and a widespread preference among sociologists to publish in general rather than specialized journals. Nevertheless, it is true that Ph. D.s in several other disciplines typically have longer publication lists than sociologists, for several reasons, one of which is a greater availability of journal space.

This article presents Robert A. Stebbins' reaction to several comments on his paper which appeared in a previous issue of The American Sociologist, which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. Stebbins states that he wishes only to offer a single clarification of a poorly communicated passage that caught Althauser's attention. It concerns the four conditions that encourage the emergence and persistence of an avocational interest in science. According to Stebbins, when he wrote the passage, he had Kuhn's concept of normal science in mind. Amateurism takes root in those sciences or areas of sciences that lack a dominant paradigm as the exclusive grade to scholarly research. These fields are in a preparadigm stage of development in which several schools of thought compete. Why then, is there no amateur sociology? Among the answers to this question, according to Stebbins, are that sociologists lack a tradition of amateurism, a vision that amateurs could help professionals with some of their research interests, and a willingness to organize nonprofessional assistance on any basis other than temporary. The same conclusions could likely be reached for other sciences.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Paul Kay in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which addressed the growing number of unemployed and underemployed doctor of philosophy degree holders in the U.S. Kay implies that traditional training for academic employment is not ideological but rational in character. The commenters disagree with this idea. According to them, it is important to raise this issue because, in spite of very modest changes in employment patterns the vast majority of social scientists, even throughout the lean 1970s, did hold academic jobs. Training for research in graduate school regularly takes precedence over training for teaching, and yet most college faculty rarely if ever publish the fruits of their scholarship, while presumably all teach. Their lack of fit between training and work experience will increase as more and more doctor of philosophy degree holders bump down within academe from sociology to non-sociology departments, and/or from research to teaching institutions where they may find some rewards for competent teaching, but weak institutional and even interpersonal support for their research interests. However, according to the commenters, this is certainly not to say that training for critical analysis and scholarship ought to be abandoned, but rather that graduate education should include attention to the shifting realities of academic employment.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Paul Kay in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which addressed the growing number of unemployed and underemployed doctor of philosophy degree holders in the U.S. According to the commenter, it is not clear whether Kay's comments should be responded to in terms of his presentation of a paradigmatic example of the growth of an ideology in Marx's sense or in terms of what he apparently sees as a trend that he thinks is an irrational belief and something that should not be. The commenter admits that he is not convinced that the switch to applied training is that massive in academia and he is not at all sure that Kay accurately represents the changes that have taken place. Rather, the shift that has gone on and is going on is from a concern with pure research whatever that is, to what is sometimes called applied research and more often is dignified by a euphemism like policy oriented research. Response to Kay's position boils down to a question or two. These questions include the following: If nonacademic employment for doctor of philosophy degree holders was not available, should people infer that somehow some other training could be given that would lead to employment.

This article attempts to formulate the dynamics of research as an exchange process, and describes the method found successful for establishing good relations between researcher and community. Becker has challenged sociologists to examine critically the role of the researcher relative to the role of research subjects, and Gouldner and Riley have questioned whether investigators should adopt a partisan stand and thereby lose sight of the objectivity of their research. Investigators such as Josephson, Beck and Adams, and Spiegel and Alicea have addressed themselves to the issue of resistance by community residents to research and have suggested ways to circumvent resistance. The methods they suggest may be characterized as trade-offs between researcher and community residents; in return for the cooperation of residents, the researcher must hire local persons to do field work, pay protection money, report the research findings to community residents, and provide technical assistance to the community upon request. These techniques are well and good and are certainly an improvement over the practice of leaving the researcher to his own devices. They are, however, interim devices because they do not take us far enough toward the development of a truly innovative methodology directed toward the issue of participation in and control of the research decision process by community residents.

