Social Indicators and Social Reporting

Robert Parke and David Seidman

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1978, vol. 435, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Doubts about the easy equation of economic growth and social progress led, in the 1960s, to a renewed interest in social measurement and to the birth of the "social indicators movement." Social Indicators, 1976, a product of that interest, can be read as both a report on social conditions and trends in the United States and a progress report on social indicators research. The volume is best understood against the background of the social indicators movement and of the research it has stimulated. Several research traditions are joined together in the social indicators movement, but they share a concern for measurement, analysis, and the reporting to a general audience of aspects of social conditions. The tradition best reflected in Social Indicators, 1976 stresses the monitoring and reporting of social change. Research work in this tradition emphasizes conceptual and methodological development of measures, improvements in the available data base, the development of social indicator models, and social reporting. In its data selection, treatment of data, organization, and commentary, Social Indicators, 1976 is an improvement over its predecessor, Social Indicators, 1973, though the analysis it contains is notably insufficient. Most of the improvements which should be found in future editions depend upon continued progress in the development of social indicators.

Date: 1978
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271627843500102 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:435:y:1978:i:1:p:1-16

DOI: 10.1177/000271627843500102

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().