A space to explore, share and shape the issues facing social and behavioral scientists
Two important American social scientists died over the new year, Philip Converse and Martin Anderson. But their similarities ended there, argues Howard Silver.
The change in political balance in the U.S. Congress almost certainly will impact the fortunes of government-funded social and behavioral science next year. It’s time, argues Howard Silver, for universities and private industry to join the effort to preserve and protect these disciplines.
Past attempts by American policymakers to degrade the role of social science in the nation’s research and educational infrastructure highlight the necessity of having champions ready to joust in the tourneys on Capitol Hill.
Opposition to the social, behavioral and economic sciences isn’t new. Here, Howard J. Silver recounts an attempt after the 1994 ‘Republican Revolution’ to demolish the National Science Foundation’s SBE directorate.
A seminal figure in solidifying the importance and position of the social and behavioral sciences in the federal research infrastructure, sociologist Cora Marrett leaves the National Science Foundation next month.
The more things change, the more they stay the same — especially when it comes to political reluctance for the U.S government to pay for social science research. Our new blogger, Howard J. Silver, is an old hand at lobbying the feds for research funds, and details how political headwinds blew in a suite of lobbying groups.
