This Journal is also published in French under the title Revue internationale des sciences sociales

Topics

of recent issues: Trends in legal learning (vol. X X I I , no. 3) Controlling the h u m a n environment (vol. X X I I , no. 4) Understanding aggression (vol. XXIII, no . 1)

of forthcoming issues: Regional variations in nation-building Inter-ethnic relations Role of the social sciences in development

23JUl»aft

international social science Journal

Vol. XXIII, N o . 2, 1971

Published quarterly by Unesco

Raymond Boudon

Jean Cuisenier Jean-Claude Gardin Jean-Paul Grémy

Dominique Lépine

Pierre Maranda

Use of computers, documentation and the social sciences

Editorial 161

Use of computers in the social sciences

Data-processing and the use of the results of sociological surveys 163 The processing of ethnographic data 175 Archaeology and computers : new perspectives 189 The use of computer simulation techniques in sociology 204 The use of computers in experimental psychology 219 The computer and the analysis of myths 228

Robert N . Broadus

D . J. Foskett

W . D . Garvey, N a n Lin and Carnot E . Nelson Aleksandr L . Goldberg

Jean-Paul Trystram

Documentation in the social sciences

The literature of the social sciences : a survey of citation studies 236 Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences 244 A comparison of scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists 256 Information needs of social scientists and ways of meeting them 273 F r o m automatic documentation to the data bank 285

Open forum

Richard Attiyeh, T . L . Johnston, Keith G . Lumsden and Charles J. Ritchie

Economics education and the Economics Education Project

Professional and documentary services

World index of social science institutions: research, advanced training, documentation and professional bodies Approaching international conferences Documents and publications of the United Nations and Specialized Agencies Books received

293

309 311

317 328

Opinions expressed in signed articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Unesco. Permission for the reproduction of articles appearing in this Journal can be obtained from the Editor. Correspondence arising from this Journal should be addressed to: The Editor, International Social Science Journal, Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, 75 Paris-7e.

Editor: Peter Lengyel

Printed by Imprimerie Chaix-Desfossés, Paris © Unesco 1971 Printed in France SHC.71/I.97/A

use of computers, documentation and the social sciences

Editorial

The first part of the present issue is devoted to an examination of the use of computers in several social science disciplines, one of the principal areas of interest of the Unité d'Enseignement et de Recherche de Mathématiques, Logique Formelle et Informatique at the Sorbonne (Université René-Descartes) which assembled and prepared this series of articles under the direction of M . Barbut. The editor wishes to express his gratitude to M . Barbut as well as to J. T o m a n , associate member of the International Committee for Social Sciences Documentation, w h o was instrumental in the planning and pre­paration of the articles (with the exception of that by R . N . Broadus) making up the second part of the issue, which deals with various aspects of docu­mentation in the social sciences.

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Use of computers in the social sciences

Raymond Boudon Data-processing and the use of the results of sociological surveys

The results of any quantitative sociological survey can be transcribed on to a set of punched cards. This is because such a survey consists, by definition, in collecting m data of the same nature on n units of the same type. In the major survey on archaic societies carried out by Murdock , 1 for example, the basic data relate to 250 units which, in this case, are societies. The same kind of information is collected for all societies: Does the society permit a m a n to marry the daughter of his father's brother? Is residence patrilocal? Is the right of descent patrilineal? Is social stratification extensive? If w e look at another sociological classic, Durkheim's Suicide, w e shall find a similar situation. In this case, the population considered is a body of individuals, namely, all those w h o committed suicide within a specific period, for example during a given year, while the data relate to age, civil status, occupation, sex, religious persuasion, place of residence, period of the year, time of day when suicide was committed, etc.

B y and large, therefore, data collected in a sociological survey can, at least in theory, always be shown in table form composed of n rows and m columns, which m a y be termed a 'data matrix'. Each row of the matrix corresponds to one of the units observed, each column to one of the data collected during the survey.

This matrix, of course, will almost never be transcribed just as it is on to paper, but it will appear in other forms. For example, the normal procedure in analysing a questionnaire consisting of m questions put to n individuals is to assign to each individual one or more punched cards and to enter the m data collected in the columns on the cards, keeping the same order. In this case, the card or cards representing the replies of individual N o . 1 will correspond to the first row of the data matrix; the card or cards representing the replies of individual N o . 2 will correspond to the second line of the matrix, and so on.

1. Social Structure, N e w York , Macmillan, 1949.

Int. Soc. Sei. J., Vol. X X I U , N o . 2, 1971

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The use of the results of surveys

Once the data have been transcribed, that is, set out in matrix form, the next step is to analyse, or in other words, to process, them.

Just as the data are always shown in a particular form—a matrix—so the analysis of the data always consists in (a) propounding certain hypotheses and (b) linking to these hypotheses certain structural properties of the data matrix.

W e can see what this means in concrete terms if w e look at a very simple example. Let us suppose that w e have carried out a survey on the social integration of a population of immigrants and that w e wish to classify these immigrants according to the following variables:

xx = occupational integration (1 = satisfactory; 1 = unsatisfactory);

x2 = integration into the host society (2 = satisfactory; 2 = unsatisfactory).

These variables will need to be constructed on the basis of a grouping of more elementary data. For example, w e m a y conceivably decide to include in category 1 (satisfactory professional integration) individuals of w h o m at least one of the following three statements is true: 1. They have had no change of employment for at least three years. 2. They consider that they can reasonably expect promotion. 3. They consider that their income can be more or less expected to rise in

the next five years. Individuals w h o possess none of these characteristics will be classified as T (unsatisfactory occupational integration).

The classification of individuals in categories 2 and 2 will likewise correspond to the grouping of certain basic data of the data matrix.

It thus becomes clear that the first stage in the analysis of this matrix will frequently consist in the grouping of basic data in sociologically more significant categories. This is the stage of the construction of variables. It involves considerable problems of logic upon which w e are unable to dwell here. In formal terms, it entails the replacing of the original data matrix by what m a y be termed a 'matrix of variables'.

The following stage will then be to determine whether the structural properties of the matrix of variables do or do not tally with a given hypothesis.

Let us suppose, for example, that w e propound the hypothesis that occupational integration makes integration into the host society easier.

If this is so, the question will naturally arise as to whether the pro­portion of individuals in category 2 (satisfactory social integration) to be found among those in category 1 (satisfactory occupational integration) is greater than the proportion of individuals in category 2 to be found a m o n g those in category Ï (unsatisfactory occupational integration). T o answer this will entail deriving from the matrix of variables the following table (the marginal numbers «¿ are the totals of the numbers in the corresponding row or column):

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Data-processing and sociological surveys

"12

"is

- •

"Ï2

"Î2

This table enumerates those individuals classified both 1 and 2 (n12), those

classified Ï and 2 («j2), etc. Supposing that the quantity "12/"i is considerably greater than the quantity HJ2 /«J, the conclusion to be drawn will, at first sight, be that the data appear to confirm or at least do not appear to inval­idate the hypothesis; this result indicates that social integration is greater when occupational integration is good.

F r o m these brief remarks it emerges that the utilization of the results of a sociological survey is essentially a matter of carrying out a set of operations—some more complex than others but all long and exacting—on the original data matrix. Even discounting the considerable logical dilemmas entailed first by the transformation of the data matrix into a matrix of variables and, second, by the analysis of the structural properties of the matrix of variables, it is clear that such operations will be m u c h easier if data-processing techniques are used.

The value of data-processing emerges most clearly, however, when raw data are to be transformed into variables or when the structural pro­perties of a data matrix or a matrix of variables are to be analysed. W e shall n o w illustrate this point from two examples.

FIRST E X A M P L E : F R O M THE D A T A MATRIX

TO THE MATRIX OF VARIABLES

In a sample study of Polish immigrants in northern France, w e recorded attitudes and behaviour with regard to a number of Polish traditions (sharing of the egg on Easter morning, attendance at Polish mass, marriage in accor­dance with Polish custom, use of Polish in conversations between parents and children, etc.).

W e next assigned to these m traditions numbers ranging from 1 to m , and then w e defined m variables possessing two values: xlt x2, x . . . xm. Variable Xj referred to tradition N o . 1. Those individuals w h o observed tradition N o . 1 or, as the case might be, w h o intended to do so when the occasion arose, were placed in category 1 and those w h o had abandoned this tradition were placed in category Ï. The same procedure was used with regard to the other variables.

In stage two, our object was to determine in what combinations observance

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of the various traditions occurred. W e therefore established tables simila to the four-cell table shown above, so that w e could see whether the observance of tradition N o . x was generally to be found in conjunction with that of N o . y. Obviously, if was necessary to draw up as m a n y tables as there were different pairs (x, y), namely, m(m — l)/2.

O u r first surprise was to observe that, in every case, one of the cells in the table contained far fewer units than the other three. In other words, the structure of these tables m a y be represented in the following manner:

Tradition N o . x

Observing (x) Non-observing U )

Tradition N o . y

Observing (y)

Non-observing (/)

n

r<*,Q

%

%

N

This table shows that most of those w h o observe tradition N o . x also observe tradition N o . y, but that the converse does not hold. If w e interpret this from the sociological standpoint, w e see that x implies a deeper level of attachment to traditions than v. The structure of the table m a y be summarized as follows:

If X, then (generally) Y.

(Most of those w h o observe tradition N o . x also observe tradition N o . v). The next stage was to collate the different tables in such a way that

w e could see what over-all interpretation of the results could be given. T o simplify matters, let us suppose that m = 4. In other words, w e are assuming that the number of traditions observed amounted to four. (In fact, it was well above four.) Here, in schematic form, is the type of result w e were able to deduce from the tables: 1. If (1), then (usually) (2). 2. If (2), then (usually) (4). 3. If (4), then (usually) (3). This points to the existence of an order in the kinds of observance: if tra­dition (1) is observed, then tradition (2) is also observed (but the converse does not hold); if tradition (2) is observed, tradition (4) is also observed (but the converse does not hold), etc.

In order to establish the existence of such an order, it was further neces­sary to verify the following propositions which do not necessarily follow from results 1, 2 and 3.

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4. If (1), then (usually) (4). 5. If (1), then (usually) (3). 6. If (2), then (usually) (3).

The data did in fact confirm that not only propositions 1, 2 and 3 but also propositions 4, 5 and 6 were empirically valid.

It was then easy to synthesize these different results. They reveal that there is an order in the observance of traditions. The most traditionalist persons observe traditions (1), (2), (4) and (3). Next in order come those w h o observe traditions (2), (4) and (3); then those w h o observe traditions (4) and (3), followed by those w h o observe only (3) and, finally, those w h o observe none. Those w h o did not conform to any of these five patterns of response were in the minority.

The outcome, a most interesting one for the sociologist, is that tra­ditions are abandoned in a certain order, or that there are varying degrees of traditionalism and that the observance of traditions (3), (4), (2) and (1) presupposes increasing levels of attachment to traditions.

These results m a y be expressed in the form of the following diagram, which shows the global rank order w e have just seen:

l-*2->- 4->-3.

Such an order, whose importance has been stressed by Louis Guttman, amongst others, is of a very special kind. Let us suppose, for example, that after analysing our data w e have enunciated propositions 1 and 2 on the one hand, and propositions 4 and 5 on the other, but not proposition 6, and that instead of 3 w e have proposition 3'. If 3, then (usually) 4. W e should then have been able to derive from these results a partial rank order, which m a y be represented by the following figure:

The figure expresses the fact that there are two global orders, order 1, 2, 4 on the one hand, and order 1, 3, 4 on the other, but that 2 and 3 cannot be arranged in order.

Returning to our example, such a rank order might for instance show that traditions (2) and (3) involve degrees of traditionalism akin to one another, but that the observance of tradition (1) indicates a greater degree of tradi­tionalism than does that of the other traditions, whereas the observance of tradition (4) alone implies a lesser degree of traditionalism than does that of (2) or (3).

The identification of rank orders such as those w e have just mentioned is of major importance in sociological research. Guttman's global rank orders in particular are frequently used for the transition from the data

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matrix to the matrix of variables. Suppose, for example, that w e wish to explain w h y some people are more anti-Semitic than others, and suppose, further, that w e propound the hypothesis that the less satisfied the individual is with his social and occupational status the greater his degree of anti-Semitism will be. In order to substantiate such a hypothesis, w e must obviously first be in a position to classify the individuals considered in terms both of the degree of anti-Semitism harboured by them and of their satisfaction with their social and occupational status. For this purpose, questions will be put to them, and their replies will constitute the basis of the data matrix. For example: Are you able to recognize a Jew in the street? D o you believe that one is more likely to succeed in the business world if one is Jewish? A n d so on. . . .

If the replies to such questions point to the existence of a Guttman scale, the inference will be that there are increasing degrees of anti-Semitism (just as, in the previous example, the scale order implied a gradation of traditionalism). Moreover, there will then be no difficulty in classifying the respondents in terms of this variable.

Clearly, the identification of such rank orders in the data matrix generally involves large-scale operations that can be m u c h more easily carried out if a computer is used. Moreover, the system of time-sharing will m a k e the analyses that w e have outlined above a good deal easier. It frequently happens that a particular analysis miscarries. For example, one m a y propound the hypothesis that a Guttman scale exists, but the data m a y fail to square with such a hypothesis. In this case it will be necessary, in order to transform the basic data into variables, either to determine whether the former are compa­tible with certain partial rank orders or to resort to other techniques, as usually happens. With a time-sharing system, the analysis can be carried out rapidly. If conventional processes are used it will be a very lengthy affair, owing to time lags.

SECOND E X A M P L E : ANALYSIS OF THE MATRIX OF VARIABLES

T o illustrate the type of operations that the sociologist must carry out in order to analyse the matrix of variables, w e shall take as an example a survey carried out by Rosenberg1 on the choice of occupation. The purpose of this study was to analyse the process of selection of occupation at the higher educational level. Rosenberg questioned a cross-section of students on two occasions, in 1950 and in 1952. O f the variables constructed on the basis of the primary data, two were of particular importance. The first, which w e shall term x1 ; contrasted students whose values were 'altruistic' (emphasis on interpersonal relationships, desire to do work that is directly of service to others, altruistic character of the kind of success desired, etc.) with other students. The second, x2, classified students according to the altruistic or non-altruistic nature of their choice of occupation. Rosenberg set on one

1. Occupations and Values, Glencoe, 111., The Free Press, 1957.

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side those occupational activities whose nature entailed frequent and direct relationships with others (doctor, business m a n , etc.) and contrasted them with activities essentially concerned with the manipulation of physical or symbolic objects (author, research worker, engineer, etc.).

Table 1 shows the two sets of data on these two variables.

TABLE 1

1952

1950 Total

12 12 12 U

12 163 30 15 18 226

Ï2 36 73 8 49 166

Í2 21 8 29 31 89

12 6 43 14 168 231

TOTAL 226 154 66 266 712

This table shows, for example, that of the 226 persons w h o were classified as 12 in 1950 ('altruistic' set of values and 'altruistic' choice of occupation), 163 had not changed by 1952, while 30 became 12 ('altruistic' set of values, 'non-altruistic' choice of occupation), etc.