In this essay, the authors present data collected in mixed-method and multi-phased projects that reveal some troubling contradictions within the discipline of Sociology. From a range of respondents, students through college presidents, several themes emerge that may not bode well for Sociology if left unchecked. Most important are the conflicting demands to provide large General Education classes while maintaining a robust, rigorous curriculum for Sociology majors; to meet university standards for scholarly production while allowing for work that is not within the traditional definitions of research; and to increase interdisciplinary collaboration without diluting the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haven been placed in the unique position of teaching high school sociology at the same time when a renewed interest from professional sociological associations led to a revival of scholarly research on the topic, a commitment from professional sociological associations, my insiders view from the high school classroom and from various professional sociological association committees, I offer my insights as well as the direction future research on high school sociology might take to enhance the efficacy of teaching at that level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on mentoring graduate students and discusses the author's experiences interacting with them. The author gradually developed relationships with students after becoming a full professor and then later chair of his department. He taught the main graduate research methods course where he followed the rules for preparing students for the challenges they would face when doing their thesis research. It was during this period that a sense for his role as a graduate adviser developed as he helped students complete their research requirements for the Ph.D. Graduate students are closer in age to the young professor which poses an academic equivalent of sibling rivalry.

The following article presents a brief survey on the development of the author's sociological studies and research, especially on the ways in which he has explored in these studies the relations between comparative studies and major problems and developments in sociological theory. The article analyzes how the central focus of his interest has been the problem of human creativity and its limitations, especially as it related to the social arena, the construction of different social formations--ranging from the so-called microsituations to the more formalized institutional and macroinstitutional formations--the problem of charisma and its routinization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rate of publication of interlocking directorate research in recent years is examined. The data show that the rate of reporting research on interlocking directorates has been leveling off since 1983. Methodological, theoretical, and sociology of knowledge explanations of this trend are provided. The future of interlocking directorate research is discussed, and theoretical reasons are posited to show that there is a need to continue these studies. Suggestions for future research are also offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author's experiences in studying the ability of law to deter drunk driving lead him to conclude that research is selectively used by various politically-involved groups. These groups frequently are committed to specific definitions of a policy problem and to specific approaches to its resolution. The researcher finds that his product is not used for the purpose of selecting among alternative policy options, but instead it serves to supply rationalizations for positions to which the involved groups are previously committed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents an update on the deadline of grants, fellowships, and awards of sociological associations in the U.S. as of October 1972. Social Science Research Council Fellowships and Grants: Research Training Fellowships, predoctoral or postdoctoral, to supplement training outside the scope of the usual doctoral program in applicant's major discipline. Innovations stressed. Applications, January 3, 1973; awards, April 1,1973. Grants for Research in Method and Theory--Filing deadline: January 3, 1973. Grants to Minority Scholars for research on racism and Other Social Factors in Mental Health--Application through October, 1972; awards, December 1972. Grants for Research on Foreign Areas for Mature Scholars--Africa, Contemporary and Republican China, Japan, Korea, the Near and Middle East. Applications, December 1, 1972; awards, March 1973. American Council of Learned Societies: Grants in Support of Conferences, ranging from $2,000 to $5,000, to support small, working conferences on advancement of research in the East European field, exclusive of Russian/Soviet studies. Deadline for submission of applicants in grants for East European studies on December 31, 1972. Deadline for submission of applicants for research grants on South Asia is on December 1, 1972, awarding within 3 months.

This section presents news briefs on sociological associations' activities related to minorities and women in the U.S. as of June 1972. The La Junta de Sociólogos Chicanos under the chairmanship of Jaime Sena Rivera at the University of California, Riverside, has developed several concerns. Data on women from two American Sociological Association questionnaires to graduate departments are now being processed. Edgar Epps, a black sociologist holding the Marshall Field IV chair of urban education at the University of Chicago, had a scheduled debate on racial intelligence with William Shockley stopped by students. The Social Science Research Council has announced a grant-program for scholars from minority research groups to do research on the relations between racism or other social factors and mental health or related topics. The Russell Sage Foundation solicits research proposals from practicing social scientists from black and other minority groups.

The article focuses on the guideline issued by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW), entitled Institutional Guide to DHEW Policy on Protection of Human Subjects. The guideline formally issued by the federal government codifies a policy that has already been widely implemented. Since the government itself does not seek the role of arbiter, it has decentralized responsibility by placing it in the hands of review committees in the local research institution or university. Each institution is to establish a review committee to screen all applications for grants and contracts in light of the DHEW guidelines. Of course much of the animus here involves medical research, including the celebrated birth control experiment in which several women in the control group received placebos rather than birth control pills. All of this raises important issues. For example, what is the proper balance between protecting subjects and hindering researchers? It is possible that uninformed zeal on behalf of protectionism will cause unnecessary harm to the research process itself, just as the callous pursuit of research on its own terms can indeed cause harm to subjects. Certainly social scientists generally and perhaps sociologists in particular should be represented in all pertinent local review committees.

The article features the Urban Institute, a research institution responsible for policy analysis of issues involving sociology and social science in the U.S. One of the favorite topics of the U.S. administration is the extent to which economists have begun to supplant the lawyers at the right-hand of power. While many sociologists may yet aspire to the left-hand, it may be useful to consider some of the signs in the economists' favor. These include not only the extent to which economists are involved in government itself, but also the degree to which the economists have encircled the government with independent research institutes providing policy analysis. The Urban Institute represents a distinctive new genre on the social science scene and it is now beginning to seek out supplementary sociologists for its staff and projects. Founded in 1968 as one of the last domestic initiatives of the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. The institute is involved in research on income maintenance, income distribution, and housing. Other current research concerns of the institute include, forecasting demand for urban transportation systems, evaluating alternatives in generating and allocating public school revenue.

This article focuses on the plan of the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice to emphasize research to aid police work, while ignoring the problems of crime prevention and rehabilitation in the U.S. The institute is the research arm of the anti-crime agency, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. Although a case could be made for the improvement of police equipment, it is hard to understand why hardware research should receive top priority over all other criminal justice problems. In many respects, the routine relationship between the institute and the rest of government had a more corrosive effect on the research program than overt political intrusion. This was most evident in the constant concern about congressional support. A great deal of time and energy went into second guessing which programs Congress would go for. In this case, pleasing Congressman John Rooney became the single most important goal of the institute. In light of the complaints about a shortage of funds, it would seem that the institute's last problem would be to spend the funds allocated. However, this was not the issue. There was an almost obsessive fear that all funds would not be expended.

This article discusses the critical stance of policy research in the U.S. and the structural implications of the specific intellectual positions involved. Policy research is concerned with mapping alternative approaches and with specifying potential differences in the intention, effect and cost of various programs. It differs from applied research in much the same way that strategy differs from tactics. One reason social scientists are conducting more policy research is their increased interest in becoming involved or active in their professional research. Policy research ought not to take on specific assignments but to concern itself with the problems of the social unit to which it relates. Thus while applied researchers concern themselves with such things as designing instruments to distinguish employable from unemployable persons, policy researchers address themselves to questions as which are the best methods of reducing unemployment in a given period. The need for policy research lies not in the fact that policy makers are personally inept, but in the fact that policy makers do not have the prerequisites for conducting research. While the staff subordinate to most policy makers could be

To do or not to do a test of significance that is a question that divides men of good will and sound competence. Only if the sociologist can apply experimental treatments independently of prior states of his units of observation is he able to conduct a true experiment. Because of democratic ideology and a host of other considerations, true experimentation is unusual in sociology. The inability to use true experimentation results in a lack of control over a wide variety of largely unknown and un-numerable potential influences. These uncontrolled variables throw doubt on any finding that a difference observed between two sub samples results from the variable used by the researcher in classifying his sample of observations into one or the other of the two sub samples. Accordingly, the empirical sociologist is confronted with the necessity to identify and to find justification for rejecting as many of these potential influences as he can. The effect of a pre-test in increasing or decreasing the respondent's sensitivity or responsiveness to the experimental variable, thus making the results obtained for a pre-tested population unrepresentative of the effects of the experimental variable for the pre-tested universe from which the experimental respondents were selected.

