Search

This article highlights the emerging crisis in federal funding for social sciences research in the U.S. as of August 1971. In examining the government's statistics on research support for sociology during the past two years, one is at fist impressed by a seeming surge. In 1970 the total research funding for sociology was listed at $46.3 million; this increased to $70.8 million in 1971. The overwhelming source of the jump comes from a leap of almost $29 million in the Office of Economic Opportunity's (OEO) budget for sociological research, but this represents a major share of the total noneconomic research and experimentation program of OEO, most of which is conducted on an in-house basis and virtually none of it by sociologists. The fact is that research funds in sociology have recently leveled off after a decade of growth. Over the past three years, they have remained virtually constant, and at a time of rising research costs, this means a net reduction in effective research support.