A n intuitive interpretation of this table produces a number of interesting results ; w e see that a substantial proportion of the population concerned lies on the main diagonal (north-west/south-east) of the table. This means that a high percentage of the students did not change between 1950 and 1952. It is also to be noted that the relative magnitude of the 'diagonal' element varies in accordance with the rows in the table. Let us consider the first row: of the 226 units making up this row, 163, that is, approximately 70 per cent, lie along the main diagonal. O n the fourth row they also amount to some 70 per cent (168/231). B y contrast, only 44 per cent of them (73/166) are to be found on the second row and 33 per cent (29/89) on the third. These are substantial differences. They reveal that 'states' 12 and 12 tend to be far more stable than states Ï2 and 12. In other words, when there is a clash between choice of occupation and values, adjustment is likely to occur. Moreover, a glance at rows 2 and 3 in the table will show that almost all those individuals w h o emerged from the state of conflict in which they were in 1950 proceeded towards the harmonious states 12 or 12.

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It then becomes highly important from the theoretical point of view to determine in which direction the change occurs; does the choice of occupa­tion tend to be adapted to the system of values ('idealistic' hypothesis) or is the contrary ('materialistic') hypothesis correct—that values are adapted to the choice of occupation?

W e shall see that it is difficult to answer this question by merely inter­preting the above table intuitively. But if w e employ analytical tools that can be immediately used in the computer the answer will be quite clear.

FIRST TRIAL INTUITIVE ANALYSIS

O n e way of tackling this question is to consider whether stabilization occurs in an 'idealistic' or in a 'materialistic' direction.

Let us consider those individuals classified as 12 in 1950. O f the 36 + 49 individuals w h o underwent a change during the period concerned and were in a state of 'harmony' in 1952, 36 adapted their choice of occupation to their set of values and 49 suited their set of values to their choice of occupation. This result tends to support the 'materialistic' hypothesis.

If w e look at the third row in the table, however, w e see that the opposite is the case: 21 individuals proceded from Ï2 to 12 and consequently adapted their system of values to suit their choice of occupation (materialistic hypo­thesis); a greater number, however (31), adapted their choice of occupation to suit their system of values (idealistic hypothesis).

These conflicting results prompt us to seek a single index that would enable us to compare the influence of the two variables upon each other.

SECOND TRIAL INTUITIVE ANALYSIS

There is a second method, employed by Rosenberg himself, which consists in considering the stable individuals successively in respect of their value systems and their choice of occupation and in seeking to determine whether the proportion of changes leading to harmonization is greater in the one case than in the other.

Let us consider first the individuals whose values were unchanged and w h o changed their choice of occupation between 1950 and 1952.

They m a y be broken d o w n as follows: 36 proceeded from 12 to 12; 30 proceeded from 12 to 12; 31 proceeded from Ï2 to 12; 14 proceeded from Î2 to 12.

In order to determine h o w far values affect choice, let us take the dif­ference:

36/(30 + 36) —14/(14+ 31) = 0.57 — 0.31 =0.26.

The first term of this difference, namely, 36/(30 + 36) = 0.57, represents the proportion of individuals w h o proceeded from 2 to 2 and w h o thus suited

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Data-processing a n d sociological surveys

their choice to their set of values, while the second term, namely, 14/(14 + 31) = 0.31, represents the proportion of individuals w h o proceeded in the same direction and whose choice of occupation was therefore at variance with their values.

Let us n o w consider those individuals whose choice of occupation did not change and whose values did. They m a y be broken d o w n as follows: 15 proceeded from 12 to Ï2; 21 proceeded from Ï2 to 12; 49 proceeded from 12 to 12; 43 proceeded from 12 to 12.

A s in the previous case, the impact of choice upon values can be measured by taking the difference:

21/(15 + 21) — 43/(49 + 43) = 0 . 5 8 — 0 . 4 7 = 0 . 1 1 .

F r o m this it can be seen that the proportion of individuals w h o moved from Ï to 1 is only slightly higher w h e n they adjusted their values to suit their choice of occupation than when they did not.

F r o m the comparison of these two results, Rosenberg concludes that the process of harmonization is more likely to be a matter of reconciling choice to values.

ANALYTICAL M E T H O D

All manner of objections, however, can be m a d e to the above analysis. First, it is complicated; second—and this drawback is the result of the first— it is difficult to apply in general. It could hardly be used in a case involving either a greater number of variables or more complex ones. Lastly, there is no certainty that the suggested index is the best one possible, or that another index leading to quite different conclusions could not be constructed.

For this reason, it is better to abandon intuitive methods and to adopt an analytical method. One way, for example, would be to use a process analysis § rresponding to the following scheme:1

(1950) (1952) (Values) x\ U ^ x*

a21

(Choice) x'2

1. Readers w h o wish to study these problems in greater depth are referred to R a y m o n d B o u d o n , Sociologie et Mathématique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1971.

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This scheme, which is modelled directly upon those used in econometrics since Tinbergen, shows that attitudes towards values as well as towards choice have a certain inertia, measured respectively by a u and a22. Moreover, in drawing the crossed arrows it was assumed that choices of occupation in 1950 exerted an influence—measured by a12—on values in 1952, and that values in 1950 exerted an influence—measured by a21—on choices expressed in 1952.

T h e scheme corresponds to the following mode l :

x\(" = a u xî«> + a21 xj«> + e»«>

*IK) = <hz x\li) + °u *i<4) + «S(i)

T h e first equation signifies that the value x\{i\ which describes individual (i) at time 2 in relation to variable N o . 1 (occupational values) is dependent u p o n the value that describes h im in relation to the same variable at the preceding time (xi(<))> upon the value which describes h im in relation to variable N o . 2 at time 1 (x2

(i)) and u p o n ' u n k n o w n ' factors which, furthermore, favour his being 1 at time 2 (cf). T h e second equation admits of a similar interpretation.

Having checked to m a k e certain that there are n o interactive phenomena , w e can estimate the value of the parameters of the model , in accordance with procedures which w e obviously cannot describe fully here.1

In the present case, w e first establish that there are no grounds for sup­posing that there is any interaction between the factors. T h e values obtained for the parameters will then be the following: an = 0.48; a2% = 0 .47; a12 = 0.17; a21 = 0.15.

T h e first fact to emerge from these results is that the 'inertia' of the two variables—measured by au for x± and by a22 for x%—is far greater than the impact they have o n each other. Moreover, w e see that the difference between a12 (measurement of the effect of choice on values) and a21 (measurement of the effect of values u p o n choice) is so slight that the available data alone d o not justify the adoption of either the 'idealistic' or the 'materialistic' inter­pretation.

T h e analytical method that w e have just outlined has the advantage, in comparison with the intuitive methods used previously, of using a formalized definition of the concept of the impact of one variable upon another. It is, therefore, far sounder than Rosenberg's method, which is described above. T o be more precise, it has the advantage of producing measurements whose validity is less unreliable.

It has the drawback of involving more laborious calculations, but this drawback can be eliminated by using data-processing.

It must be noted that the case w e have just outlined is of a very elementary type. T h e matrices of variables that sociologists have to construct m a y produce far m o r e complex situations. Suppose, for example, that in this study of choice

1. cf. Boudon, op. cit.

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of occupation we had found it necessary to take into account a third variable (e.g. success in school) and that w e wanted to analyse the interrelations between the three variables as they appeared on two different occasions. This would have produced a table comprising sixty-four elements. A n intuitive analysis would in this case have been not only unreliable, but impossible.

Conclusion

These brief remarks will n o doubt suffice to show that the work involved in interpreting sociological surveys will certainly be greatly facilitated by the use of data-processing. There are two reasons w h y sociologists frequently employ intuitive methods, both in the expression of raw data as variables and in the analysis of the structural properties of the matrix of variables. First, sociologists are often insufficiently trained in quantitative methodology. Second, it must be admitted that the application of the quantitative methods used in analysing surveys is often an arduous task. This second obstacle should be gradually overcome as people become more familiar with data-processing. But sociologists must also be given a real training in quantitative methodology. This means that students must be taught the methods in such a way that they really grasp the logical significance, the usefulness and the properties of the tool they will have to use. In other words, they must not see it as something obscure and esoteric, but rather as a mental operation which, ideally, they should feel themselves capable of reproducing. Only if this is so can data-processing and sociology be expected to cross-fertilize one another. Besides this, w e must n o w try to explore the methodological and educational consequences of the transformations that data-processing is itself undergoing. The time-sharing system will doubtless m a k e a great diffe­rence to the work of analysing sociological surveys. It should enable the sociologist to move far more rapidly and consequently more freely between his hypotheses and the data available to him. This will involve, inter alia, a decline in the use of the relatively rough-and-ready quantitative methods which, like factorial analysis, are designed for the purposes of comprehensive analysis of major sets of data. The global (non-sequential) nature of such analysis doubtless offers certain advantages. But a very high and often unjus­tified price must be paid for its globality: at the best, a considerable loss of information and, at the worst, the production of results that are mere artefacts. So, vital though it is that sociologists should be able to m a k e full use of data-processing techniques, such an extension of their use must go hand in hand with instruction in the subject as a whole.

Everyone knows the story of the sociologist w h o , having demonstrated on the basis of the sacrosanct x2 that juvenile delinquents tended more often to be atheists than did non-delinquents, suggested that attendance at mass be made compulsory, in order to reduce juvenile delinquency. Before initiating

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this sociologist into the beauties of F O R T R A N , it would doubtless have been wise to inculcate in him some of the rudiments of methodology.

[Translated from French]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

B A R B U T , M . Mathématiques des sciences humaines. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1967/68. 2 vols.

B L A L O C K , H . M . Theory construction. Englewood Cliffs, N.J . , Prentice-Hall, 1969. B O U D O N , R . Sociologie et mathématique. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1971.

; L A Z A R S F E L D , P . L'analyse empirique de la causalité. Paris, Mouton, 1966. C O L E M A N , J. Introduction to mathematical sociology. Glencoe, 111., The Free Press, 1964. F L A M E N T , C . L'analyse algébrique de questionnaire. (To be published.) M A T A L Ó N , B . L'analyse hiérarchique, Paris, Mouton/Gauthier Villars, 1965.

Raymond Boudon is professor of sociology at the Sorbonne and director of the Centre d'Études Sociologiques in Paris. He is the author of numerous works including Le Vocabulaire des Sciences Sociales (in collaboration with P. Lazarsfeld) (1965), L'Analyse Mathématique des Faits Sociaux (1967; to appear in English in 1971), Les Méthodes en Sociologie (1969), and 'Mathematical Models and Methods' in: Main Trends of Research in the Social and H u m a n Sciences. Part I : Social Sciences (1970).

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Jean Cuisenier T h e prOCCSSillg

of ethnographic data

Given their profusion, their variety and their dispersal in repositories and places of origin, it is clear that ethnographic data call for computerized pro­cessing. The number of objects preserved in museums , for instance, m a y be reckoned in millions and tens of millions, while photographs, drawings, surveys, films and tape recordings are accumulating in even greater quantity. A s to the printed matter devoted to the universe of cultures, its combined bulk is such as to defy any attempt at an over-all apprehension through the use of traditional methods. Nevertheless, the applications of computerization to the processing of ethnographic data are still very few. The results derived therefrom, are moreover, open to discussion from a twofold standpoint: that of the ethnologists, w h o are in doubt about the profit obtained from the use of cumbrous or simplifying methods; and that of the mathematicians, w h o find exceptionally in ethnographical observation the conditions that alone are suited to data-analysis methods. Three examples m a y be taken to illustrate these difficulties, corresponding to three ways of conducting ethnological research: (a) the inventorying of ethnographic collections, characteristic traces left by m a n ' s activity in the mosaic of cultures; (b) the identification of significant patterns in associations between cultural character­istics in the universe of cultures; (c) the comparison of the logical and the real conditions in which systems of categories, systems of rules and systems of attitudes operate.

Applications to the inventorying of ethnographic collections

For the purposes of inventorying collections, data-processing was introduced earlier in the field of archaeology than in that of ethnology [l].1 At first sight, however, ethnographic and archaeological collections would appear to be suited to the same type of processing [2]. In both cases, it is first necessary

1. Figures in square brackets refer to the bibliographical references at the end of the article.

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Jean Cuisenier

to describe the objects in terms of their dimensions and contours, their prove­nance and the means by which they were acquired, the material of which they are composed, the techniques pertaining to their manufacture and use, and their form and ornamentation. In both cases, too, these descriptive variables m a y be as complex as is desired; for example, the material m a y be described in terms not only of its qualitative properties as they appear from direct observation, but also of its physical and chemical properties established by analysis. It is also possible, in both cases, to couple the description of the object with documentation relating to it: representation of the object on bas-reliefs, on mosaics, frescoes or miniatures, as also on prints, photographs or films; references to the object in inscriptions and texts, as also in memoranda , interviews and questionnaires. T o the description of the object, which forms the text to be processed, is therefore to be added information on the object, providing the necessary context in which to determine its significance. The differences as regards the m o d e of acquisition, whether by excavation or by collection on the spot, do not, therefore, initially appear to entail any difference as regards the description [3].

U p o n closer scrutiny, however, it becomes clear that an attempt to bring the description of ethnological collections into line with that of archaeological collections involves the risk of forfeiting the benefits of standardization, namely, the possibility of retrieving, by means of a documentary language, all the relevant—but only the relevant—data. Archaeological and ethnological practice do, in fact, require a slant to be given to the description. In the case of excavation, the dimensions and contour, the material and ornamentation are k n o w n variables, whereas the manufacturing technique and the method of use are unknown variables. All subsequent research will, accordingly, consist in analysing the system of k n o w n data in order to deduce the u n k n o w n data, proceeding from the perceptible qualities and physico-chemical characteristics of, for instance, a steel blade, a piece of stoneware, cloth, on the one hand, to smelting techniques, turning and firing processes, spinning, dyeing and weaving practices, on the other. Observed data and inferred data must, in such condi­tions, be classified apart and processed separately. In the case of the ethno­graphical collection, the epistemological situation is the opposite : the concrete unit, the essential source of information, is not the object in the collection of objects but rather the significant whole which forms the object's context, the concatenations of operations to which it gives rise. Ethnographic practice is, in fact, designed to yield, at a single stroke, names and annotations, rules and rituals, beliefs and customs. The variables describing manufacturing techniques and methods of use are, therefore, k n o w n , observed, in the same conditions as are those describing dimensions and contour, material and form. The data are epistemologically homogeneous; they can be compared and processed simultaneoulsy.

This first difference gives rise at once to a second, relating to the categories of the description. In archaeological practice, the object, the essential source to which reference must always be m a d e , is paramount; the descriptive cate­gories must, therefore, always be determined by the object itself, and result

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from a formal analysis of the components, through the combination of basic characteristics. In ethnographic practice, on the other hand, it is not the object that is paramount but the discourse regarding the object, from which significance derives. The descriptive categories must, therefore, be those of the indigenous m o d e of thought, the characteristics must correspond to the qualities recognized by such thought, the types must derive from the combi­nation of the traits considered to be significant in indigenous conceptuali­zations. In the first case, the classifications of indigenous thought are inferred, not given; in the second, they are not only given, as the object itself is given, they are also determinant, for on these classifications depend, through the medium of the manufacturing techniques and methods of use, the dimensions, the material and the form.

