A Telescope on Society

by Kahn, Robert L.

• ISBN13: 9780472068487
• ISBN10: 0472068482
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

A Telescope on Societyseeks to convey the development of social science in the twentieth century through its interaction with a major new instrument for gathering data about society-survey research. The story of survey research and social science is largely told by social scientists affiliated with the Survey Research Center (SRC) and Institute for Social Research (IRS) at the University of Michigan about work done there. But the book also places this story in the broader context of survey-based social science in the United States and the world, to which many individuals and institutions beyond SRC, ISR, and Michigan have also contributed. The chapters of this volume illustrate the impact that developments in survey research have had and continue to have on a broad range of social science disciplines and interdisciplinary areas ranging from political behavior and electoral systems to macroeconomics and individual income dynamics, mental and physical health, human development and aging, and racial/ethnic diversity and relationships. The volume will speak to a wide audience of social science and survey research professionals and students interested in learning more about the broad history of survey-based social science and its contributions to understanding ourselves as social beings. It also seeks to convey how crucial institutional and public support are to the development of social science and survey research, as they have been to development in the natural, biomedical, and life sciences.The five editors of this book are longtime research professors and colleagues in the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. James S. House is also Professor in the Department of Sociology; F. Thomas Juster is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics; Robert L. Kahn is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology and Department of Health Management and Policy; and Howard Schuman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology; Eleanor Singer is Research Professor in the Survey Research Center, all at the University of Michigan. Professors House (1991-2001), Kahn (1970-76), and Schuman (1982-90) have each served as Director of the Survey Research Center; Professor Juster served (1976-86) as Director of the Institute for Social Research; and Professor Singer served (1999-2002) as Associate Director of the Survey Research Center.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
The Development and Contribution of Survey Research as a Scientific Instrument and Social Institution	p. 1
Survey Methodology	p. 21
Political Behavior and Systems	p. 65
Voting and Electoral Behavior	p. 70
Survey Research and Political Socialization	p. 98
The Behavioral Study of Economics	p. 119
Psychology and Macroeconomics	p. 131
Evolution and Change in Family Income, Wealth, and Health: The Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1968-2000 and Beyond	p. 156
From the Study of Organizations to the Study of Health	p. 195
Survey Research in the Study of Organizations	p. 201
Understanding and Improving the Mental Health of Populations	p. 222
The Psychosocial Nature of Physical Health	p. 248
Developments in the Study of Family and the Life Course	p. 271
The Social Demography of Fertility: Some Contributions of American Surveys	p. 281
Studying the Transition from Youth to Adulthood: Impacts on Substance Use and Abuse	p. 305
Research on Aging	p. 330
Surveying the Subtleties and Complexities of Race	p. 355
Racial Attitudes: Developments and Divisions in Survey Research	p. 365
Surveying the Black American Population	p. 393
Survey Research and Social Science: Retrospect and Prospect	p. 439
Contributors	p. 455
Index	p. 467
Illustrations	p. 172
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