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University of Michigan Institute for Social Research

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The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is the largest academic social research and survey organization in the world, established in 1949.[1] ISR includes more than 300 scientists from a variety of academic disciplines – including political science, psychology, sociology, economics, demography, history, anthropology, and statistics. The institute is a unit that houses five separate but interdependent centers which conduct research and maintain data archives. In 2021, Kathleen Cagney became the first woman in its history to be named Director of the institute.[2]

Institute for Social Research
Institute for Social Research in January 2023
Parent institutionUniversity of Michigan
Founder(s)Rensis Likert, Dorwin Cartwright, et al
EstablishedFebruary 1, 1949
FocusSocial Science Research, Data Accessibility
DirectorKathleen Cagney
Budget$80 million
SloganSocial science in the public interest.
Formerly calledSurvey Research Center, Research Center for Group Dynamics
Address426 Thompson St
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
WebsiteOfficial website

History

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In 1946, the sociologist and economist Rensis Likert, creator of the Likert scale, and six colleagues from his wartime work at the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, including Angus Campbell, Leslie Kish, and George Katona, formed the Survey Research Center (SRC) at the University of Michigan.[3][4]

The center gained credibility in its field due to a survey conducted in October 1948, when Campbell and Robert L. Kahn added two questions about political leanings to a survey they were conducting for the State Department about foreign policy. Their results, compiled just before the presidential election in November, showed a large number of undecided voters and a small lead for Harry Truman over Thomas Dewey, at odds with most other polls that predicted a landslide for Dewey. When Truman ended up winning the election, the subsequent examination of polling techniques led to the probability sampling utilized by the SRC becoming dominant in the field over the quota sampling that had been favored by other polling outfits.[5] This survey was the first of what became the American National Election Studies (or ANES). In 2010, the ANES was named one of the National Science Foundation’s “Sensational 60” projects.[6]

Psychologist Kurt Lewin had founded the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT in 1945, and after his death in 1947 the center's ensuing funding problems prompted its remaining members to find it a new home.[4] The presence of the SRC and the university's support for social sciences led them to move to the University of Michigan[7] in 1948 under a new director, Dorwin Cartwright. The two groups united to form the Institute for Social Research on February 1, 1949.[4]

In 1962, Warren Miller, a political scientist, created the Inter-university Consortium for Political Research (now known as ICPSR) to help fund the maintenance and dissemination of the large data sets that the election studies and others were generating. Publicly available data sets were largely uncommon at the time.[8]

The SRC's Political Behavior Program, which had taken over the direction of election studies, became the Center for Political Studies in 1970.[9] The Population Studies Center moved from the university's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts in 1998, bringing the total number of centers to five.[10]

Organization

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ISR is an independent unit of the university, headed by a director who reports directly to the university's provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. It is funded through grants from different agencies and foundations, rather than being structured as an independent corporation or receiving funds from the Regents of the University of Michigan.[1] The institute contains five centers and offers academic programming to undergraduate and graduate students in the social sciences.

Centers and major projects

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The Center for Political Studies (CPS) is directed by Kenneth Kollman. CPS has both a domestic and international focus, researching individual political behavior and the role of institutions in contemporary society. Key projects that have emerged from CPS include:

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), directed by Maggie Levenstein, is the world’s largest digital social science data archive.[11][12] The unit has over 250,000 files of research in the social sciences, over 750 global member organizations, and hosts 21 special collections.[13][14][15] One benefit of using ICPSR’s resources is the ability to search data by variable of interest. All data containing the variable in the search appear, allowing researchers to skim complex datasets without downloading unnecessary files. In 2022, ICPSR announced a partnership with Meta to build and house a social media archive called SOMAR.[16][17]

The Population Studies Center (PSC), directed by Sarah Burgard, is one of the oldest population centers in the United States. PSC works on domestic and international demographic and population research. It has been funded since 1976 by a population center grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The Research Center for Group Dynamics (RCGD), directed by Richard Gonzalez, was founded due to the perceived need to integrate psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology.[18][19] Key projects that have come from RCGD include:

  • Aggression Research Group
  • Biosocial Methods Collaborative
  • Program for Research on Black Americans

The Survey Research Center (SRC), is the largest of the centers and is the recipient of the majority of the funds used for research at ISR. SRC conducts some of the most widely cited and influential studies in the world, including:[20]

In 2010, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics was also named as one of NSF’s “sensational 60” projects alongside ANES.[6] In 2019, the Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics was founded in partnership with SRC and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.[22]

Further information: Data Sharing for Demographic Research

Education and fellowships

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ISR offers summer courses for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral training, and doctorate and master's degrees in methodology.

The Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science, housed in SRC, offers doctorate and master of science degrees, as well as a certificate through the University of Michigan. SRC also runs the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques, which provides graduate-level training courses but does not grant academic credit. ICPSR offers a summer program in quantitative methods, and PSC offers training in demography and population studies for pre- and post-doctoral students.