There is no mistaking it : the difference between these two kinds of descrip­tion lies less in their content than in the ultimate purpose which determines their slant, their rationality being not so m u c h material, to use an expression of M a x Weber's, as formal. In respect of its content, ethnological activity frequently approximates to archaeological activity. H o w m a n y ethnographic collections are accompanied by documents enabling them to be described in the terms of the indigenous mode of thought? H o w m a n y objects are collected on the spot, whereas their holders have lost all knowledge concerning them, are even unaware of their use or their name? Is, then, the ransacking of the repositories of museums , workshops and lofts substantially different from the excavation of ruins and underground sites? Inversely, are not archives and inscriptions, miniatures and mosaics sometimes so profusely available to the archaeologist, yielding such a wealth of circumstantial information, that an ethnographic description of the objects excavated, in the terms of the indigenous m o d e of thought, becomes feasible? If, therefore, the descriptions differ less in the consistency and variety of the information they bear upon than in the epistemological qualification of the data marshalled by them, it will be agreed that the term ethnographic, as opposed to archaeological, should be used for a description that divides the object's characteristics into two categories, according to whether they are established by the observer, for purposes of analysis, or imposed by the agent, for purposes of designation, manufacture or utilization. Hence it is possible to conceive, and efforts are being made to develop, three kinds of application of computerization to the inventorying of ethnographic collections.

M A N A G E M E N T OF COLLECTIONS

W h a t are the objects preserved? H o w were they acquired? At what cost and in what conditions? F r o m w h o m and on what site? W h a t is their state of preservation, their weight, the space occupied by them? Where are they preserved and to w h o m do they belong? Have they been exhibited, sketched, photographed, analysed, m a d e generally k n o w n ? There is no need to lengthen this list of questions in order to show that the management of ethnographic collections is, like any management of stock, a question of optimization

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depending on a variety of criteria: volume of space available, care required, rate of rotation, cost of preservation, etc. The best course, for purposes of description, is to m a k e a rigid distinction between those factors pertaining to management, which must feature in the categories of administrative practice, and those pertaining to ethnological inventorying, which must conform to independent standards.

By defining an area of reference in descriptive cards and files, it becomes possible to draw up, by mechanical means, the requisite tabulations and to proceed to the computerized sorting that the rationalization of management operations entails [4].

D O C U M E N T A R Y RESEARCH

In the case of collections, such as ethnographic collections, that comprise millions of units, the mechanization of the procedures for identifying and retrieving items is one of the most eagerly awaited applications of data-processing. It is also one of the most difficult to put into effect. It presupposes, in fact, the replacement of the natural language in which inventories and descriptive cards are written by a standardized documentary language and, consequently, the compilation of glossaries. W h e n the units preserved are plants or animals, the problem is a simple one: their identity is determined by a system of classification which is admitted by all scientists, or which at least enables scientists generally to find their bearings with complete assurance. The same does not apply to ethnographic collections. H o w , indeed, is an item to be identified? B y its n a m e in the language of the culture that produced it? In that case, any comparison is impossible unless thousands of dictionaries are consulted. By its n a m e in a reference language? But h o w m a n y exotic objects would be bereft of any n a m e at all in such a language, if it were English, French or Russian? H o w , moreover, are materials to be denoted? B y what vocabulary and by what concepts—those of the autochthonous language, those of the reference language or those of some universal classification? The path of advancement in documentary research can readily be traced: the first stage on it is the compilation of glossaries, systematically defining the correspondences between natural languages, reference languages and documentary language. Applications are in progress, intended to lead to the mechanized compilation of catalogues and sub-catalogues.

ANALYSIS

However thorough it m a y be, documentary research is never more than a preliminary operation, a mere marshalling of the data that it is intended to analyse. Doubtless the determination of the descriptive variables is condi­tional upon the theoretical choices governing the identification of the autoch­thonous categories. But this table of categories m a y remain, for documentary purposes, summary and succinct. T w o kinds of application are, then, to be distinguished with regard to the exhaustive analysis of ethnographic collections.

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O n e concerns internal analysis, or anaylsis of the data matrices characterizing the objects themselves; the other relates to external analysis, or analysis of such data matrices in their relationship to exogenous variables, such as those indicating the geographical location, the date of recording, the language group to which the system of denotation belongs and the social organization. W o r k in this field must start from zero; not because data-processing systems are unsuited to the handling of ethnological problems, but because of non-adaptation of materials and deficiency of theory.

Applications to cross-cultural studies

The universe of cultures can be apprehended through objects, which are the significant products of h u m a n activity, but an understanding thereof can also be gained through the relevant knowledge. B y the end of the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer was winning acceptance for the idea that only a vast compilation of data in the form of references drawn from ethnographic sources can enable the scientist to formulate and to test his hypotheses [5]. A n d as early as 1889, Tylor was laying the foundations for the methodological change which was to enable comparative studies to accede to scientific status, namely, bringing the comparison to bear, not on cases isolated from their cultural context, but on associations of characteristics observed in the same cultures [6]. It was not till 1937 that this change was completed, thanks to the work of G . P . Murdock, whose publications opened the way to one of the most important applications of data-processing to ethnology, namely, the identification and interpretation of patterns in the associations observed between cultural characteristics [7].

THEORETICAL TRENDS A N D PRACTICAL PROCEDURES

For the purposes of a comparative processing of ethnographic data, five techniques m a y be applied deriving from the same theoretical basis. These are: 1. A system for the storing, classification and retrieval of ethnographic data.

The underlying idea, derived from Herbert Spencer, is that references drawn from ethnographic sources must be preserved, indexed and clas­sified, so as to be available to any ethnologist seeking to validate his hypotheses. The H u m a n Relations Area Files, which constitute a veritable bank of ethnographic data, contain a selection of ethnological particulars, classified by culture and by theme, and carefully coded in accordance with a universal grid [8].

2. The use of quantitative methods to validate the hypothesis that there are patterns in the associations observed between cultural characteristics. In his Social Structure (1949) and in his 'World Ethnographic Sample' (1957), for example, Murdock makes use, in order to validate his hypotheses, of statistical measurements of meaningfulness (the Yale coefficient, the

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cAi'-squared coefficient), thereby stimulating a long series of operations, some of which could only have been carried out by data-processing methods [9].

3. A uniform definition of the cultural units to be compared. Tribe or group, city or empire, national state or confederation? States are so m a n y possible units of observation, but they differ so widely, in size and in form of social organization, that they cannot be meaningfully compared. Though the discussion on the theory relating to the definition of units of observation remains open, there is an empirical solution that allows of a methodical development of cross-cultural studies: the selection, irrespective of the form of political organization, of the local communities that have been best identified in space and in time and those most exten­sively studied according to ethnological criteria [10].

4 . A technique designed to ensure the independence of the cultural units being compared. Galton's objection to Tylor's work, as is well k n o w n , is that no conclusion can be drawn from an enumeration of occurrences, unless it is established that no two cultural units observed are instances of a single prototype. Murdock and later Naroll pushed their research to great lengths in order to avoid such duplications, and to find empirical solutions to Galton's problem [11].

5. A sampling technique for the selection of cultural units. It is in fact necessary, in order to establish representative samples of all cultures, to divide the world into major regions, and then each region into areas, giving particular attention to the distribution of units of observation in these areas. Since the publication of Social Structure, sampling techniques have been improved and an increasing amount of statistical work carried out. However, no theoretically satisfying solution has yet been found to the problem of the delimitation and stratification of cultures, so that the samples drawn from the universe of cultures cannot be constructed by means of an aleatory procedure, but only by means of reasoned choices [12].

TYPES OF RESULTS

The main results achieved through the use of these techniques take several forms, each of them affording material for an application of data-processing. 1. O n e type of result shows h o w the cultural characteristics observed in

a sample are distributed, by region and area. For example, one 'output' that can be read right off and is very easily obtained by sorting reveals that m o n o g a m y is characteristic of 24 per cent of the world's societies, polyandry of 1 per cent, polygyny of 75 per cent, and that general polygyny is particularly prevalent in Africa, m o n o g a m y in the Mediterranean countries, limited polygyny in the Insular Pacific, and sororal polygyny in North America (Table 1).

2. A second type of print-out that m a y be obtained, also by sorting, in immediately readable form, throws light upon the extent of association existing between cultural characteristics. For example, the hypothesis

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T A B L E 1. Regional variations in the incidence of plural marriages

F o r m of Circum- East Insular North South marriage Mediterranean Eurasia Pacific America America

M o n o g a m y Polyandry Limited polygyny General polygyny

8 0

16(l)i 92(9)

43 0

17 17

34 3

36 21(4)

23 1

43(5) 29(12)

19 0

40(9) 50(31)

12 0

32(7) 21(9)

135 4

184 231

1. The figures in parentheses refer to sororal polygyny

Source: G . P. Murdock, 'World Ethnographic Sample', A m . Anthrop., Vol. 59, N o . 4, 1957.

formulated by Schneider that there is a link between preferential marriage and descent is borne out, with certain fine distinctions, by Table 2. F r o m this it can be seen that cross-cousin marriage with matrilateral preference is strongly linked to patrilineal descent, whereas the reverse case—cross-cousin marriage with patrilateral preference and matrilineal descent—is of less-pronounced incidence. In the technique developed by Murdock, each descriptive variable is treated as a nominal column, each column comprises a certain number—from five to fourteen—of positions, and each position is, as a rule, conventional. The exhaustive analysis of a data matrix such as the World Ethnographic Sample, which comprises 30 variables and 565 units of observation,

T A B L E 2. The relationship of preferential marriage to descent

Rules governing Matrilineal Double Patrilineal Bilateral cousin marriage descent descent descent descent

Preferential marriage with a parallel cousin

Cross-cousin marriage with patri­lateral preference

Cross-cousin marriage with matri-lateral preference

Symmetrical cross-cousin marriage Marriage permitted with any first

cousin Marriage not approved with any

first cousin N o data available on cousin mar­

riage

TOTAL

Source: G . P. Murdock, 'World Ethnographic Sample', A m . Anthrop., Vol. 59, N o . 4, 1957.

0

8

7 21

2

33

13

84

0

5

5 4

0

14

1

29

12

2

34 45

13

109

32

247

0

1

3 18

30

121

31

204

12

16

49 88

45

277

77

564

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therefore entails the systematic retracing, position by position, of the cor­relations between variables. O n e of the first major applications of data-processing to ethnography was the mechanized construction by Coult and Habenstein of a system of tables whereby the validity of the links existing between positions of variables m a y be determined [13].

4. In the World Ethnographic Sample, Murdock limited the number of descriptive variables presenting items of cultural information to fifteen pairs. The question immediately arose whether these thirty variables could not be regrouped. This resulted in a series of operations, some of which led to brilliant applications of data-processing, designed to elicit the factors underlying the variables and to classify them in relation to one another [14].

5. Lastly, the data matrices evolved by techniques modelled upon Murdock's gave rise to classic manipulations and, more especially, to the application of hierarchical analyses. In this case, the automation of procedures was direct, being achieved simply by the adaptation of the programmes developed in social psychology to the processing of ethnological problems [15].

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

The scope and the limits of results such as those mentioned above must be assessed in the light of the most recent developments, which bear upon problems of sampling, coding and the construction of variables.

Since the publication of Social Structure, Murdock has worked conti­nuously on his sample. The limitation of computing techniques, which made a task such as that of interpreting the World Ethnographic Sample so very laborious, is no longer an obstacle to the manipulation of more complex samples, involving a greater number of variables. In Ethnology, Murdock gradually builds up the Ethnographic Atlas, takes up again the problem of the definition of cultural areas, and finally proposes a standard sample for cross-cultural surveys comprising 862 cultures characterized by 89 des­criptive variables and suited to all automatic processing techniques. The systematic comparison of the results achieved with seven different samples shows, moreover, that divergences are admissible once a certain magnitude is reached [16].

The automated processing of ethnographic data for purposes of cross-cultural surveys is not, therefore, substantially limited by the inevitable peculiarities of the structure of the samples.

The limitations due to the coding technique are, on the other hand, more disturbing. F r o m the World Ethnographic Sample to the Ethnographic Summary , there has of course been a refinement of the characterization of ethnographic material. The problem of coding nevertheless remains. W h e n a society is characterized as monogamous , polyandrous or polygamous, what term of reference is, in fact, being taken? If it be indigenous practice, such as m a y be deduced from marriage rates recorded, what value is to be attached to such percentages as 20, or 5? Is this the indigenous norm? But

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in h o w m a n y societies, it m a y be asked, is there a single norm? W h a t criteria, then, can be used in deciding upon the attribution of a characteristic? In this matter, no help can be expected from data-processing, the quality of whose results is governed essentially by that of the data fed into the system [17].

Lastly, the most complex uses m a d e of the data matrices elaborated on the basis of the World Ethnographic Sample, the Ethnographic S u m m a r y or the Standard World Ethnographic Sample are governed by the descriptive categories employed. The cultural characteristics constituted by these cat­egories do not, however, have the same weighting or the same functions in all cultures; clearly, the relevance of knowledge of plant species and social stratification varies according to whether the unit of observation is an atoll in the Pacific or a village in India, an African tribe or fourth-century Athens. O n e cannot help wondering, therefore, whether the very advances m a d e in data-processing, which allow of a systematic analysis of the data matrices, are not bound to lead to the manifestation of meaninglessness, unless they incite to a radical revision of the directions taken by cross-cultural studies [18].

Applications to the study of the structure and functioning of systems

Though very different in their aims, applications of data-processing to the study of the structure and functioning of systems are beginning to gain ground in ethnology, particularly under the impulse of the theory of kin­ship [19]. O n e of the most thoroughly researched but also the most intractable of the problems entailed by this theory is to determine h o w far marriage rates recorded between kin of various degrees are affected by such variables as the number of persons making up the population concerned, family composition and the rules of marital residence [20]. Or , to apply the question to the case that has given rise to the most elaborate applications, do data collected by empirical means corroborate the hypothesis that preferential marriage with the patrilateral parallel cousin (FBD) is only an epiphenomenon in relation to a general trend towards kin-group endogamy [21]? Cannot this very preference be explained in part as the epiphenomenal consequence of territorial endogamy [22]? This, at any rate, is what J. P . Gilbert and E . A . H a m m e l set out to demonstrate in an important article published in the American Anthropologist [23].

A SIMULATION M O D E L OF PATRILATERAL PARALLEL COUSIN MARRIAGE

The authors first construct a simulation model and a programme ( A H A B V ) to operate it. The hypothetical population they posit for this purpose has the following characteristics:

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1. The population is split up into four, six or eight groups. 2. The total population of individuals under the age of 40 in all groups

together is specified as 120, 240 or 360. 3. Residence is patrivirilocal. 4. Marriage with male Ego's mother, daughter, sister, aunt or niece is

prohibited. 5. The marriage preference, specified as the probability of making a group-

endogamous marriage, varies from 0 to 1. 6. Approximately three children are born to each married couple, on the

average, but the number of children born to a particular w o m a n varies inversely with her age at marriage.

7. Approximately one-third of the children 'born' do not 'survive' to reproduce.

8. The life-span of individuals is divided as follows: from birth to age 15 individuals are ineligible for marriage; from age 15-30 they are eligible; from marriage to that point when the wife's age is 40 they reproduce.

9. The distribution of age differences between a male Ego and his female first cousins is approximately normal, with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 14 years.

