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This report describes the nature and scope of a national survey of language and area programs in the United States of America in 1968-69. An analysis of the various programs or a typology of programs was developed by taking each of the characteristics of the overall program--its area and language courses, and its faculty--and cross-tabulating them with factors such as the university setting, size and location of the program, a general qualitative ranking reflected in the annual competition for funds and fellowships, and measures of effectiveness in terms of written product, output of students in various disciplines, at various levels, and with various degrees of language competence. Language or area courses were also treated separately from their institutional setting. Grouped by discipline, they were combined into a national sample to give a cross-sectional look at the nature of language and the area instruction available for various kinds of specialization. The area studies in the report are classified into seven categories: (1) Africa south of the Sahara, (2) East Asia, (3) Eastern Europe, (4) Latin America, (5) Near and Middle East, (6) South Asia, and (7) Southeast Asia. The report discusses the plan of the study and the collection of the data, the analysis of the data and distribution of the study, and future plans. The data on which the study is based are stored on magnetic tape at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Institute of International Studies at the Office of Education. (RL)

Along with a substantive article on a selected topic within the social sciences, this quarterly newsletter customarily carries news of committee activities, fellowships and grants awarded, and announcements of recent publications. The article in this issue is "People of the United States in the Twentieth Century: Continuity, Diversity, and Change". It comprises sections of the concluding chapter of "People of the United States in the Twentieth Century," one in a series of monographs planned by a former Council committee, and the Bureau of the Census. The article provides an historical sketch of demographic factors in the United States, such as fertility, morality, migration, and nativity, and their relationship to a changing cultural context. Though the newsletter is intended primarily as a house organ, those interested in receiving it should request that their name be placed on the mailing list. (JLB)

During the summer of 1968 a special summer program in sociolinguistics ("Language, Society, and the Child") was held at the University of California, Berkeley. This program grew out of the research on "children's language acquisition in a variety of cultures" which has been underway at that institution for four years. Originally it was planned to restrict the program to 32 pre- and post-doctoral students with backgrounds in linguistics and the social sciences. Among these were seven who had recently returned from making field studies, guided by the "Field Manual for Cross-Cultural Study of the Acquisition of Communicative Competence" (ED 015 434). The participants attended four workshops, each restricted to eight participants: one on child grammar, two on sociolinguistics, and one on child phonology. They also took courses in the regular University summer program. It was found, upon opening the workshops to auditors, that the extra participants were one of the factors working against successful analysis of the field data. Some of the important topics which were discussed were the structure of early grammatical constructions, the rules for social uses of language in children's cultures, and the effects of the milieu of the child on the rate and type of language development. The effectiveness of these workshops as training devices is also evaluated in this article. (JD)

The participants in this conference (A.V. Cicourel, I. Deutscher, S. Ervin-Tripp, J. Gumperz, D. Hymes, E. Sibley, H. Phillips, and R.B. Anderson) discussed the processes involved in eliciting verbal information, especially in cross-cultural studies. The four principal topics of their discussions were: (1) the ethnography of asking questions, (2) the meaning of words--particularly as influenced by social and linguistic contexts, (3) the use of linguistic and social data from research on the preceding two topics in developing theories and methods in the several disciplines, and (4) the need to correct some shortcomings of current research. It was felt that "we simply do not know how to phrase questions that will be meaningful to random samples of diversified populations." The participants agreed that almost all contemporary social science research would be improved by much more careful attention to ethnographies of interrogation, and that analyses and interpretations based on current research are often highly problematic. (JD)

The book is one of a series prepared by a committee in the larger project the Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey (BASS) conducted between 1967 and 1969. This report on sociology attempts to provide decision makers in legislatures, government agencies, the general public, and professionals, with an overview of the field of sociology, the problems, and the trends. The overview is composed of: 1) the nature of sociological research; 2) some of the fields where theoretical explorations are made; 3) the strengths and weaknesses of the sub-fields of sociology; 4) the historical development of the discipline; 5) the disciplines institutional resources in terms of manpower and funding. A concluding chapter makes some recommendations. (CWB)

