In 1949 the Russell Sage Foundation began a program for the improvement of the synthesis of research in the social sciences in professional practice. This book explores some of the major areas of interest shared by medicine and social science. Particular reference is made to those concepts and formulations that bear directly upon the problems of health and that may instigate collaborative research between medical and social scientists, linking disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, and social anthropology with medical research and practice to better clarify the function of the social and cultural dynamics at work in illness and human adaptation.

Leo W. Simmons was professor of sociology at Yale University. Harold G. Wolff was professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College.

Readings in Evaluation Research serves both researchers and those teaching evaluation research, applied social research, and social planning by presenting a comprehensive overview on evaluative research. The general papers address such issues as the nature of the evaluation task, the role of evaluative research in programs of directed change, the organizational context in which evaluative research is conducted, and the appropriate methodological strategies. The case materials include treatment of problems in the establishment of the evaluative research role and reports of findings of completed research studies.

Contributors: A. Stephen Stephan, Edward A. Suchman, Michael Scriven, Michael P. Brooks, Albert Cherns, Herbert C. Schulberg, Frank Baker, Martin Trow, Peter H. Rossi, Chris Argyris, Anthony Downs, Hyman Rodman, Ralph Kolodny, Carol H. Weiss, Floyd Mann, Rensis Likert, B.G. Greenberg, John Mann, Charles R. Wright, Paul Lerman, Donald T. Campbell, Howard E. Freeman, Clarence C. Sherwood, Peter H. Rossi, James S. Coleman, Robert S. Weiss, Martin Rein, Francis G. Caro, F. Stuart Chapin, Walter B. Miller, Walter Grove, John E. Lubach, James K. Skipper Jr., Robert C. Leonard, Ronald Freedman, Laura Pan Lu, H.C. Chen, L.P. Chow, Victor Cicarelli, and John W. Evans.

Francis G. Caro was associate professor of social research in the Florence Heller School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare at Brandeis University.

This 1965 report serves as a guide to the extensive research literature concerned with the prediction of student performance. In his analysis, David Lavin reviews and evaluates research covering more than three hundred sources on elementary and high school, college, and graduate schools. The book presents a discussion of the various criteria of academic performance and several methodological problems such as standardized predictor measures and interpreting relationships between predictors and performance. The findings cover four broad categories of performance determinants: intelligence and ability factors, personality characteristics, sociological determinants, and socio-psychological factors. Each of these categories is carefully scrutinized in terms of a number of theoretical and methodological issues. It indicates several areas for possible investigation and concludes with a plea for a broader context in which to evaluate performance and apply new knowledge.

David E. Lavin was assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Perceptions of Illness and Medical Practice points to behavioral science knowledge that can be used by physicians, public health specialists, nurses, medical social workers, and others who are directly or indirectly concerned with health problems. Examples are given of the use of this scientific knowledge in the actual care of the patient.

            The first part of the book outlines the major concepts from psychology, sociology, and anthropology that are pertinent for the health professions. The emphasis is on the manner in which people perceive situations and the effect of physiologic, psychologic, and sociocultural factors in determining variations in perceptions. The second part deals with the subject of disease and its interpretation, especially in connection with beliefs and attitudes toward disease. The main feature of the third part is an analysis of the rights and duties, the demands and role expectations of the physician, the nurse, and the medical social worker. The final section describes the social structure, subculture and value system of the hospital, with special attention given to the general hospital. It deals with the hospital patient, his expectations and perceptions, his ways of behaving in illness, his values, the staff’s perception of him and his behavior, and the effect of these perceptions on his care.

Stanley H. King was associate director of research at the University Health Services and lecturer on clinical psychology in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard University.

Written as a guide to nurses who work with mental health patients in the development of skills to meet everyday problems and to improve their understanding of the emotional as well as the physical needs of the persons under their care, this 1956 book addresses problems such as: nurse and patient fears; patient aggressiveness; the demanding, withdrawn, or delusional patient; patients with suicidal tendencies; and those who have eating difficulties. Case material and actual conference recordings are used to illustrate the subject matter under discussion, drawn from a research project of one author and from the extensive practical experience in psychiatric nursing of the other author. The book develops an approach to understanding these problem situations and methods of resolving them for the patient’s benefit and improvement.

Morris S. Schwartz and Emmy Lanning Shockley, with the assistance of Charlotte Green Schwartz

Most of the papers presented in this 1964 volume are an outgrowth of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation. The purpose of the seminar was to supply a focal point for discussion and research on the changing nature of military organization in the United States. The papers seek to probe the extent to which the military establishment and the military profession were adapting to the new requirements of international relations. Contributors: Albert D. Biderman, Maury D. Feld, Oscar Grusky, Kurt Lang, Moshe Lissak, Roger W. Little, John P. Lovell, Richard W. Seaton, William Simon, and Mayer N. Zald.

How is the computer modeling of socioeconomic systems being used in government decision making? Is it providing the needed guidance? When it is not, why not? What is its future? How can it be made more useful for policy purposes? To address these questions, the authors investigated a multitude of different types of models being applied or developed in a wide variety of policy areas. They examined models of municipal operations, models of the national economy, and models of the world to detail the tensions between policy modeling and policymaking.

This book explores the idea that the attitudes and behavior characteristics of many who suffer impaired vision are socially acquired, not inherent in their physical condition. A part of this socialization occurs when the person who has vision trouble interacts with the seeing world in the encounters of everyday life. Another part of it occurs in organizations for the blind. This study is based on a major field research project sponsored by the New York Association for the Blind and the Russell Sage Foundation.

Robert A. Scott was professor of sociology at Princeton University.

From the preface: “This book deals with man as a member of society, and with his behavior of concern to public health. Its aim is to impart in an organized fashion some of the conclusions, of potential significance to public health, that may be drawn from man’s studies of himself as an individual and as a member of society. What is presented represents an attempt to unite theory, research, and practice in a away meaningful to the public health practitioner.”

Andie L. Knutson was professor of behavioral sciences, School of Public Health, and research behavioral scientist, Institute of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley.

This book takes origin from Cornell’s program for research and training in culture and applied science, addressing the question of facilitating the introduction of modern agriculture, industry, and medicine to areas that are deficient in these technologies. Of central concern is the fact that technological innovations are apt to have consequences ranging from hostility toward the innovator to extensive disruption and crisis in the society. More generally, people resist changes that appear to threaten basic securities, that they do not understand, or that are forced on them. This casebook offers actual examples of efforts, both successful and unsuccessful, to bring about a change in some culture, with the desirability of using social science as an aid to technology.

Contributors: John Adair, Anacleto Apodaca, Wesley L. Bliss, Henry F. Dobyns, Allan R. Holmberg, Margaret Lantis, Alexander H. Leighton, Allister MacMillan, Morris Edward Opler, Tom Taketo Sasaki, Lauriston Sharp, Rudra Datt Singh, Edward H. Spicer, and John Useem.

Edward H. Spicer was professor of anthropology and sociology, University of Arizona.