10. Age-matching procedures in the selection of wives specify that spouses should be relatively close in age.

11. N o one 'dies' in the simulation; death rates are simulated by the failure to marry and participate in reproduction.

The core of the programme, written in B - A L G O L and executed on the I B M 7090, is a population list of 10,000 words, each of which describes an individual. The sub-programmes are relatively independent and can, therefore, be altered. For example, it is possible to vary certain characteristics of the model's population, such as the rules of residence, the birth rates and the conditions governing the population's stability. In addition to a certain number of intermediary results, print-outs have given, for each level of probability of endogamous marriage (0 to 1 in steps of 0.1) and for a total of 1,000 marriages in steps of 100 at each level, the number of marriages with the patrilateral parallel cousin (FBD), the patrilateral cross-cousin (FZD), the matrilateral cross-cousin (MBD) and the matrilateral parallel cousin (MZD), with the bilateral cross-cousin, the bilateral parallel cousin, with all patrilateral cousins, with all matrilateral cousins and the total of all first-cousin marriages. It is thus possible to measure the effects, on a rate, of the variations made in the model's population.

A LOGICO-MATHEMATICAL M O D E L OF PATRILATERAL PARALLEL COUSIN MARRIAGE

The values obtained through the operation of the simulation model can, however, be compared with those obtained in respect of the various types of marriage, through the construction of a logico-mathematical model :

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The processing of ethnographic data

If Pr means the probability of making a particular kind of marriage; If p means the probability of making an endogamous marriage; If Pr (FBD/in) means the probability of Ego's marrying FBD, given that

Ego marries into his o w n village; Then the probability that Ego will marry FBD is defined as the probability

that he will marry in his o w n village times the probability that he will pick FBD as a spouse, given that he does marry in his o w n village plus the probability that he will marry outside his o w n village times the probability that he will pick FBD as a spouse, given that he does marry outside his o w n village:

Pr FBD = Pr { Ego marries in } Pr { Ego marries FBD | Ego marries in } + Pr {Ego marries out } Pr { Ego marries FBD | Ego marries out } = p(Pr {FBD | in }) + (1 — p) (Pr {FBD | out})

Since, under conditions of patrivirilocality, FBD is always in Ego's o w n village, the last term of the equation is zero and the entire product to the right of the plus sign can be dropped. W e need be concerned, therefore, only with:

p(Pr {FBD | in})

Since the value of p is specified for each case, w e need further concern our­selves with only the segment:

Pr {FBD | in}

This term is complex and depends on the expectation that (a) Ego has a father, (b) Ego's father has a brother, (c) Ego's FB is married, (d) Ego's married FB has children, (e) these children include some number of daughters so that FBD exists, and (f) Ego marries FBD, given that he marries in his o w n village. Since all of Ego's possible fathers-in-law have an equal chance of having at least one daughter, the key to the problem is the estimation of the proportion of such possible fathers-in-law w h o are brothers of Ego's o w n father. Since the number of children per family is skewed, Ego's father is more likely to come from a relatively large family than from a relatively small one. W e must therefore calculate the expected number of father's siblings and determine of these the number that will be married males and thus possible fathers-in-law. These numbers are calculated on the assumption that the number of children per family is distributed according to a Poisson distribution with a mean of three.

Further, if the total number of married couples (and thus of married m e n ) in the village with children is R, the probability that Ego marries the daughter of one particular couple is l/R. But, since Ego is not permitted to marry his sister, this probability is l/(R — 1). In order to estimate the probability of marriage with FBD it is, therefore, necessary to multiply this ratio by the expected number of FBs. Since under the conditions of the model that number is one, the probability of marriage with FBD (the ratio of the number of FBs to the number of possible fathers-in-law) is simply \j{R — 1).

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Jean Cuisenier

In the conditions of real life, however, other difficulties intervene. Ego's FBs are not all of the same age. A symptom of this is to be noted in the standard deviation of age differences between Ego and his cousins, which in the simu­lation model was recorded as 14, while that between Ego and his spouse was only about 6. Examination of the results of the simulation indicates that the appropriate correction factor is about 0.4, so that the probability of marriage with FBD, given that Ego marries in his o w n village, is best specified as:

0.4 | — - — | = — ! — = Pr (FBD I in} \R — \J R — Í x ' '

This probability must, of course, be multiplied by the probability that Ego will in fact make an endogamous marriage (jp), so that the probability of marrying FBD under the conditions of the model is:

OAp Pr {FBD} =

CR-1)

The probabilities of marriage with the three other kinds of first cousin are obtained in the same way, if by somewhat more complex calculations :

+ (1 -PY

-PH l)

Pr{MZD}- °Ap

CR-1)

Pr {FZD} = 0.4 I ^ L

Pr {MBD\ = 0.4 Í P% + {1~P x s \R — \ R(V —

P* + il=z>_al + M f c i ) Upix-p) + q - ^ - t f V— 1 J R(V— 1) [ (V— 1)

where V denotes the number of villages. A detailed comparison of the results obtained by the simulation model

and those obtained by the logico-mathematical model reveals few differences. This is remarkable, given that the simulation model is demographically far more realistic, though the estimates given by the simulation model are, on the whole, lower than those of the logico-mathematical model.

SIMULATION M O D E L , MATHEMATICAL M O D E L A N D OBSERVED DISTRIBUTIONS

H o w far do these two models explain observed distributions? Observed rates of FBD marriage in the Near East average about 9-12 per cent (Ayoub, 1959). Those estimated by the models, with the parameters w e have indicated, are only 4-5 per cent. H o w is this discrepancy to be interpreted?

The first interpretation is that kinship-phrased preferences for endogamy, and even for endogamy within the agnatic group or specifically with FBD, are operative.

The second is that the values of R were too high, either because the area from which Ego chooses a wife might have finer subdivisions, or because

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The processing of ethnographic data

limitations such as wealth and social standing, quarrels or friendship, m a y operate to reduce R and concentrate kinsmen in R, and thus increase the rate of FBD marriage. The lack of relevant ethnographic data relating to the Near East, however, precludes any conclusion. The bearing of the appli­cation is here limited not by the theoretical trend determining the choice of the categories of apprehension, but rather by the adaptation of the data to the intricacy of the problem set.

Three applications of computerization to the processing of ethnographic data have been singled out for consideration above, namely: management and inventorying of collections; identification of patterns in associations of cultural characteristics; analysis of the structure and functioning of systems [24]. Other examples might be adduced, showing h o w a corpus of stories or proverbs is processed, h o w roles are analysed, h o w genealogies are reconstructed [25]. All would bear witness to the fact that, while appli­cations of data processing are as yet rare, the reason for this lies less in the unsuitability of the procedures than in the inappropriateness of the data. Only progress on the theoretical side can bring about a demand for carefully collected data. In ethnology, the advancement of applications depends neither on the development of hardware nor on that of software, but on an improve­ment in the standards to be met by formulations of theory.

[Translated from French]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

1. G A R D I N , J.-C. Methods for the descriptive analysis of archeological material. Am. Archeol, vol. 32, no. 1, 1967.

2. G A R D I N , J . - C (ed.). Archéologie et calculateurs. Compte rendu du Colloque international du CNRS sur 'L'emploi des calculateurs en archéologie: problèmes sémiologiques et mathé­matiques', 7-12 avril 1969. Marseille, C N R S , 1970.

3. B U R T O N , V . Computers confront the curator, Bull. Metropolitan Mus. Art, 1967, p. 20-3. C H E N H A L L , R . G . The analysis of museum systems. Metropolitan Museum conference on computers and their potential applications in museums. 1968. C R O S , R . G ; G A R D I N , J . - G ; L E V Y , F . L'automatisation des recherches documentaires: un modèle général: le SYNTOL. Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1964. E L L I N , E . Museums and the computer: an appraisal of new potentials. Computers and the humanities, vol. 4, no. 1, 1969, p. 25-30. R I C C I A R D E L L I , A . A pilot study for inventorying ethnological collections. University of Oklahoma Research Institute, 1967.

4. CUISENIER, J. Feasibility of using a data-processing system in the Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires, Paris. Museum, vol. 23, no. 1, 1970/71.

5. S P E N C E R , H . Descriptive sociology. London, 1873-1934 6. T Y L O R , E . B . O n a method of investigating the development of institutions. / . R. Anthrop.

Inst., vol. 18, 1889, p. 245-69. 7. M U R D O C K , G . P . Correlations of matrilineal and patrilineal institutions. In: Studies

in the science of society (ed. G . P . Murdock), p . 445-70. 1937. 8. M U R D O C K , G . P . et al. Outline of cultural materials. N e w Haven, Conn. , 1937 (numerous

successive editions). . Ethnographic atlas. Ethnology, vol. 1—, 1962—•.

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9. M U R D O C K , G . P. Social structure. N e w York, 1949. . World ethnographie sample. A m . Anthrop., vol. 59, no. 4, 1957, p. 664-87.

10. N A R O L L , R . O n ethnie unit classification. Cur. Anthrop., vol. 5, no. 4,1964, p. 283-312. 11. N A R O L L , R . T W O solutions to Galton's problem. Phil. Sei., vol. 28, 1961, p. 15-39.

. A fifth solution to Galton's problem. A m . Anthrop., vol. 66, 1964, p. 863-7. N A R O L L , R . ; D ' A N D R A D E , R . G . T W O further solutions to Galton's problem. A m . Anthrop., vol. 65, 1963, p. 1053-67.

12. M U R D O C K , G . P. Ethnographic atlas: a summary. Ethnology, vol. 6, no. 2, 1967. 13. C O U L T , A . D . ; H A B E N S T E I N , R . W . Cross-tabulations of Murdock's World Ethnographic

Sample. Columbia, M o . , University of Missouri Press, 1965. 14. S A W Y E R , J.; L E V T N E , R . A . Cultural dimensions: a factor analysis of the World Ethno­

graphic Sample. A m . Anthrop., vol. 68, no. 3, 1966, p. 708-31. 15. G R A V E S , T . ; G R A V E S , M . ; K O B R I N , M . Historical inferences from Guttman scales:

the return of age-area magic? Cur. Anthrop., vol. 10, no. 4, 1969, p. 317-38. 16. C H A N E Y , R . ; R E V I L L A , R . R . Sampling methods and interpretation of correlation:

a comparative analysis of seven cross-cultural samples. A m . Anthrop., vol. 71, 1969, p. 597-633.

17. I Z A R D , F . Unités de comparaison et échantillonnage des cultures. (Paper delivered to the Symposium on Cross-cultural Tools in Comparative Social Anthropology organized by the International Social Science Council and the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale of the Collège de France and of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 19-22 September 1966; mimeo.)

18. K.ÖBBEN, A . W h y exceptions? The logic of cross-cultural comparisons. Cur. Anthrop., vol. 8, 1967, p. 3-34. M I G U E L E Z , R . L'explication en ethnologie. Inf. Sei. soc, vol. 8, no. 3, 1969, p. 27-58.

19. L É V I - S T R A U S S , C . The future of kinship studies, Proc. R. Anthrop. Inst. Great Britain and Ireland 1965, 1966, p. 13-23. (The Huxley Memorial Lecture, 1965.)

20. L É V I - S T R A U S S , C . Social structure. In: Structural anthropology. N e w York, 1963. 21. M U R P H Y , R . F . ; K A S D A N , L . The structure of parallel cousin marriage. A m . Anthrop.,

vol. 61, no. 1, 1959, p. 17-29. C U I S E N I E R , J. Endogamie et exogamie dans le mariage arabe. L'Homme, vol. 2, no. 2, 1962, p. 80-105. R A N D O L P H , R . R . ; C O U L T , A . D . A computer analysis of Bedouin marriages. (Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, 1963; mimeo . )

22. A Y O U B , M . Parallel cousin marriage and endogamy: a study in sociometry. S.west. J. Anthrop., vol. 15, 1959, p. 266-75.

23. G I L B E R T , J. P . ; H A M M E L , E . A . Computer simulation and analysis of problems in kinship and social structure. A m . Anthrop., vol. 68, no. 1, 1966, p . 71-93.

24. C U I S E N I E R , J. L'utilisation des calculatrices électroniques dans l'étude des systèmes de parenté. Calcul et formalisation dans les sciences de l'homme, p. 31-46. Paris, C N R S , 1968.

25. C U I S E N I E R , J.; S E G A L E N , M . ; V m v n x E , M . de. Pour l'étude de la parenté dans les sociétés européennes: le programme d'ordinateur A R C H I V . L'Homme, vol. 10, no. 3, 1970, p. 27-74.

From 1954 to 1959 Jean Cuisenier was professor of philosophy at the Institut des Hautes Études (Tunis), afterwards joining the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, where he was successively attaché, chargé and maître de recherche. Since 1968 he has been the director of the Centre d'Ethnologie Française (associate laboratory of the CNRS) and of the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires. He is author of numerous articles which have appeared in, inter alia, L a Revue Française de Sociologie, L ' H o m m e , Social Science Information, and also of two books, L'Ansariin, Contribution à la Sociologie du Développement (1960) and Économie

188 et Parenté (1971).

Jean-Claude Gardin Archaeology and computers: new perspectives

The connexion between archaeology and computers is no longer a noveity. Only a few years ago people used to either praise to the skies or vehemently deplore—depending on their taste—the linking of a branch of knowledge generally regarded as being eminently rooted in tradition with the most innovatory of contemporary techniques; but today the subject is outworn, and w e must look beyond such commonplaces to find the true nature of the revolution, if such it be, constituted by the computerization of archaeological techniques.

Statistical applications

T o m a n y research workers w h o k n o w little of the subject, the idea of calcu­lating electronically immediately suggests calculation in the most elementary school-room sense. 'Computers are counting machines', which work more rapidly and reliably than the h u m a n brain. But does archaeology need to count, and if so what, w h y and h o w ?

Opinions differ as to h o w each of these questions should be answered. Albert C . Spaulding, one of the keenest promoters of statistical methods in archaeology, considers that 'archaeologists typically direct their attention to sets or groups of artifacts rather than to single objects, a notable contrast to the attitude of students of the humanities' (1960, p. 61). Most prehistorians would probably concur: the objects of their study, such as chipped stones or potsherds, are found in thousands or tens of thousands, sometimes even in a single field, and thus it is convenient to use statistical measurements in describing the materials taken from a given layer, site or 'culture'. In such cases it is not the presence or absence of a particular type of object or of a distinctive c o m m o n feature (e.g. method of production, material employed, shape) which is used for purposes of differentiation, but rather the relative frequency of the occurrence of such types or features, or other more refined measurements calculated from frequencies, such as averages, variances, x2 and so on. The study by Spaulding quoted above and in general the collective work from which it is taken (Heizer and Cook , 1960), together

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with the extensive bibliography on the subject, provide a still up-to-date source of references for these standard applications of statistics to archaeology; in the Russian language the collection of texts edited by Kolchin (1965) also provides useful reference material (in particular the studies by K a m e -netskij, Kovalevskaja, Krug, Marshak and Sher).

O n e reason w h y w e pass briefly over these methods, merely referring the reader to reference works which m a y appear old-fashioned, is that such methods, as used by prehistorians, differ hardly at all from those which have been employed for m a n y years by psychologists and sociologists: methods which are described in several excellent textbooks in French and English for use by students and research workers in the h u m a n sciencesr~Snother reason is that the use of statistical tools is not basically or even historically linked to the computerization of archaeology: the dates of m a n y of the studies contained in the works quoted above show this to be so. Computer science, however, has acted as an accelerator in so far as the use of electronic machines has m a d e it possible to carry out calculations—sometimes impressive ones—which the most patient or ambitious of archaeologists in the past would not have had the courage to perform 'by hand'. Cowgill (1967a, 19676) and American information reviews such as those of Chenhall (ed. 1965—) and Raben (ed. 1966—) contain useful accounts, critical or otherwise, of the main statistical applications of computer science to archaeology in the last decade.

The development of these applications, however, has highlighted a theoretical problem which archaeologists, whether statisticians or not, tend to overlook: that of sampling. T w o general questions arise: First, do the nature and extent of the 'populations' studied (the finds from a particular archaeological dig or area, chronological sequences, etc.) justify the use of a particular statistical tool? Second, what grounds are there for supposing that these populations are representative samples for the study of the abstract entities w e have in mind (types, assemblages, cultures, etc.)?

Obviously it is not possible to answer these questions within the limited scope of this brief article (see for example: Binford, 1964; Rootenberg, 1964; Tugby, 1965; Cowgill, 1970). It should, however, be stressed that both of them, particularly the second, are of prime importance in relation to the bases on which archaeological theory is constructed, irrespective of any reference to statistics or computer science. The question whether methods of calculation are 'justified' and whether the results are 'representative' is in fact a question as to the validity, from the point of view of scientific knowledge, of one approach a m o n g others. This desire to validate is not, or at least should not be, limited to statistical findings; this is what w e n o w seek to prove in connexion with other applications of computer science to archaeology.

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Automatic classification

In the aforementioned work, Spaulding writes that archaeologists study sets or groups of objects rather than single objects: 'a notable contrast to the attitude of students of the humanities.' This assumed contrast, however, is only valid if we postulate a distinction between archaeology and the h u m a n ­ities whereby, for example, the former would be assimilated to prehistory—as at the beginning of the previous section of this article—while the humanities would cover research fields such as the history of art and the study of classical antiquities. This traditional type of distinction no longer holds good, and it is argued more accurately that archaeologists tend to follow the same general procedure whatever they are studying, be it pottery, sculpture, neolithic or G r e c o - R o m a n bas-reliefs, everyday objects or works of art (if in fact a work of art can be precisely defined).

It is certainly difficult to describe briefly the procedure used in all these cases. K . C . Chang, however, has succeeded in producing what w e consider to be a very sound definition: 'If I were permitted to focus upon a single issue and treat it as the focal point of the complex and tricky business of archaeological theory and its developmental course, I should single out the concept and operation of classification'' (1967, p. 4, m y italics). While it is true that not all archaeologists are accountants, still less statisticians, they nevertheless classify the materials they study in one w a y or another, whether single objects or collections of hundreds or thousands of objects. The statistical tools referred to earlier are used in the first place, directly or indirectly, to classify; for example, 'types' are defined on the basis of correlated attributes such as distinctive features, properties or characteristics, 'assemblages' are defined as special sets of types, 'cultures' as recurring families of assemblages, and so on (Clarke, 1968). But the archaeologist also classifies when , without performing any actual calculation, he makes statements of the following kind, so current in specialized literature that they appear to be platitudes: 'x is related to m(n, o, p , . . ) ' , 'the parallels for x are m(n, o . . . ) ' or again 'compare x to m(n . . . ) ' , etc. Each series so constituted is a category in the normal sense of the word, that is to say a set of elements (w, «), (m, n, ó), (m, n, o, p), etc., based on one or more properties which they have in c o m m o n . Such properties m a y be more or less clearly defined (and in fact the definition is often faulty), and the sets themselves m a y be described erratically (sometimes in a determinist or 'monothetic' way , sometimes in a statistical or 'polythetic' w a y : cf. Sokal and Sneath, 1963, p. 13-15); but the above statements of the problem are nevertheless a form of classification, and can even be applied to a collection of only two objects, which m a y or m a y not be 'associated'.

The procedure in question can be expressed formally as follows: take a 'data matrix' (Fig. 1) where the rows show the monuments 1 or archaeological

1. The word 'monuments' is used here in the broad sense often found in archaeology, to mean any material vestige of a vanished h u m a n community (tools, vessels, ornaments, texts, objects of art, etc.).

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objects studied and the columns, the attributes or the properties used either to describe these monuments or, more generally, in speaking about them (those two types of description are unfortunately not equivalent : see Borillo, 1970); a proposition such as 'x is related to m ' means that in the set of m o n u ­ments considered (m, n . . .) the archaeologist, using a supposedly finite range of properties (A, B . . . Z ) , has discerned more marked analogies between x and m than between x and any other m o n u m e n t in the set—the analogy being defined in this case in terms which are presumed to be verifiable, hence quantifiable, involving a certain enumeration of c o m m o n or different properties for each pair {x, ni), (x, «), etc.1

The phrase in italics is essential to our argument : if the archaeologist's classifications can be submitted to electronic calculation, and therefore to ordinary computation, w e must assume that they are not arbitrary, but follow certain rules, even where they appear to be most intuitive and to defy any attempt to give them a formal structure. In assuming the existence of a 'verifiable' statement of analogies and differences in a data matrix, all w e are doing is to postulate the presence of such rules in the manipulation of the comparative method in archaeology. The 'quantifiability' of a classification is merely one way of formulating the same hypothesis.

W e shall not concern ourselves here with the outdated discussions still

F I G . 1. Matrix of archaeological data (1 or 0 mean that the monument under consideration (row) has (1) or has not (0) a given property (column)).

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provoked by the principle of the marriage—considered by some to be dis­reputable, and by others to be simply sterile—between the methods of archaeol­ogical research and numerical or computer techniques. W e merely note that the marriage in question was discreetly brought about more than ten years ago,1 and that it is far from showing signs of strain. The use of mathematical methods, including computers, to construct or reconstruct archaeological classifications is not exceptional nowadays, and already scores of articles could be quoted on the subject (see the most recent, such as those of Cowgill, 1968; Fernandez de la Vega, 1968; Hodson, 1970). Moreover, the archaeo­logist's interest in these methods is only one aspect of the success they have had over the last ten years in all branches of knowledge where taxonomy plays an equally important part, for example biology, zoology and botany; the term 'numerical taxonomy' used to describe them is instructive (see the bibliography in the n o w standard work of Sokal and Sneath, 1963, with this title; as also the references in the review Taxometrics (ed. Hill, 1962—); and in recent surveys such as those by Lerman, 1970; Millier and Tomassone, 1970, etc.).

The quality of these studies, which are of a general nature and of recent date, is such that w e need not go into the subject again; in any case, w e consider it preferable, in this article, to stress the limitations of automatic classification methods, or rather the basic problems raised by their use in archaeology.

The first of these problems is implicit in the construction of the data matrix at the outset of the calculation (Fig. 1): h o w are the 'properties' of the monuments under consideration to be chosen, described and arranged? The question is of the greatest importance, but it is treated with such scant attention, if not entirely ignored, in the writings of archaeologists that it deserves a monograph to itself. It is obvious that classifications or typologies obtained by any process, whether empirical or formalized, are first and foremost the product of an initial choice as to h o w to 'view' the monuments , by means of a formulation chosen from an infinite number of possible formula­tions, the word 'infinite' being in this case only barely metaphorical. In other words, the initial description of the monuments , i.e. their arrangement according to a list of properties (Fig. 1), obviously governs the results of the subsequent classification, whatever the method employed. It m a y seem extra­ordinary that this truism still goes unrecognized, or at least that archaeologists are only beginning to realize its implications for the validity of their systems. Yet a glance at archaeological works will convince any reader that it is so; in such works monuments are referred to in the most 'natural' w a y ; that is, they are described, and subsequently compared, classified, and sorted into 'types' in terms taken from everyday language, more or less enriched with

1. That is to say in 1959, when, for the first time as far as w e are aware, Peter Ihm used the Euratom I B M 650 computer at Ispra (Italy) to apply an automatic classification algorithm devised by himself to a collection of Bronze Age Eurasian axes supplied by V . Elisseeff (see Comptes Rendus du Séminaire sur les Modèles Mathématiques dans les Sciences Sociales, 1960-1961, Part III (third quarter), p. 28-33, Paris, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sec­tion VI, 1961 ; mimeo.) .

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specialized designations, and these designations themselves (for example, 'modulions', 'tetraskelions', 'bifid handle') reflect choices as to the manner of viewing which are apparently so m u c h regarded as 'natural' that they are nowhere explained or justified. Yet there is nothing less natural than the language of science; the experimental processes which alone m a k e it possible to construct this language on a firm foundation generally take us far from the a priori attitude of immediate perception. The reader will appreciate w h y w e do not dwell at greater length on such obvious truths, which have been recently dealt with frequently in archaeological literature itself (for example : Binford and Binford, 1968, p. 23-5; Borillo, 1970a, 19706; Soudsky, 1970). W e shall merely stress that the use of computation, if not of computers, has so far only highlighted a neglected problem of methodology, which lies at the root of all classifications in archaeology.

This is also true of a second problem, linked more directly to automatic classification procedures, namely the objectivation of the concept of 'resem­blance' involved in empirical statements of the kind quoted above ('x is related to m \ 'the parallels for x and m . . . ', etc.). It is easy to see that categories or groups of any kind ('q' types—see footnote 1, page 192) cannot be formally constituted in a data matrix (Fig. 1) unless these vague propositions can be replaced by expressions that can be quantified, i.e. by 'measurements'—in the broadest sense of the term, however. If the properties concerned are numbers, the expression of neighbourhoods and the calculation of groups are accomplished by means of well-known techniques which are n o w c o m ­monly computerized; for example, factorial analysis (for applications to archaeology see, for example: Freeman and Brown, 1964; Freeman, 1966; Binford and Binford, 1966; Cowgill, 1967c, 1968e; Hill, 1968). However, contrary to the belief still entertained by a number of archaeologists, the measurement of similarity does not imply that properties are metrical : on the contrary, in most of the works cited at the beginning of this section, the objects studied are described by means of binary vectors, i.e. by expressions similar to those in Figure 1, in which the presence or absence of qualitative features of various kinds is noted. There are therefore a number of ways of measuring similarities or 'distances' in the Boolean matrix obtained; the reader interested in such techniques will find in the above-mentioned works a host of examples of different indices and their more or less successful use in classification research conducted with or without computers. W h a t is important for our purpose is neither the number nor even the relative success of such investigations, assessed in relation to the archaeologist's empirical knowledge, but rather the fact, which is too often ignored, that this empirical assessment of results is in the last analysis the only proper test of the quality of a formal classification procedure and the measurements on which it is based (the description of the object being, as it were, the first of these measure­ments, before the calculation of distances or similarities).

W e thus c o m e to a third truism to which w e consider attention should be drawn in connexion with automatic classification: neither the use of a mathematical apparatus nor—even less—that of a computer confers on the

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results any greater a priori value for a general understanding of the cultural facts studied than the value of the results of empirical knowledge. It is one thing to objectivate the operations underlying description and classification, and it is certainly a good thing to do, but it is quite another to conclude that the procedures arrived at are sound because they are formally expressed or merely explicit. It can and does happen that types defined intuitively by the archaeologist within a collection of given objects prove to be more meaningful and fruitful than the clusters or other groups calculated by computation from the same data. Here H o d s o n (1970, p. 217) gives a sensible warning: 'It would seem quite premature to claim that any single method of cluster analysis had yet really proved itself as a completely satisfactory archaeological tool. It would also be unwise to play d o w n the difficulties facing any objective attempt at archaeological taxonomy whether by numerical or any other means. ' Still more, the very hope of one day discovering a 'unique' method of calculation which would invariably produce 'satisfactory' results is in our opinion vain, in view of the legitimate variety of the archaeologist's aims, and consequently of the methods he adopts w h e n arranging the vestiges of the past in countless ways, each of which has its o w n element of historical or ethnographical significance. M o r e than twenty years ago an eminent American archaeologist, S. O . Brew, was advocating a multiplicity of classifications for a single collection (quoted in Cowgill, 19676, p. 49); his view is happily gaining ground, notwithstanding resistance from the 'typologists' most opposed to relativism, and it should obviously be applied to both the processes of classi­fication, whether formal or otherwise, and its products.

A special case: seriation

It has, however, been considered possible to avoid some of the difficulties of classification by giving up the search for groups in the data matrix (Fig. 1) and instead showing it in the form of a scalogram in which the order of the objects and their properties (rows and columns) is altered, so as to produce a more or less diagonal presentation of the kind shown in Figure 2. Similar objects are thus paired, there being no need to decide on the number of cate­gories they constitute; and the archaeologist is at liberty to array them as he sees fit, with horizontal gaps based on internal and/or external criteria of his o w n choosing.

Seriation, thus defined, is a useful tool for studying monuments where there are reasons for thinking that they can be arrayed in one dimension only, i.e. graphically, along a single axis. The order obtained is then interpreted chronologically (development) or geographically (distribution). In France, V . Elisseeff (1968, 1970) has devised an ingenious method for constructing such scalograms by hand,1 and he apparently uses them successfully in verifying

1. At least in cases where the number of objects does not exceed a score; a programme has just been drawn up by W . Fernandez de la Vega for computer applications of the same procedure to larger collections (available at the Centre d'Analyse Documentaire pour l'Archéologie, C N R S , 31 Chemin Joseph-Aiguier, 13 Marseille-9e).

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^ ~ ^ ^ ^ Properties

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F I G . 2. Example of sedation.

or estimating more precisely the chronology of Chinese bronzes, etc. Similarly M . S. Lagrange (1970) notes a novel type of seriation algorithm, devised by F. Tonnelier, which he has used to elucidate the similarities and differences observed by a specialist in the layout of Cistercian abbeys; and there are m a n y other examples. Very early on, English-language publications referred to similar methods (Brainerd, 1951; Robinson, 1951; Tugby, 1958; Clarke, 1962) which are n o w being used in computers so that can they be applied to larger collections (Ascher, 1963; Kuzara et al., 1966; Hole and S h a w , 1967).

Yet whether it is automatic or not, seriation raises the same kind of problems as the classification procedures referred to above: 1. Arrays in a matrix reduced to diagonal form consist of both the objects

and their properties or, to put it in another way , the objects in as far as they are individual aggregates of properties; rationalization, from the outset, of the descriptive approach chosen is therefore as important as the form subsequently given to the seriation.

2. In addition, while it is true that seriation stops short of classification proper, yet it, too, requires objectivation of the concept of similarity, even when methods are used in which a similarity matrix is not previously worked out.

3. Here also there are no grounds for thinking that there is one correct measure­ment for all cases, just as there is no one optimal seriation method which would produce, for all data matrices, the most meaningful and useful diagonal form for the purposes of historical or ethnological interpretation. If to this w e add the limitations inherent in the very principle of seriation—

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such as the hypothesis regarding the homogeneity of the data, its linear presentation in space and time, the independence of geographical spread from development, or at least their possible dissociation (Clarke, 1968, p. 457-63)—it is understandable that further precautions have to be taken and that a distinction must be drawn between the algorithmic objectivity of this procedure and the scientific value of its results. W e shall come back to this point in the last section.