This book is one of a series prepared in connection with the Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey (BASS) conducted between 1967 and 1969. Directed toward governmental and educational policy makers, members of Congress and state legislatures, foundation officials, university administrators, and other interested persons, this report identifies and appraises the discipline's research and research-training needs and opportunities in the next decade. Chapters include: 1) What Political Science Is About; 2) Relevance for Public Policy; 3) Changing Frontiers of Theory and Research; 4) Personnel: Status and Trends; 5) Financing Research and Research Training; 6) Education for Research in Political Science; and, 7) Prospects of Research in Political Science. Although research forms the major focus of the report, the interests of the political philosopher, educator, or practitioner in politics and administration are not omitted. (Author/JLB)

A joint effort of two committees of the National Academy of Sciences and the Social Science Research Council produced this report on the state of the behavioral science disciplines. The emphasis is on outlining what has developed in the social sciences since World War II, what the likely trends will be in the future, and in making some recommendations in order to insure that the applications of social science knowledge is in the interest of the nation. These recommendations are in the spirit of advocating expanding the opportunities for application of research findings rather than continuing the dichotomy between basic research and applied research. Some of the major sections of the report are: 1) research methods, 2) organization of large scale research, 3) problems of objectivity in research and invasion of privacy, 4) training of researchers in universities, 5) funding of research, 6) private support of research, 7) world wide development of the social sciences, and 8) concerns of the behavioral sciences. (CWB)

This volume is part of the series prepared in connection with the Survey of the Behavioral and Social Sciences (BASS). This report is the result of the efforts of a panel of scholars in the field of psychology to give a general view of the state of psychological knowledge at the present. The first part of the work discusses the major sub-fields of psychology such as motivation, learning, personality, child development, and cognition. A chapter is also devoted to social psychology. Some space is given to research problems in psychology, the conduct of teaching, and the organization of the discipline in universities. A final chapter provides 13 recommendations for strengthening the discipline and making it more responsive to the needs of society. (CWB)

This work as one of a series in the Survey of the Behavioral and Social Sciences conducted by the National Academy of Sciences and the Social Science Research Council attempts to answer the questions: 1) who are historians? 2) what do they do? 3) how do they work? 4) what are their needs? 5) what can be done about the needs? The answers come from a panel of working historians which coordinated their efforts to devote a chapter to these questions. The report is directed to both the layman and the professional historians. A final chapter lists eight recommendations for improving the teaching and research in history. Two appendices are included which give the schools sampled with a questionnaire as an aid to writing the report and some discussion on how the questionnaire was used. (CWB)

This book is another in a series prepared in connection with the Survey of the Behavioral Social Sciences (BASS) conducted between 1967 and 1969. The task here is to provide several illustrative lines of research in sufficient depth to convey the flavor of scientific work on psychiatric problems to a wide range of readers. The report is primarily concerned with ways of obtaining or utilizing research. Chapter 1 sketches the scope and nature of psychiatry, psychiatic problems, and clinical innovations being tried. The remainder of the book describes the various scientific ways of attempting solution. There is considerable emphasis on the biological sciences which are depicted as emerging into full partnership with the better-known psychological and social approaches with efforts toward understanding the brain and behavior. The range of public attitudes toward the field are discussed with respect to psychoanalysis, group therapy, drugs that affect brain and behavior, drug abuse, comprehensive community mental health centers, and interpersonal relationships. The vital needs for the continuing education of psychiatrists, nonpsychiatric physicians, and mental health professionals is also discussed. In addition, nine-pages of selected references are appended. (Author/SBE)

This book is one of a series prepared in connection with the Survey of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BASS) conducted between 1967 and 1969. The primary goal of the report is to provide a balanced statement of the past accomplishments, present status, and future prospects of anthropology. Although selective, the report attempts a great deal: 1) it suggests the scope of the discipline by illustrating what some anthropologists have done; 2) it indicates the history and major accomplishments of each of the principal subfields; 3) it describes the interrelationships of these subfields and the interlocking interests of anthropology and tangent disciplines; 4) it surveys current and anticipated personnel and facilities needs; 5) it projects in a tentative manner anthropology's probable development over the coming few years; and, 5) it formulates a series of recommendations to improve the discipline and increase its usefulness in applied contexts. In addition to the editors, members of the Anthropology Panel of the BASS include: Stephen Boggs, Elizabeth Colson, Eugene Giles, Dell Humes, Douglas Schwartz, and Sherwood Washburn. (Author/JLB)

