Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 18:57:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Jeffrey David Feldman <jdf4e@faraday.clas.virginia.edu>
To: anthronet@virginia.edu
Subject: Social science knowledge in the the area of race, racism, and race relations (fwd)
Message received from American Sociological Association
To: Executive Directors of Social Science Organizations
I am asking your immediate help on an important project that the American
Sociological Association has just begun, but that is of equal importance to
all the social and behavioral science organizations. ASA has been asked by
the White House Office of Science Technology Policy to synthesize the social
science literature and prepare a report on social Science knowledge in the
the area of race, racism, and race relations for President Clinton's
Initiative on Race, One America.
We want to identify the key researchers, key research areas, and key
findings in the social and behavioral sciences in order to prepare an
interdisciplinary map the domain of race relations and what is known about
the causes and consequences of racism and racial inequality in our society.
Please read the attached "Call for Help," respond to it, place it on your
associations web site, and send it forward to relevant members of your
organizations such as relevant committee chairs, relevant list-serves that
you know of, and place it in your association's newsletter. It would be
helpful to hear from you and to have a sense of the breadth of your
dissemination effort.
I will send a similar e-mail to your society's minority affairs officer.
I look forward to direct mail or your response via ASA's special e-mail box
raceproject@asanet.org For your information, Pat White (on loan to ASA from
the National Science Foundation) and Roberta Spalter-Roth, Director of the
Research Program on the Discipline and Profession are helping me on this
project. We would value your ideas and any suggestions you might have.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Felice J. Levine Executive Officer
- ------------------------------------------------------------
CALL FOR HELP
Social Science Knowledge on Race, Racism, and Race Relations
An American Sociological Association Project
One of the central goals of the President Clinton's Initiative on Race, One
America, is to "help educate the nation about the facts surrounding the
issue of race." At the request of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy (OSTP), the American Sociological Association (ASA) is
preparing a report on social science knowledge on race, racism, and race
relations. The purpose of this project is to look broadly across relevant
arenas of research, to explicate what we know, to dispel myths and
misconceptions where they exist, and to identify research gaps.
To fit within the time frame established by the Clinton Administration (a
final report in summer 1998), ASA is working with challenging deadlines. By
the end of February, ASA will provide OSTP with a distilled analysis and
preliminary results for distribution to the President's Advisory Board for
this Initiative. By May, ASA will publish a non-technical monograph and
disseminate it widely to policymakers, civic organizations, public interest
groups, private foundations, and professional societies as well as to the
media.
In order to accomplish this challenging task in a brief time period, ASA
needs your help! Our strategy is to cast the widest possible net across the
social and behavioral sciences in mapping the domain of race relations and
what is known about the causes and consequences of racism in society. We
have set up a special electronic mail box race.project@asanet.org solely for
this purpose. Specifically, we need you to identify:
* Key research areas, studies, concepts, and findings in the social and
behavioral sciences that add to our knowledge of race, racism, and race
relations. Please include relevant research that is crucial to educating
Americans about the issue of race.
* Suggestions for mapping social science knowledge on race, including ideas
about the conceptual framework or germane arenas of research.
* Suggestions for key indicators (with appropriate citations) of racism and
racial relations including measures of prejudice, tolerance, and costs.
* Summaries of and citations to salient social science findings (their own
or others) that will help Americans to have a constructive dialogue about
race, including in areas of economic opportunity, housing, education, crime,
or justice.
* Suggestions of names of social scientists with particularly solid
knowledge of and judgment about specific domains of research relating to
race, racism, and race relations. If resources permit, we would like to
convene a small research synthesis conference.
Please respond as soon as possible to this "call." To be maximally useful,
we need to hear from you no later than November 10. If possible, send your
response by e-mail to race.project@asanet.org; or by fax 202-785-0146.
Please also copy and share this call with appropriate colleagues. For more
information on this project and updates on this call, refer to ASA's home
page <http://www.asanet.org/>
For more information on the White House initiative, see
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/>
Thank you in advance for assisting in this important opportunity to provide
social science knowledge for the public good. This project is an initiative
of ASA's Sydney S. Spivack Program in applied Social Research and Social
Policy.
American Sociological Association 1722 N Street, NW Washington, DC
20036-2981 202-833-3410, Ext. 317
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Editor: Tony Galt (galta@gbms01.uwgb.edu)
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