Documentary application

If w e consider that both numerical classification and seriation are too risky, on account of the still prevailing uncertainty as to the very basis of the pro­cedures proposed, could w e not at least use computers to sort archaeological data, without there being any danger of methodological error? There is no doubt that this is feasible: the first documentary applications of computer science to archaeology were m a d e long before the date when computer science got its n a m e (Institut Français d'Archéologie, Beirut, 1956; Gardin, 1960, 1962, etc.). O n the other hand, it is by no means certain that methodological problems would not arise, in view of the relatively modest resources available. Returning once more to the data matrix (Fig. 1) it is admittedly difficult to see what can be wrong with asking a machine to identify from a m o n g all the monuments m , n . . . whose description has been stored, the m o n u m e n t or monuments which have properties P, Q, R . . . a m o n g all the properties (A, B . . . Z ) included in the description. For this is the simple, everyday principle of automatic sorting, or data retrieval to give it its usual n a m e , whatever the data stored (archaeological, graphic, literary, physical, bibliographical, etc.) and whatever the machines used, from manual selectors or sorting machines of the most elementary kind to the most powerful computers. The process is so c o m m o n that w e need not describe it in detail, or list all the cases when it is k n o w n to have been used in archaeology. In any case, the interest of such a list—which the reader can draw up at any time from the reviews already quoted (Chenhall, ed. ; Raben, ed.)—would lie m u c h more in its brevity than in its contents: apart from computer operations whose main purpose is stat­istical calculation, in the broadest sense of the term (distribution, classification, seriation, etc.), there are probably n o w barely a dozen projects dealing spe­cifically and exclusively with documentary research as w e have just defined it. In our view, the reason for reluctance to undertake such projects lies neither in their novelty—this is proved by the references above—nor in the expenditure involved; the same sources show that the cost of a computer operation is n o w within the reach of a very large number of archaeological research teams. W h a t such projects call in question—so m u c h so that for the time being they have been considerably slowed down—is rather the actual status of the discipline and of centuries-old working habits that persist in it even today.

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In the first place, the status of the discipline is involved in that the cons­truction of a data bank 1 presupposes a certain degree of agreement a m o n g specialists as to the nature of the data: the choice of corpus, in the case of the 'monuments ' to be taken into account, and the choice of descriptive language, in the case of the 'properties' to be entered (Fig. 1). Such agreement has been reached internationally in very m a n y branches of the exact sciences and even in the social sciences (for examples, see the works quoted in footnote below), though archaeology seems not to favour it (see the concluding discussion in Gardin, 1970; on the principle of constructing the forerunners of data banks in archaeology, see: Gardin, 1955; Cowgill, 1967ft, p. 48-52).

Second, as regards working habits, they are often those of old fashioned scholars, working patiently to build up over the years a collection of countless pieces of information, w h o jealously keep all this material to themselves, like the notes and files in which it is entered, until such time as they publish it on their o w n account. It will be seen that nothing can be more contrary to the principle of a data bank, where the work of documentary research and analysis is generally anonymous, officially entrusted to institutions2 rather than private individuals, and the results are m a d e immediately available to the public, i.e. 'published', in computer files, even before they are printed.

Therefore, professional methods and habits will both have to be radically changed before computer science can be fully exploited so as to relieve archae­ologists of the endlessly repetitive drudgery of compilation which at present takes up most of their time. Obviously, change in this respect m a y be held up by the determined opposition of eminent scholars; on the other hand it is quite impossible that they should veto it for ever on account of what they claim is the 'special' nature of their science. Before twenty years are out w e shall see the rapid, large-scale proliferation of international banks of archaeological data similar to those already taking shape in certain countries for m u s e u m collections (Metropolitan M u s e u m of Art, 1968), or inventories of historical monuments (for example that produced by the French Ministère des Affaires Culturelles, 1970, p. 53-8).

1. This is the n a m e which has been given for some time n o w to the largest and most accessible computer files for both the social sciences (for example S. Rokkan (ed.), Data Archives for the Social Sciences, Paris and The Hague, Mouton , 1966) and the natural sciences (for example R . Cole (ed.), DataiInformation Availability, Washington, Thompson Book C o . , 1966, and publications by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology ( C O D A T A ) , the International Council of Scientific Unions, Munich).

2. These are data centres or information analysis centres set up for each discipline in accor­dance with international agreements: UNISIST-Study Report on the Feasibility of a World Science Information System by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Orga­nization and the International Council of Scientific Unions, final report by J . -C. Gardin, para­graph 4.3.4, Paris, Unesco, 1971.

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Simulation and validation

A s the techniques of computer simulation are described elsewhere in this issue (cf. the article by J.-P. G r é m y , p. 204 below), w e shall not go back over the principle on which it is based. The general procedure is the same for archaeology as for sociology, and it is not difficult to apply to the former the explanations given above for the latter. However, no information about any specific case has been published from which w e could observe the nature and use of simulation techniques in archaeology; and so far the reader can be referred only to prospective studies (for example, Doran, 1970a, 19706) or experiments on ecological models of social behaviour, which come within the province of cultural anthropology or ethnology rather than of archaeology proper (Flannery, 1968).

W e nevertheless consider it useful, in this article, to extend the field of simulation studies so that it includes not only all attempts to impose patterns on past cultures (cf. G r é m y ) but also, m o r e important still, the imposing of patterns for archaeological procedures themselves, considered as the phen­o m e n o n to be simulated, whatever the data concerned (physical, ecological, socio-cultural, etc.). In this broader sense, all the studies quoted in the para­graphs above are simulation studies. T h e substitution of the machine for m a n in a statistical, classificatory or documentary application m a y be looked on as a simulation by the machine of the w a y in which m a n reasons when count­ing, arranging or sorting monuments and their attributes.1 The heuristic value of simulation, which is stressed by G r é m y , then becomes obvious : it is the procedure which both necessitates and makes possible a fundamental elucidation of certain mechanisms of cognition which are perceived, both in archaeology and elsewhere, to have little basis in logic, though they are normally unnoticed and taken for granted. Thus the construction of semantic models for the purpose of revealing the differentiations actually employed in the language of archaeologists, not in abstract definitions but in practice, is an extremely effective w a y of bringing out the inability of that language to meet the most elementary requirements of scientific thought. The principles and methods employed are commonplace, although certain esoteric terms are used (componential analysis, semiological analysis, etc.: Gardin, 1965, 1967); but its recent applications to archaeology (Borillo, 1970a) and the history of art (Lagrange, 1970) strikingly reveal the distance which separates the best-established empirical classifications from a theoretical construction conforming to everyday rules of logic which esixted even before La Logique de Port-Royal was written.

O f course, the purpose of this attempt at analysis and objectivation is not to draw attention to the flaws in other people's thinking. It could also lead to systematic self-questioning, each individual attempting to state as

1. In this brief article we shall not draw any distinction between simulation in the strict sense of the term, as an attempt to discover the mechanisms that m a k e up a real system, and 'synthesis', which aims only at reproducing the operation of a system by means of different intellectual processes.

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clearly as possible what data he works on, the object of his research, the hypotheses underlying his reasoning, the logical mechanisms used, etc. (for examples see: Gardin and Garelli, 1961; Hill, 1968). In so doing the archaeo­logist is merely coming back to thr paths followed by all scientists. There is no harm in his being led to them or brought back to them by computer science ; but the ' n e w perspectives' which then open out before him are primarily those of logical thinking (Binford, 1968, p. 16-27), and only secondarily those of computer technology. W e can easily test the truth of this, if necessary by examining with an equally critical eye the results obtained by a computer, where a computer is used; there is no proof that these results have any meaning in relation to archaeological knowledge, since the 'objective' nature of the procedure followed in reaching them in no way guarantees their scientific usefulness.

This statement, too, m a y seem self-evident, and not directly connected with simulation techniques. Nothing could be more true: the objectivation and systematization inherent in the very idea of a 'model ' are useful only if w e also have proof of the model's effectiveness for the apprehension of new empirical facts. The least one can say is that such proofs are not c o m m o n in archaeological literature, or even in the literature of the h u m a n sciences in which computing and computers are discussed. Take, for example, a collec­tion of n objects in which, using an unspecified classification algorithm, one can discern a certain number of groups, each of which manifests a special combination of distinctive features (properties, attributes, etc.). T o validate this result, not only must w e provide a historical or ethnological interpretation of the groups in question (e.g. correlation with differences in origin, date, physical or symbolical function, etc.), w e must also show that the charac­terization or formalization imposed is 'correct' in one or other of the following senses: (a) for any object n + 1 belonging to the field which the collection is supposed to represent (e.g. Muslim ceramics in the pre-Mongol period), the model makes it possible to calculate the group within which it falls (e.g. the Mesopotamian group, the Samanid group, the 'glazed unfired group'), and its allocation, deduced in this way, is confirmed by empirical facts; (b) alternatively (or in addition) the model makes it possible to construct an 'artificial' object n + 1 corresponding to the definition of one of these groups, which—all other things being equal—specialists are unable to distinguish from 'natural' objects in the same group.

Here w e have two types of test—routine tests in the experimental sciences— in which imposed formalization and theories are never adopted unless they can in fact be used to forecast, recognize, diagnose, etc., analytically (case (a)), or to reproduce, repeat, simulate, etc. synthetically (case (b)). Theories in archaeology or the history of art are not comparably valid, in so far as the mere discourse of specialists, even if formalized, is not generally adequate to communicate a science the essence of which is still transmitted and acquired visually, whether it be the expert's diagnostic competence (test a) or the coun­terfeiter's skill in simulation (test b) which is involved.

Though this latter argument m a y come as a surprise or even a shock,

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its validity can be easily verified by making various inexpensive experiments which immediately spring to mind. Incidentally, its value as a challenge, merely from the methodological point of view (i.e. excluding sociological or institutional deductions which are equally interesting), goes beyond the context of archaeology; the procedures described in this study are of little worth unless they stand up to empirical validation tests of the kind to which w e have just referred, relevant to the field under consideration : questionnaire analysis, myth analysis, etc. (on this point see Gardin, 1967, 1969). The relative simplicity of the models proposed should m a k e it possible for each reader to verify their validity himself, if necessary, by diagnostic or simulation tests which are as easy to devise for sociology or mythology as they are difficult to devise for archaeology.

[Translated from French]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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CowGiLL, George L . 1970. Some sampling and reliability problems in archaeology. In: J . -C . Gardin (ed.), Archéologie et calculateurs. Paris, Éditions du C N R S .

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. 1970. Données de classement fournies par les scalogrammes privilégiés. In : J . -C. Gardin (ed.), Archéologie et calculateurs. Paris, Éditions du C N R S .

F E R N A N D E Z D E L A V E G A , W . ; D E L A G E N I È R E ( M m e ) . 1968. Analyse quantitative du mobilier funéraire de la fouille de Sala Consilina. Calcul et formalisation dans ¡es sciences de l'homme, p. 121-9. Paris, Éditions du C N R S .

F L A N N E R Y , K . V . 1968. Archaeological systems theory and early Mesoamerica. In: Meggers (ed.), Anthropological archaeology in the Americas, p. 67-87. Washington,

F R E E M A N , Leslie E . ; B R O W N , James A . 1964. Statistical analysis of Carter Ranch pottery. In: Paul S. Martin (ed.), Chapters in the prehistory of eastern Arizona, no. II (Fieldiana: Anthrop., vol. 55, p. 126-54).

F R E E M A N , Leslie G . 1966. The nature of Mousterian Facies in Cantabrian Spain. In: J. D . Clark and F . C . Howell (eds.), Recent studies in paleoanthropology (Am. Anthrop., vol. 68, no. 2, part 2, p. 230-37).

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November 1962, p. 449-57. . 1965. O n a possible interpretation of componential analysis in archaeology. In:

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(ed.). 1970. Archéologie et calculateurs. Compte rendu du Colloque International du CNRS sur L'Emploi des Calculateurs en Archéologie: Problèmes Sémiologiques et Mathé­matiques, Marseille 7-12 avril 1969. Paris, Éditions du C N R S .

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H E I Z E R , Robert F . ; C O O K , S. F. (eds.). 1960. The application of quantitative methods in archae­ology. Chicago, 111., Quadrangle Books.

H I L L , L . R . (ed.). 1962—. Taxometrics. London. Central Public Health Laboratory. H I L L , James N . 1968. Broken K Pueblo: patterns of form and function. In: S. R . and

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cations. World Archaeol. (Lond.), vol. 1, no. 3, p. 299-320. H O L E , F . ; S H A W , M . 1967. Computer analysis of chronological seriation Rice Univ. Studies

(Houston), vol. 53, no. 3. I N S T I T U T F R A N Ç A I S D ' A R C H É O L O G I E , B E I R U T . 1956. Le fichier mécanographique de l'outillage

(Outils de Bronze, des Balkans à rindus), by J. Christophe, J. Deshayes, J . -C. Gardin, preface by H . Seyrig.

K O L C H I N , B . A . (ed.). 1965. Arkheologija i estestvennye nauki [archaeology and the natural sciences]. Moscow, Nauka.

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computer program for matrix ordering. Am. Anthrop., vol. 68, no. 6, p. 1442-55.

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L A G R A N G E , Marie-Salomé. 1970. Essai d'application de l'analyse sémiologique à l'histoire de rart: la littérature descriptive et interprétative de l'archéologie. Marseille, Centre d 'Ana­lyse Documentaire pour l'Archéologie, C N R S . (Thesis; mimeo. )

L E R M A N , I. C . 1970. Les bases de ¡a classification automatique. Paris, Gauthier-Villars. M E T R O P O L I T A N M U S E U M O F A R T . 1968. Computers and their potential applications in museums.

N e w York, Arno Press. (Conference sponsored by the Metropolitan M u s e u m of Art, 15-17 April 1968.)

M I L L I E R , C . ; T O M A S S O N E , R . E . 1970. Méthodes d'ordination et de classification : leur efficacité et leurs limites. In: J . -C . Gardin (ed.), Archéologie et calculateurs. Paris, Éditions du CNRS.

M I N I S T È R E D E S A F F A I R E S C U L T U R E L L E S . 1970. Inventaire général des monuments et des richessse artistiques de la France. Saisons d'Alsace (Strasb.), no. 33-34.

R A B E N , Joseph (ed.). 1966—. Computers and the humanities. N e w York, Queens College, City University of N e w York.

R O B I N S O N , W . S. 1951. A method for chronologically ordering archaeological deposits. A m . Antiq., vol. 16, no. 4, p. 293-301.

R O O T E N B E R G , S. 1964. Archaeological field sampling. A m . Antiq., vol. 30, no. 2, p. 181-8. S O K A L , Robert K . ; S N E A T H , P. H . A . 1963. Principles of numerical taxonomy. San Francisco

and London, W . H . Freeman. S O U D S K Y , Bohumil. 1970. Le problème des propriétés dans les ensembles archéologiques.

In: J . -C. Gardin (ed.), Archéologie et calculateurs. Paris, Éditions du C N R S . S P A U L D I N G , Albert C . 1960. Statistical description and comparison of artifact assemblages.

In: R . F . Heizer and S. F . Cook, The application of quantitative methods in archaeology, p. 60-83. Chicago, 111., Quadrangle Books.

T U G B Y , D . J. 1958. A typological analysis of axes and choppers from southwest Australia. A m . Antiq., vol. 24, no. 1, p. 24-33.

—. 1965. Archaeological objectives and statistical methods: a frontier in archaeology. A m . Antiq., vol. 31, no. 1, p. 1-16.

Jean-Claude Gardin is director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and director of the Centre d'Analyse Documentaire pour l'Archéologie (CNRS), and has participated for many years in archaeological expeditions in Afghanistan (with the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan) and in Iran. He is the author of numerous works, the most recent of which are cited in the bibliography accompanying his article.

