Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

724 Eric Trist
Congressional support, and with the intent and understanding, on the part of the public,
that we mean business ... If we are serious about the social sciences in modern life it
will be something very big indeed that we will undertake.
And Robert Sears when he said:
Little if any research support is presently available for truly long-term studies. The longi-
tudinal study of children from birth to late adolescence may well be one of the most
important methods of research developed during the next half century. There appears
to be no substitute for longitudinal studies when one is dealing with the very complex
elements that enter into the determination of motivation, social adjustment, and intel-
lectual growth.
Those who oppose the idea of a National Foundation for the Social Sciences
fear that it would draw off other sources of support, while concentration in a
single agency would increase rather than decrease the vulnerability to political
criticism, especially as regards unpopular projects. Disadvantages would also
follow from separation from the other sciences. The objectives stated in the
quoted testimony are commonly supported. Many American social scientists
believe that initiatives taken by existing influential bodies such as the National
Research Council, the Social Science Research Council, along with leading
institutions such as Brookings and one or two experienced foundations wil
lead to a concentration of work in strategic areas more effectively and more
quickly than new institutional arrangements which depend on the passing of
new legislation.
54. The intention of the Social Accounting Act is to parallel economic indica-
tors with social indicators, the Council of Economic Advisers with a Council of
Social Advisers and the President's annual Economic Report with a Social
Report.33 Senator Mondale summarized his objectives as follows :zz
The structure proposed in the Full Opportunity and Social Accounting Act can help
public officials appreciate, understand and supervise change, and facilitate the appli-
cation of social information to the pressing problems of our society.
Social accounting efforts have been under way on a limited basis in Government agen-
cies and scattered universityresearch centers for the past several years. The facts which
indicated violent disorder in Watts and Hough and Newark were plainly present long
before riots brought well-intended if short-lived attention to the grinding problems of
human beings imprisoned in those ghettos.
One of the social sciences, economics, has demonstrated its ability to head off economic
downturns and potential disasters by carefully developing and studiously observing
such indicators as retail sales volume, amount of new investment, inventory levels, and
levels of gross national product. We now have no comparable system that will alert
us to social disaster - a system of social indicators, widely broadcast, by which we could
keep watch in a general way on the social processes in our nation and plan for society's
orderly development. W e need not seek comparable sophistication -we simply need
more than we have.
John Gardner, former Secretary of HEW, now Chairman of the National Urban
Coalition, favours social accounts. The Russell Sage Foundation is studying
social indicators under Wilbert Moore and Eleanor Sheldon. The Twentieth
Century Fund has Bertram Gross directing research on change in America.
These studies are linked to studies of the future. The Project on the Year 2000
of the National Academy of Sciences is chaired by Daniel Be11.'3'. The BASS