This book is one of a series prepared in connection with the Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey (BASS), conducted between 1967 and 1969 to provide a comprehensive review and appraisal of these fields, and to provide a basis for an informed effective national policy to strengthen and develop these fields. This report is designed to present a view of the field of geography in the U.S. in the late 1960's. Not intended to be comprehensive, the report is selective in at least three ways: 1) it is concerned only with geography as a behavioral and social science; 2) it is concerned with research rather than educational trends, although some attention is given to graduate training in the last chapter; 3) it does not attempt to cover all or even most research activity. Chapter 1,"Geography as a Social Science," provides an introduction and series of illustrative studies designed to give a brief overview of some of the types of research activities carried on today. Chapter 2, "Methods and Achievements of the Field," is divided into three parts: Investigative Methods, Selected Research Directions, and Geography and Public Policy. The final chapter, "Status, Trends, and Needs of Geography," is a discussion of manpower, research, and research training in the U.S. (Author/JLB)

This book, one of a series prepared in connection with the Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey (BASS) conducted between 1967 and 1969, deals with problems of statistics, mathematics, and computation as they related to the social sciences. Chapter 1 shows how these subjects help in their own ways for studying learning behavior with irregular rewards. Chapter 2 describes further the three mathematical sciences and explains how they are relevant to the social sciences. A discussion of the profession of social statistician is found in chapter 3, and chapter 4 considers the relationship of statistics to public policy. Chapter 5 discusses data collection, especially by government agencies and data collectors. Operations research, a field of increasing importance to applied social science, is described in chapter 6, and chapter 7 points out the importance of modern computing facilities and describes problems involved in using them intelligently. Chapter 8 deals with cooperative research by social scientists and mathematical scientists, and the final chapter treats the sometimes difficult problems of teaching the mathematical sciences to social science students, especially at the graduate level. Omitted are discussions of relatively technical issues, which are left to more appropriate coverage elsewhere. (Author/JLB)

This is one of a series in the Survey of the Behavioral and Social Sciences (BASS) conducted between 1967 and 1969. Three chapters of a general nature discuss the concerns of economists, professional organization, and research procedures (simulation, modeling, data needs, survey research, behavioral research, operations research), and the recommendations of the study committee. The remaining chapters are contributions by individual scholars on some specific subfields of economics, such as theory, econometrics, labor economics, urban economics, agricultural economics, the public sector, development, and international economics. (CWB)

Most of the papers in this collection were presented at a conference on language problems of the developing nations at Airlie House, Warrenton, Virginia in November 1966. This conference was one of the several organized and sponsored by the Committee on Sociolinguistics of the Social Science Research Council in its effort to promote interdisciplinary research and training. The phenomena of the birth and rebirth of nations, peoples, and languages are not only provocative but basic to an understanding of social change, national integration, and language development. The introductory section of this volume presents papers by J.A. Fishman, J. Das Gupta, and C.A. Ferguson. Part II (Language and National Development) contains papers by J.A. Fishman, H. Kloss, D. Rustow, A. Tabouret-Keller, P. Alexandre, C.F. Gallagher, J. Das Gupta, J.J. Gumperz, B. Jernudd, A.A. Mazrui, J.N. Paden, and P.L.van den Berghe. Selections in Part III (Language Planning, Standardization, and Policy) are by R.G. Armstrong, H. Blanc, C.A. Ferguson, E. Haugen, J.V. Neustupny, E. Polome, A. Valdman, W.H. Whiteley, S.A.Wurm, and P. Zima. Part IV (Literature and Education) papers are by J. Bowers, D.H. Burns, L. Harries, R. B. Le Page, H. Passin, C.H. Prator, and J. Rubin. Part V (Integrative Summary) is by J.A. Fishman. Author and subject indexes conclude the volume. (AMM)