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simulation techniques in sociology

The investigation and exploitation of the immense facilities offered to the sociologist by the use of computers are still in embryo. In a given field of application, the diffusion of the techniques for automated processing of information generally goes through three stages: automation of existing procedures; borrowing from other disciplines the automated procedures that are proper to them; and conception of n e w procedures suggested by the possibilities of data-processing. The third stage is obviously the most produc­tive, since the appearance of new techniques for information processing, precisely adjusted to the needs of the users, can profoundly modify the metho­dology of a particular science.

Sociology is still far from reaching that third stage. The objectives of the first phase have, in general, been achieved: techniques for the extraction of data from surveys, and techniques for statistical analysis and content analysis, have been automated and to some extent improved. The second phase, that of applications new in sociology but in fact borrowed from other disciplines, at present contains only one acquisition, inherited from operational research : the group of simulation techniques. Before sociology can be brought into the third phase, sociologists will need to have gained a thorough practical experience of the procedures for automated data-processing and thus to be capable of rethinking their methodological problems in the light of the new facilities already available to them. Their familiarization with simulation techniques, which are based on a method of reasoning unusual in sociology, m a y help to hasten this development.

The simulation of a social phenomenon is, in a way, the construction of a small-scale model of that phenomenon, a model on which various tests can be carried out, thus making it possible to conduct on the model experiments that could not be conducted in the real situation. In macro-sociology, in particular, simulation appeared likely to provide a convenient substitute for the experimental approach, which formerly had seemed to be necessarily forbidden to the sociologist. However, following the enthusiasm aroused by the first simulated experiments, between 1960 and 1965, the use of simulation techniques seems to have disappointed the hopes placed in it by sociologists; yet those techniques have been in c o m m o n use in operational research since

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T h e use of computer simulation techniques in sociology

about 1950 and have apparently afforded complete satisfaction to their users. In m y view, the sociologists' temporary loss of interest in simulation is due to a misunderstanding with regard to the part that this approach can play in the study of social phenomena. S o m e pioneers of simulation in sociology hoped to succeed in creating a kind of 'experimental macro-sociology'; that hope was at the origin of the stir created by the first applications of simulation in sociology, and it is probably the failure of that attempt that explains the lack of interest observed in regard to simulation. M y purpose here is to show that simulation does not constitute an experimental approach to social facts, and that its use cannot confer the status of an experimental science on empirical sociology; but that the chief advantage of simulation is that it places the considerable resources of data processing at the service of speculative thought.

A n example of simulation: study of the diffusion of technical innovations in an agricultural environment

Torsten Hägerstrand [14, p. 43-67]1 has observed that, in a geographical space, the distribution of economic or cultural characteristics has the charac­ter of nebula-like clusters. H e has hypothesized that these clusters are always the consequence of a process of diffusion of ideas and techniques through the intermediary of a network of interpersonal relations (neighbour­hood effect). T o illustrate that hypothesis, he carried out a series of simulations reproducing the process of adoption, in a small rural area in southern Sweden, of two innovations: acceptance of a government subsidy for expansion and improvement of new pasture acreage at the edge of woodland, and systematic detection of bovine tuberculosis. The simulated process was inspired by classical models of contagion used, for example, in epidemiology.

The network of social relations ¿depends on the geographical charac­teristics of the area studied; fjords, lakes and forests, in particular, constitute obstacles to communication. The unit of description being the farm, the author reconstructed the network of relations on the basis of frequency of telephone communication and of various exchanges from one farm to another (migration of labour, transfer of land, marriages). The model used for the artificial reproduction of the'diffusion of innovations across the communica­tion matrix so reconstructed was based on the following five postulates: A t the beginning of the simulation, only one farm has adopted the innovation

(the one which, in reality, was the first to adopt it). The probability of contact between two farms depends on the structure of

the network of relations. 0 Adoption of the innovation by a farm is consecutive to a contact with a farm

having already adopted it (process of contagion).

1. Figures in square brackets refer to the bibliographical references at the end of the article.

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Contacts take place 'at random', according to the probability of contact defined by the structure of the network.

Contacts are m a d e between two farms only, meetings of representatives of more than two units being excluded.

Since the occurrence of contacts is determined by a chance procedure, ana­logous to a game of roulette,1 the process of diffusion is a stochastic process. If the simulation is repeated, different results are obtained each time. C o m p a ­rison of these results with the empirical data extracted for the real processes demonstrates that the simulations provide a good representation of the general outline of the phenomenon and, in particular, reflect the disparities observed between the eastern and western portions of the area studied. Consequently, the simulated theory takes appropriate account of the geographical factor.

A simulation of the type summarized above has as its object the proposal of a possible theory for a process and the comparison of the logical conse­quences of that theory with the observational data. If it is thought that the model expressing that theory is a good representation of the real process, it is possible to act on the model exactly as one could (or would wish to) act on the real process. For example, it is possible to alter the geographical characteristics by eliminating or changing the place of lakes and mountains, so as to modify the network of relations between farms; it is also possible to act on the time parameter, by shortening or lengthening the period of the experiment; lastly, the procedure of adoption of innovations can be m a d e more complex through the introduction of factors such as resistance to change or the influence of contradictory information. In fact, Hägerstrand carried out a series of simulations on the hypothesis of an isotropic plane, for which the probability of contact between two farms depended only on their distance. H e also contemplated the elaboration of a decision schema for adoption of innovations closer to reality. Such tests constitute true exper­iment on the model and could, for example, enable the sociologist: to explain in detail the supposed mechanisms of the diffusion process; to estimate the incidence on the diffusion of a particular factor, such as natural obstacles or differences in population density; thus to reconstruct what would have happened in a different context, in a different region, or at a different time; to forecast subsequent phases of the process.

In interpreting the results of a series of simulations of this type, the greatest caution is required. Care must be taken not to confuse the model with the reality it is supposed to represent, and to distinguish clearly between experimentation on the model and experimentation in the proper sense of the term. There is no proof, indeed, that, in a region where there are no natural obstacles to communication and where the population density is uniform, the process of diffusion of information would correspond to the results of Hägerstrand's simulation on an isotropic plane. It is therefore necessary to analyse carefully the approach adopted in a simulated experiment and to view the latter in relation to experimental method.

1. For that reason, the name 'Monte Carlo method' is applied to any procedure in which a random process is present to simulate chance within a law of probability.

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Simulation and experimentation

The experimental approach m a y be schematically divided into three phases. The first is observation, which differs from mere perception, in that the facts scientifically collected by the researcher are rigorously defined and described, measured, checked, corrected and partially interpreted. The second phase is the search for scientific laws, that is, unchanging relationships linking up the facts observed. This phase, which is the most important and most productive in all scientific activity, comprises m a n y stages. The first is the discovery of analogies between the observations collected and the regrouping of the latter according to those analogies. The second is analysis of the charac­teristics extracted for each group of observations, so as to distinguish three types of variables : explicative, or causal, variables ; explained, or dependent, variables; irrelevant variables, that is, those whose effects on the observed phenomenon are temporarily ignored. The next stage is construction of a theory, by imagining between the variables considered relevant relation­ships whose existence is postulated in reality. The purpose of the final stage is to test both the coherence of the model and its compatibility with the observations on which it is based. This stage consists in seeking through deduction what, according to the theory, the values of the explained variables ought to be when the explicative variables take the values observed in the first phase of the research, and then comparing the values deducted with the values actually extracted for the dependent variables. If those values do not agree, in spite of correction of possible influence on the observations of certain sources of error, it is necessary to reject the theory and to begin again the search for laws, calling in question if need be the classification adopted for the causal variables and explained variables. The third phase of the experimental approach is testing the hypotheses by experiment. This consists in acting systematically o n the assumed causes, that is, on the variables to which an explicative function is attributed, and in observing in the explained variables the behaviours assumed to be induced by the variations in the variables manipulated. The manner in which one acts on the explicative variables has been previously defined by the experimental plan, so that comparison of the observations produced by the experiment with the consequences of those manipulations, in so far as the theory enables them to be foreseen, m a y lead the experimenter to rejection or acceptance of the theory. Comparison of the observations with the foreseeable conse­quences of the theory is effected by means of tests of the hypotheses, whose object is the evaluation of the risks run by the researcher of accepting a theory incompatible with the observations or of rejecting a compatible theory.

Although the first two phases of this procedure are c o m m o n to all the sciences, the same does not apply to the testing of hypotheses by experiment. If it is agreed that all scientific activity starts from facts and ends with facts, it will also be agreed that there are three ways of 'ending with facts', depending on the availability to the researcher of information provided by the actual case. The most primitive consists in waiting for events to occur over which

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the researcher has no influence whatever; this is the inevitable attitude of sociologists studying the panic and other types of behaviour that follow on a disaster. A more flexible procedure is possible when the observations which it is desired to collect relate to states frequently occurring within the population studied: it is then possible for the researcher to observe the values taken on jointly in natural conditions by the explicative variables and the dependent variables, although it is not possible for him to determine the values taken on by the explicative variables or to cancel the effect of 'parasite' variables. This is a usual procedure in sociology. The most complex procedure is obviously experimentation. It is practicable only when facilities are available to the researcher for acting on the reality and w h e n he uses them in a syste­matic fashion, according to an experimental plan. In micro-sociology the method of experimentation can often be employed. In macro-sociology, although it is sometimes possible to act on social phenomena, for instance, by taking measures of a political nature, there are no examples of such action having been guided by an experimental plan prepared for the purpose of scientific research. The m a n of action proceeding by trial and error is undoubtedly an empiricist, but he is not an experimental researcher.

If w e draw a parallel between the experimental approach and the proce­dure followed for the study of diffusion processes, w e see at once that Hägerstrand's study does not constitute experimental research. Indeed, it comprises only the first two phases of the experimental procedure. The observation bears on the form assumed by the geographical distribution of the economic and cultural characteristics, and in particular on the evolution in time of the spread of new agricultural techniques. The search for laws leads Hägerstrand to hypothesize that the 'oil spot' diffusion of these charac­teristics is due to a contagion process brought about through the intermediary of networks of interpersonal communication; given a particular network, and a starting point for the diffusion, the results deduced by simulation of the theory agree with the observations previously m a d e in the field. The third phase would have been experiment in the field, for example, effecting the diffusion of ideas, techniques or rumours, and varying systematically the starting point for the diffusion and the characteristics of the c o m m u ­nication network. Then the observations m a d e in the field in those experi­mental conditions could have been compared with the results of simulations reproducing analogous initial conditions.

But it is obvious that the third phase of the experimental procedure is impracticable in macro-sociology, just as it is in cosmography. The impossibility of tampering with the movement of the planets at the will of the researcher did not prevent Le Verrier from constructing, on the basis of Newton's theories, a theoretical model including a new planet, Neptune, so far never observed ; moreover, observation was later to confirm the existence of that planet. Similarly, the sociologist can construct various theoretical models inspired by Hägerstrand's ideas, assuming, for instance, that the farms^are uniformly distributed over the territorial area, and that there exists no natural obstacle to communication. However, in deducing by means

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of calculation or of simulation the consequences of the theory in the particular cases considered, neither the astronomer nor the sociologist is engaging in experimentation. They are merely specifying the theory by asserting that, if the theory is true, and if certain particular conditions exist, then a certain phenomenon will be observed. This remains at the level of the second phase, that of the search for scientific laws.

A n example taken from micro-sociology will better demonstrate the difference between simulation and testing by experiment. In studying group problem-solving, Kullervo Rainio [14, p . 68-88] makes the hypothesis that this process follows laws analogous to those of stochastic learning models. In the theoretical model constructed by Rainio, group solution of the problem presented is the end result of a succession of individual choices whose pro­bability varies according to Bush and Mosteller's T w o Operators Learning Model , the reward or punishment for each individual choice depending on simultaneous choices by the other participants. T o test this theory, Rainio carried out a laboratory experiment in the form of a 'group maze ' , in which the experimenter controls communication between the participants, indicates to the members of the group the goal to be reached but not the methods of reaching it, and intervenes after each attempt to say whether or not it is allowable. In this experimental approach the difficulty consists in the comparison of observations m a d e in the laboratory with the results anticipated by the theory under analogous conditions: in practice the complexity of this probability theory makes calculation of the results expected difficult. T o deduce the consequences of his theory in experimental conditions, the author had recourse to simulation. Comparison of the results of simulated experiments and real experiments brought out partial agreement between the theory and the observations.

In the light of this example, it will be seen that simulation and experiment are two distinct procedures, possibly complementary, whose functions in research activity should not be confused. The fact of being able to manipulate the explicative variables of a simulated theoretical model by computer, as the experimenter manipulates the real variables, m a y have given rise to some confusion between these two procedures. However, the aim of the researcher is to seek, by tentative procedures, the relations existing in reality between the variables he is studying; whereas the object of a simulation experiment is not to explore the relations between variables, since these are given at the outset, but to seek the specific consequences of a theory postulating those relations. In experiment on reality, the effects of the manipulations depend, not on the researcher, but on the internal logic of the phenomena he is studying; those effects inform the researcher on the 'laws' governing the phenomena. In experiment on a model, the effects of the manipulations obey the logic of the model, which has been determined by the researcher; consequently, simulation provides no information on the reality represented by the model, but merely makes it possible to define certain implications of the model. In other words, in experimentation, the facts are given (at least potentially) and the relations are u n k n o w n ; in simulation, the facts

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(results) are u n k n o w n and the relations are given. Thus, simulation is in fact a technique that is of help in the search for scientific laws and in the construction of explicative theories.

T h e different types of simulation in sociology

In building hypotheses on the relations unking the variables he is studying, the researcher should try to give those hypotheses the form of an operative theory or model, that is, a theory whose specific consequences m a y be deduced, and without ambiguity. Otherwise, it would be impossible to compare the consequences of the theory with the observations which were at the root of the researcher's reflection. The ideal expression of a theory is the mathe­matical form. A theory can of course be precisely expressed in ordinary lan­guage, provided that the meaning of the terms and the nature of the relations between concepts have previously been unambiguously denned; but a theory satisfying these conditions can easily be transformed into a mathematical model. In sociology, the statement of operative theories often comes up against two difficulties, due to the recent nature of the social sciences and to the complexity of their subject matter. The first difficulty arises from the fact that, while it is possible to identify the relevant variables, it is not always possible to pinpoint the whole of the relations linking together the variables singled out; it is therefore rare, especially in macro-sociology, to be able to formulate an operative theory taking full account of the entire observed phenomenon. The second difficulty is that the results of a theory expressed in the form of a mathematical model m a y not be ascertainable by calculation; that is to say that, in the present state of mathematical knowledge, there exists no algorithm for deducing the specific consequences of the theory. This applies in particular to certain complex models of stochastic processes.