With the data from two institutions, student ratings of courses and instructors were correlated with an index of productivity, a weighted bibliographic count. By using a highly reliable instrument for student evaluations, the University of Illinois ratings had small, statistically significant, linear correlations with research productivity. However, with an instrument of unknown reliability, the Indiana University data showed no statistically significant correlations between RPI and either global or comparative measures of teaching effectiveness. As might have been expected from the [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the measurement of sociological productivity. One of the focuses of empirical investigations in the sociology of sociology has been publication output. In reading the literature on the productivity of sociologists, however, one becomes aware of a lack of research continuity. While numerous data have been reported, they have been not cumulative but, rather, ambiguous and often contradictory. One of the major obstacles to linking the results of the various studies together is the disparate procedures that have been employed to measure productivity. One measure with potential as an index of publication quantity was developed by Glenn and Villemez in research concerned with the productivity of American Graduate departments of sociology. The Glenn-Villemez Comprehensive Index (GVCI) was designed to cover a wider range of publications than most previously published indexes had covered. As originally formulated, the GVCI included all articles in twenty-two journals of sociology and allied fields. By means of a mailed questionnaire to a sample of professors of sociology Glenn and Villemez derived a system of weighting the various types of publications. A number of arguments can be made for the use of the GVCI as a measure of productivity. One is that it is composed of a broad range of journals and circumscribes most general sociological work as well as important specialty areas within discipline.

This article offers a proposal for graduate training. The key distinction between applied research and pure research rests on the notion of what constitutes a significant variable. Most sociologists are academicians who focus on the dimensions and variables that best explain questions of how and why. Unfortunately, many of these dimensions and variables are not amenable to policy changes. It would be inconsistent with the goals of pure research to select variables mainly with their susceptibility to policy change in mind, but it would not be inconsistent with the goals of applied research. The way variables are selected could serve as a theoretically sound basis for distinguishing between applied social research and pure social research. Applied social research defined by the selection of variables would not entail any specific political position or bias, it would, however, entail a different sense of theoretical advance. That there is a demand for persons with applied research skills is fairly obvious. Applied research students will require contact with client type personnel as well as with academic professors and they will need to be trained to formulate recommendations as well as to detail their findings.

Presents news briefs on several social science and sociology organizations in the U.S., as of April 1972. Information on a workshop sponsored by the Committee on Basic Research in Education of the National Research Council; Discussion on the collaboration between the National Opinion Research at the University of Chicago and the Roper Public Opinion Research Center at Williams College for a social science project; Details of the support of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration on research projects dealing with crime and delinquency prevention and rehabilitation.

The article presents a report from the Committee on Freedom of Research and Teaching, a committee of American Sociological Association. The Committee's chairman reviewed this year an advance draft of proposed guidelines to be established by Council for the Committee. A set of guidelines was accepted by Council on November 15, 1970, and published in February, 1971 issue of the journal "The American Sociologist." The main thrust of the guidelines is to encourage the Committee to rely upon American Association of University Professors and other agencies for major tasks of mediating, adjudicating, arbitrating, or imposing sanctions, while concentrating its own efforts upon identifying and referring cases of alleged infringements of freedom of research and teaching and recommending appropriate actions to Council. Individuals and research organizations in universities have provided useful information on problems of interest to the Committee. Particularly helpful was a statement drafted by sociologists at the University of Minnesota, Minnesota, on the use of human subjects in research by social scientists.

The article focuses on the reliability and validity of sociometric measures. Traditional types of sociometric instruments have achieved much prominence in current practice and research. The purpose of this writing is to discuss briefly research findings relating to their reliability and to discuss briefly the nature of their validity. One can consider sociometric responses to be samples in their own right of the very behavior they seek to investigate. If they are considered samples of such specific behavior, their validation in the conventional sense can be viewed as inappropriate and unnecessary, as the test responses themselves can then be considered to have inherent meaning of sufficient basis and significance to justify their value and application as foundations for research. The sociometric test is unlike the usual mental test in that it does not attempt to measure behavior of a certain type by eliciting related responses but employs a sample of the actual behavior studied. As such the sample is directly meaningful and need not be validated by relating it to an external criterion. Hence the mental test concept of validity as correlated with a criterion does not apply here.

The article presents information about new departmental programs organized by American Sociological Association. According to a snippet, Duke University, the University of Iowa and the University are participating in a consortium program on comparative legislative studies. They have received individual grants from the Agency for International Development totaling $1 million to support a five-year interdisciplinary program of training and research. According to another snippet, University of Wisconsin Data and Program Library Service for the Social Sciences announces the availability of a collection of computer program abstracts concerning useful software for social science researchers. The effort is sponsored by the National Science Foundation as part of a project begun in 1969 to develop a "National Program Library and Central Program Inventory Service."