Major accomplishments

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The consumer confidence measures devised by George Katona in the 1940s have evolved into the Consumer Sentiment Index, published monthly.[23] It is included in the Composite Index of Leading Indicators published by the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.[24][25]

In 1954 the Survey Research Center fielded the double-blind experimental trials for the Salk polio vaccine, handling the statistical and coding operations of the survey with over 1.8 million IBM punch cards.[26][7]

The 1964 and 1968 national, cross-sectional surveys of the presidential election led to the creation of the Michigan Model of voter choice theory.[27]

In 1968 scholars within SRC initiated a study investigating the attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and expectations with respect to race relations of both white and Black people in fifteen major American cities.[28] Findings showed that Black Americans wanted both social integration and to retain their Black identity, which directly contradicted the Kerner Commission's suggestion that the "nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."[29]

The National Survey of Black Americans was developed in 1979 by James Jackson and his Program for Research on Black Americans.[30] This was the first nationally representative cross-sectional survey of Black adults in the U.S., and "produced the first national data on how symptoms of distress are defined and responded to by black Americans."[31]

In 2009, the National Football League commissioned a few investigators at ISR to conduct a survey of retired football players. This study was the first to find the connections between football and memory-related diseases like Alzheimer’s, as the research demonstrated the rate of memory-related disease among retired NFL players was 19 times higher than the rate of the general population of men their age.[32][33]

Notable scholars

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References

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  1. ^ a b Zhu, Jingqi (2022-02-03). "UMich social science research ranked number in the United States, take a look at some of these projects". The Michigan Daily. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  2. ^ "Kathleen Cagney named new director of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (ISR) | Centers on Demography and Economics of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias)". agingcenters.org. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  3. ^ Kish, Leslie (1990). "A Choices Profile: Rensis Likert: Social Scientist and Entrepreneur" (PDF). Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues. 5 (4): 36–38 – via AgEcon.
  4. ^ a b c "Research Center for Group Dynamics: History". Research Center for Group Dynamics, University of Michigan. Archived from the original on June 15, 2018. Retrieved 2018-10-12.
  5. ^ Rosegrant, Susan (April 18, 2012). "ISR and the Truman/Dewey upset". Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Archived from the original on April 2, 2013. Retrieved 2018-10-12.
  6. ^ a b "National Science Foundation Commemorates 60th Anniversary". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  7. ^ a b Frantilla, Anne (1998). Social Science in the Public Interest: A Fiftieth-Year History of the Institute for Social Research (PDF). Ann Arbor: Bentley Historical Library. p. 23.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Cartwright wrote that one of the most important reasons was "the strong emphasis placed upon social science and especially upon social psychology... The Survey Research Center brought to the campus a large group of social psychologists working on many research problems closely bordering upon the work of the Center... There can be no doubt that Ann Arbor in the coming years will be the scene of some of the most important developments in social science."
  8. ^ Austin, Erik W. "ICPSR: The Founding and Early Years". University of Michigan. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  9. ^ Miller, Warren E. (April 1994). "An organizational history of the intellectual origins of the American National Election Studies". European Journal of Political Research. 25 (3): 247–265. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.1994.tb00420.x. ISSN 0304-4130.
  10. ^ "About - Michigan Population Studies Center (PSC)". University of Michigan. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  11. ^ "Maggie Levenstein reappointed as director of ICPSR". www.icpsr.umich.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  12. ^ Murack, Jennie. "LibGuides: Social Science Data: General Repositories". libguides.mit.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  13. ^ "List of Member Institutions and Subscribers". www.icpsr.umich.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  14. ^ Blackson, Marty. "LibGuides: Data Sets: Humanities and Social Science DataSets". libguides.lib.cwu.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  15. ^ "Thematic Data Collections". www.icpsr.umich.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  16. ^ "U-M pairs with Meta to build social media data archive". University of Michigan News. 2022-06-15. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  17. ^ "University of Michigan Partners with Meta To Build Social Media Data Archive". Cronicle Press. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  18. ^ "Richard Gonzalez reappointed as director of Research Center for Group Dynamics". Institute for Social Research. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  19. ^ Lewin, Kurt (1945). "The Research Center for Group Dynamics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology". Sociometry. 8 (2): 126–136. doi:10.2307/2785233. ISSN 0038-0431. JSTOR 2785233.
  20. ^ "Survey Research Center (ISR)". deepblue.lib.umich.edu. hdl:2027.42/78545. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  21. ^ "National Survey of Family Growth (Continuous NSFG) | Survey Research Center". www.src.isr.umich.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  22. ^ "$4M donation launches Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics at Michigan". University of Michigan News. 2021-11-17. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  23. ^ University of Michigan (1952-11-01). "University of Michigan: Consumer Sentiment". FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  24. ^ "Leading indicators - Composite leading indicator (CLI) - OECD Data". theOECD. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  25. ^ "Leading indicators - Consumer confidence index (CCI) - OECD Data". theOECD. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  26. ^ Brownlee, K. A. (1955). "Statistics of the 1954 Polio Vaccine Trials". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 50 (272): 1005–1013. doi:10.2307/2281200. ISSN 0162-1459. JSTOR 2281200.
  27. ^ Pace, Eric (1997-01-29). "Donald E. Stokes, 69, Leading Political Scientist". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  28. ^ Frantilla, Anne (1998). Social Science in the Public Interest: A Fiftieth-Year History of the Institute for Social Research (PDF). Ann Arbor: Bentley Historical Library. p. 44.
  29. ^ The Kerner Report. Princeton University Press. 2016-05-17. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-691-17424-2.
  30. ^ Johnson, Ernest H.; Broman, Clifford L. (1987-04-01). "The relationship of anger expression to health problems among black americans in a national survey". Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 10 (2): 103–116. doi:10.1007/BF00846419. hdl:2027.42/44809. ISSN 1573-3521. PMID 3612773. S2CID 23584371.
  31. ^ Neighbors, H. W.; Caldwell, C. H.; Williams, D. R.; Nesse, Randolph M.; Taylor, R. J.; Bullard, K. M.; Torres, M.; Jackson, J. S. (2007). "Race, Ethnicity, and the Use of Services for Mental Disorders: Results from the National Survey of American Life". hdl:2027.42/142768. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  32. ^ Schwarz, Alan (2009-09-29). "Dementia Risk Seen in Players in N.F.L. Study". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  33. ^ Weir, David R.; Jackson, James S.; Sonnega, Amanda (2009) [09-10-2009]. National Football League Player Care Foundation: Study of Retired NFL Players (PDF). p. 32.
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