The Foundation occasionally make grants on topics unrelated to its major program themes. These often deal with the Foundation's longstanding interest in strengthening the methodology of social science. Some grants round out work begun under previous programs, and others may lead to new programs.
Most of the Foundation’s programs are aimed at deepening our understanding of social problems and social trends that immediately impact the quality of national life. On occasion, however, RSF invests in social research for sheerly scientific reasons – when we believe that the long-term development of social science will yield eventual benefits in improved understanding of the causal forces underlie the flux of social events. Behavioral economics has been one such undertaking; our research initiative on the social role of trust is another.
The Politics of Numbers is the first major study of the social and political forces behind the nation's statistics. In more than a dozen essays, its editors and authors look at the controversies and choices embodied in key decisions about how we count—in measuring the state of the economy, for example, or enumerating ethnic groups. They also examine the implications of an expanding system of official data collection, of new computer technology, and of the shift of information resources intot he private sector.
WILLIAM ALONSO is at Harvard University.
PAUL STARR is at Princeton University.
A Volume in the RSF Census Series
Housing provides shelter, in a variety of forms, but it is also resonant with meaning on many other levels--as a financial asset, a status symbol, an expression of private aspirations and identities, a means of inclusion or exclusion, and finally as a battleground for social change.
John Adams' impressive new study explores this complex topic in all its dimensions. Using census data and other housing surveys, Adams describes the recent history of housing in America; the nature of housing supply and demand; patterns of housing use; and selected housing policy questions. Adams supplements this national and regional analysis with a remarkable set of small-area analyses, revealing how neighborhood settings affect housing use and how market forces and other trends interact to shape a neighborhood. These analyses focus on a sample of over fifty urbanized areas, including the nation's three largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago). Special two-color maps illustrate the dynamics of housing use in each of these communities.
Clearly and insightfully, this volume paints a unique picture of the American "housing landscape," a landscape that reflects and regulates significant aspects of our national life.
JOHN S. ADAMS is professor of geography at the University of Minnesota.
A Volume in the RSF Census Series
The Foundation’s Cultural Contact program is no longer accepting new grant proposals. The Immigration and Cultural Contact programs have been replaced by the Foundation’s new Research on Ethnicity and Immigration program.
Funded Projects:
About the Program:
The Foundation’s Immigration program is no longer accepting new grant proposals. The Immigration and Cultural Contact programs have been replaced by the Foundation’s new Research on Ethnicity and Immigration program.
The Future of Work program examines the causes and consequences of the deteriorating quality of low-wage jobs in the United States. Projects sponsored by the program have examined a wide range of causal factors, from foreign outsourcing and immigration to the decline of unions and technological change, that may have depressed wages of low-education workers. Current research under this program includes a new investigation to re-assess how minimum wage increases affect employment and the broader labor market; a new study of the extent of offshoring of production by U.S.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 altered the political, social, and economic landscape of the United States and the world. On that day, thousands of lives were lost, the structure of the U.S. economy was shaken, and the bonds of community in a multi-cultural world were put to the test.
The foundation’s Behavioral Economics program supports research that uses insights and methods from psychology, economics, sociology, political science and other social sciences to examine and improve social and living conditions in the United States. Launched jointly with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 1986, the program was instrumental in the development of this new interdisciplinary field. The foundation provides funding for research projects, as well as a two-week summer institute and a small grants program for doctoral students and recent graduates.