Utilization of Social Security Data for Sociological Research

HE situation in America with regard to statistical sociology is probably unique. The postwar decades have seen the development of a group of sociologists who have defined their research problems in realistic terms which call for empirical tests; who are convinced that these tests must, in the long run, assume a quantitative form; who are fairly well trained in theoretical and applied statistics; but who find themselves faced with a dearth of sources which might yield the data they so urgently need. That real progress has been made in spite of defective sources is clear to anyone who has followed this development. That there have been dangers inherent in proceeding too far and too fast in the application of refined statistical techniques to data derived as administrative by-products has, however, been recognized by some of the more thoughtful sociologists, among whom Frank Ross and Thorsten Sellin may be mentioned. As Ross has said, Our greatest danger lies in defining our phenomena in terms of the most available series, thereby stultifying our entire theoretical concepts.' The unwise application of statistical methods and the resulting stultification of theoretical concepts has made the statistical sociologist peculiarly vulnerable to attack by those theorists who have neither the inclination nor, often, the technical competence to attempt any empirical, quantitative tests of their generalizations, but whose intellectual acuity enables them to show the weakness in this approach. Another danger in the concentration on the most available sources is that the very nature of these sources has limited the field of sociological investigation. Sociology includes the field of human interaction, as conditioned or modified by environmental situations. Its problems are largely concerned with defining, measuring and evaluating differentials. But by far the greater part of existing sources provides data only on extreme deviates from social functioning (e.g., crime, vice and poverty), just because it has been necessary for purposes of administration to keep record of the underprivileged, the dependent, and the delinquent classes. It is not surprising, therefore, that sociological research has been overdeveloped (in quantity if not in quality) on the pathological side and underdeveloped on the normal side even though it is recognized that differentials can be determined only by a comparison of these deviates with an adequate control group of the socially normal. It is as though the economist studying the development of industry were limited to bankruptcy data

Criminology · Political science · Social research · Social science · Social security · Sociological research · Sociological theory · Sociology · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Law · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies