RESEARCH IN PROGRESS AND AVAILABLE DATA FOR RESEARCH IN STATE DEPARTMENTS OF PUBLIC WELFARE IN THE SOUTHEASTERN REGION, 1936-1938.

This article focuses on research activities of the state welfare departments in the eleven states in the U.S. included within the Southeastern region and discusses how the social statistics and social work data are needed for the states to share the results of their social experimentation with their neighbors. The situation in these states is not very satisfactory, however, because even the most recently published reports included material two or three years old, and several of the state welfare departments have been established or reorganized so recently that they have issued no formal reports. Largely due to the participation of the Federal government, first in the relief program and more recently in social security, the social horizon is no longer limited to the narrow boundaries of county and state, but has been enlarged to include the region and the nation. Increasingly social workers, teachers of sociology, and related professional groups are becoming interested in what other states besides their own are going in collecting social statistics, and conducing social surveys and special studies. There is at present, however, no adequate clearing house of information either on a regional or a national basis with regard to social problems.