Simulation techniques enable these difficulties to be diminished to some extent. While a simulable model m a y reduce itself to an analytical model of deterministic type, it m a y also assume m u c h more complex forms. It is possible to construct a simulable model on the basis of three sorts of materials : one or more analytical models in which the relations between variables are completely formalized; various empirical data taken, for example, from one or more sample surveys; lastly, random factors the law of probability pertaining to which is empirically k n o w n or arbitrarily determined. The presence of at least one analytical model is indispensable : it constitutes the nucleus of the simulated model, and it is through the intermediary of its input parameters that manipulation of the simulated model is effected. The empirical data serve to fill the gaps in the analytical model or models. If only partial models are involved, which do not express the whole of the relations assumed between the variables singled out, it is possible to introduce into the simulated model observations describing the relations that are missing. For example, in Hägerstrand's model, the relations between the geographical factors and the communication network are not formalized; the author

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makes up for this lack by introducing the description of the geographical location of the farms and the frequency of relations between farms. These empirical data are constants of the simulated model and, as such, play a role distinct from that of the input parameters of the model, which are mani-pulable variables. The random factors serve to s u m up the influence on the phenomenon studied of the variables considered irrelevant in the model: various parasite variables disturbing the relations between the causal variables and the explained variables, or external events affecting the start of certain processes, as for example, the set of circumstances that resulted in two farmers meeting or telephoning to one another.

O n the basis of the elements that m a y be included in a simulable model, w e can list four types of models: the complete deterministic model, which includes neither empirical data nor random factors; the incomplete deter­ministic model, supplemented by a set of empirical data; the complete stochastic model, in which random factors appear; the incomplete stochastic model, which includes both empirical data and random factors. The first type of model is still very rarely encountered in sociology; moreover, it scarcely deserves the n a m e of simulable model, since it is in fact an analytical model that m a y be resolved by simulation. W e shall quote some examples of the other three types, which are fairly often met with in sociological literature.

INCOMPLETE DETERMINISTIC MODELS

The best-known incomplete deterministic model is probably the 'Simulmatics project' [12]. This simulation experiment was undertaken at the request of J. F . Kennedy on the occasion of his electoral campaign in 1960. The object of the simulation was to advise Kennedy on the choice of a strategy while the campaign was actually in progress, on the understanding that there was no question of predicting the outcome of the election, but merely of evaluating the votes gained or lost due to the adoption of the strategies proposed, all other things being equal. The sociologists of the 'Simulmatics project' were consulted on the way in which Kennedy should react to the wave of opposition to the admission of a R o m a n Catholic to the White House; their advice was to attack religious prejudice openly, rather than to minimize the importance of the question at stake. The theoretical model dealt with two mechanisms of voter behaviour: shifts in voting expressed by transfers of votes in relation to previous elections; and abstention, reducing the number of votes cast. It assumed a relatively high stability in the electoral group and m a d e the hypothesis that voters subject to cross-pressures would, for the most part, take refuge in abstention. For example, the authors estimated that white Protestants traditionally voting Democrat, faced with the dilemma of voting for a Catholic Democrat or a Protestant Republican, would abstain from voting in numbers double those recorded for previous elections. The empirical data, prepared on the basis of the results of political sociology surveys carried out earlier, contained observations on the relations between the socio-economic characteristics of the voters, their attitudes, and their

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political sympathies. The simulation of this incomplete model m a d e it possible to estimate the number of votes that a campaign against religious sectarianism could win for Kennedy. Subsequently, the sociologists of the Simulmatics Corporation used their model to analyse the mechanisms of the 1960 election. They concluded therefrom that the theory relating to the influence of cross-pressures on the rate of abstention would have to be revised, and that their simulation model could have been used to predict the results of the election.

COMPLETE STOCHASTIC MODELS

Complete stochastic models are used primarily in micro-sociology, probably because the theories concerning interactions between individuals are fully formalized and it is therefore not necessary to call upon observational data to fill them in. Various examples of this type of model will be found in the works of Coleman and his collaborators [5, p. 1052-5; 8, p. 66-9; 14, p. 92-4] and in the simulation by K . Rainio that was described in the previous section of this paper. The simulation of productive behaviour in a workshop carried out by R a y m o n d Breton [4] provides a good illustration of this type of model. Breton constructed a model demonstrating that it was possible, in certain conditions, to explain the tendency towards standardization of individual rates of production in a workshop without recourse to the notion of an implicit norm. Prior to this demonstration it was generally accepted that, when production in a workshop is curbed by the workers in spite of bonuses for high output, this is because of the existence of an informal production norm to which workers are led to conform^under the influence of pressures from fellow workers. The model constructed by Breton brings two comple­mentary mechanisms into play: a system of decision peculiar to each worker in the group, and a system of readjustment of the pay conditions, representing the policy of the management. In this model, each worker is concerned only with his o w n interest, regardless of the interest of the other members of the work group or that of the management; in the pursuit of his aim, he m a y act on his o w n production and put pressure on his fellow workers. The management m a y change the rate of pay, depending on past production and foreseeable demand. The size of the work group, the motivation to money-making of each worker, the degree of his hostility towards the management, the initial rate of pay, the m a x i m u m level of wages—these are parameters of the model; they were not empirically estimated but fixed by the experimenter at arbitrary though likely values. There was therefore no need for empirical data: the objective of the simulation was not to m a k e a simulated model reflecting a concrete situation, but to study the compatibility of a theory with an empirical law. The random factor introduced into the model corres­ponds to the dimensions not taken into account by it which influence the workers' decisions, in particular unforeseeable events and psychological variables. Breton undertook five series of simulations according to an expe­rimental plan fixing the values of the parameters of the model : in the case of all of those simulations a tendency is observed towards a standardization

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of the rates of production which is accounted for solely by the pursuit of individual objectives.

It is readily understandable that complete stochastic models are rarely used in macro-sociology; in the present state of sociological theory, it is difficult to formalize complex mechanisms introducing individual decision processes, without the models constructed exceeding the capacities of the computers presently available. In macro-sociology, therefore, simulable complete stochastic models endeavouring to integrate individual behaviours hardly exist except in tentative form (for example, see the model of Domingo and Varsavsky [13, p . 253-67]). O n the other hand, when the smallest unit of the simulation is no longer the individual but a social group, such as a firm, a pressure group, or a nation, it is possible to use complete stochastic models. For example Hoggat [mentioned in 14, p . 14-15] has reproduced an imaginary market enabling a study to be m a d e of the influence of the method of anticipation of demand on the survival and expansion of competing firms ; Benson [3, Chapter 24] has used a complete stochastic model to simulate the formation of alliances and the starting of conflicts between states with different characteristics.

I N C O M P L E T E S T O C H A S T I C M O D E L S

Incomplete stochastic models are the ones most frequently used at present: they require the least amount of formalization, since they allow the socio­logist the possibility both of completing his model by the addition of obser­vational data and of assimilating to a random process the influence of the variables he does not wish to take into account explicitly. Consequently, these models are likely at the present juncture to be the most useful to sociology. Hägerstrand's simulation of the process of 'oil spot' diffusion of technical innovations falls into this category. In micro-sociology, Coleman [14, p. 98-101] has carried out an experiment somewhat similar in principle to Häger­strand's: starting from empirical data on the networks of relations between students in a high school, he has studied diffusion of the smoking habit among the students. In macro-sociology, w e shall mention only four examples. The first two represent real experimentation on the model; the object of the others is to test the compatibility of a theoretical model with a series of observations or to predict the short-term evolution of a social group.

Albert Jacquard has measured the incidence, on the rate of growth of a h u m a n population, of the adoption of various contraceptive techniques [10]. His model reproduces the history of a cohort of 200 w o m e n , during their thirty years of fertility. The empirical data are the probabilities, according to the w o m a n ' s age, of marriage, conception, widowhood, remarriage, death, observed in Western countries. The effect of the random factors is to provoke these various events as a function of their probability of occurrence. The parameters of the model concern the attitude of the w o m e n to contraceptive procedures and the resultant actual effectiveness of the procedures used, the m a x i m u m number of children desired, and the spacing desired between

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births. By varying those parameters, Jacquard observed that a somewhat negligent attitude towards contraception, while practically ineffective at the individual level, could nevertheless appreciably reduce the rate of growth of the population.

The present author has carried out a simulation of the same type on the process of selection of a spouse, in order to study the incidence of various types of endogamous attitudes on the degree of h o m o g a m y of couples [7]. The empirical data described, on the basis of a survey conducted on already constituted couples, a group of candidates for marriage. The model schema­tized a pairing process in which the meeting of the individuals depended on a random factor and the marriage depended on a certain type of harmony between individuals w h o met. The parameters of the model were the intensity of the endogamic attitude and the criteria for selection of the spouse, that is, the characteristics looked for in a partner. B y varying those parameters, the author observed that the degree of resemblance between couples increased with the intensity of the attitude only in the case of the criteria of selection. Thus, for instance, although in the sample used the level of education is closely related to social origin, a strong tendency to marry a partner with the same social background does not lead to any considerable rise in the rate of h o m o g a m y according to level of education.

Working from research by André Davidovitch, R a y m o n d Boudon carried out a simulation experiment demonstrating that the mechanism of abandonment of legal actions by dismissal or non-suit could be explained by a self-regulating process of the judicial machinery [6]. The model rests on the hypothesis that, when there is a rise in the crime rate, the magistrates act as if they were trying to optimize repression, in the light of the absorption capacity of the judicial machinery. The model operates in the following way. At the beginning of the year, the magistrates assess the degree of gravity below which an offence of a given type has little likelihood of being brought before a court; that degree, variable according to the social harm caused by each type of offence, is estimated on the basis of the rates of prosecution in the previous year. At the end of the year, if the total number of cases selected exceeds the capacity of the judicial machinery, those of the selected cases in which proceedings are considered least likely to be successful will be eliminated by dismissal or non-suit; if the total number of cases selected is below the capacity of the machinery, a choice will be m a d e from a m o n g the cases eliminated of those in which proceedings have the best chance of succeeding. The random factor operates during the distribution of levels of gravity between cases relating to the same type of offence and during the process of readjustment of the total number of cases selected. The empirical data concern the proportion of the different types of offence brought to the knowledge of the magistrates in the course of a year, and the assessment of the degree of gravity of a type of offence based on the proportion of fines imposed for offences of that type. The simulation demonstrated that the model was compatible with a series of observations covering fifty-two years and dealing with fifteen types of offences.

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With the aim of forecasting population changes in the United States of America, Orcutt and his associates constructed a model simulating the births, marriages, divorces and deaths within the entire population [11, parts 3 and 4]. The model is based on a Markovian process; the empirical data are the rates of mortality, divorce, marriage and conception furnished by the censuses and crossed by various characteristics of the individuals.

Value of simulation techniques in sociology

In no case can simulation techniques replace the experimental approach, since they do not allow of action upon reality for the purpose of eliciting new facts. O n the other hand, they m a y afford considerable help to the socio­logist during the phase of construction of explicative theories for social phenomena. Before these techniques were available, the researcher often had either to forego giving his theory an operative formulation, thereby conferring on that theory a purely speculative character, or to construct a completely formalized model, which would then prove too complex to lend itself to calculation and to the testing of its coherence and compatibility with the observational data, or again to confine himself to calculable analytical models, generally too simple to give a correct account of the observed facts. In micro-sociology, calculable analytical models are undoubtedly of value, in so far as it is possible to create artificially laboratory conditions corres­ponding to the postulates of the model, annulling the effect of variables not taken into account by it. Today, the chief role of experimentation in micro-sociology is to test in this way the explicative value of calculable models; even so, the latter are being gradually replaced by simulation models, which are easier to handle. In macro-sociology, on the other hand, the impossibility of experimenting withdraws m u c h interest from the elementary theories, similar to the 'laws' of physics. The real situations are often too complex to allow the observer to determine, in the data collected, what is due to the relations assumed by the model; in particular, what happens is that the 'natural' interdependence of the factors masks the effects due to a particular variable; that the influences of 'parasite' factors prevent observation of the effects sought; or that the processes observed are too slow or too random to enable the observations required to test the value of the theory to be collected within the lifetime of the author of the theory, thus making it impossible for him to readjust his hypotheses. It is therefore necessary to construct complex models taking account of the majority of the factors, 'parasite' from the point of view of the theory, whose effects on the observations cannot be annulled. Simulation is at present the only procedure that makes it possible to establish the consequences of models considered to be non-calculable.

W h e n the sociologist seeks the explanation of a series of observations, it is unusual for a complete theory to c o m e into his mind. The construction of scientific theories is a dialectical process in which the imagination is stimulated by continual reference to observations and to earlier theories. Consequently,

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in the course of this process, the sociologist is led to formulate various hypo­theses, often partial, concerning the relations which link up in reality the variables whose existence he is assuming. In order to test the value of those hypotheses, and possibly to m a k e a choice between contradictory hypotheses, it is necessary to compare the inevitable consequences of those hypotheses with the data available. Since the observations m a d e under natural conditions are too rich, in relation to the simplicity of the hypotheses, and are not sus­ceptible of 'purification' by an experimental procedure, the hypotheses must, as it were, be raised to the same level of complexity as the observational conditions. This is possible by constructing a simulated model including the hypotheses that it is desired to test, empirical data describing the influence of factors not taken into account in the hypotheses, and/or various random factors corresponding to events that interact with the variables selected. W h e n several hypotheses that are compatible with one another have been selected, it is possible to combine them into a theory; to test the agreement of that theory with the observations, recourse will be had to a simulable model, the analytical part of which will be more fully formulated and which will consequently require less empirical data. Normally, the process should continue, increasing the degree of theorization on the phenomenon studied. Progress in the explanation of social facts could thus be assessed as an inverse function of the proportion of empirical data and random factors needed to simulate the theories.

Simulation techniques are thus of help in the construction of theories, in that they allow of the testing of the value of models that were formerly not calculable. For this reason, the services that simulation can render to a science still in its infancy are considerable. It required about twenty centuries to m o v e from the first efforts at formalization in physics to the constitution of mathe­matical physics; yet this is a field in which it is possible to experiment. It m a y be hoped, however, that macro-sociology will attain to an equivalent degree of formalization in the course of the coming decades. O n e of the greatest difficulties encountered by pioneers in a branch of scientific study is identification of the subject matter of their science and then of its 'laws'. That identification appears to be m a d e by trial and error, by comparing the consequences of theories with the observational data. If the theories are not 'calculable', or if the consequences of the theories can only be determined in respect of a few particular cases, scientific progress will be very slow. If all the theories can be simulated so that their consequences m a y be compared with the observations, the challenging of those theories will take place more rapidly and will lead to a search for 'better' laws and 'better' concepts. The fact of having available a simulable model, that is to say, a model on which one can experiment, is a powerful stimulant to the speculative imagination: whether through translation into practice of a theory already k n o w n or through the rigorous formulation of empirically established knowledge, the experimental analysis carried out on the model affords the researcher a very complete over-all view of the theory and its implications. In addition, just as experimentation on reality m a y give rise to new hypotheses, so experimen-

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tation on the theory m a y suggest new questions to be put to the social reality and m a y bring into being new types of observations.

Moreover, the simulable model renders to the sociologist services compa­rable to those that can be rendered by the calculable analytical model. If w e assume that, from a certain point of view at least, the model actually corres­ponds to what is happening in reality, w e m a y attribute to reality certain consequences of the model. So it was that Le Verrier, working from the N e w ­tonian model, predicted the existence of a planet hitherto unobserved; that, by extrapolating a function or a family of functions, economists make forecasts concerning changes in the standard of living or justify the choice of a monetary policy. In macro-sociology, simulable models are practically alone in being capable of providing results; they alone enable sociologists to forecast the results of an election or the incidences of a strategy adopted during the election campaign. Care must be taken, however, not to attribute to simulable models alone what is a property of any model from which results can be derived, whether by simulation or by calculation. It must also be borne in mind that any forecast, any diagnosis bearing on the value of a strategy, is no more than a conditional proposition of the type: 'if, for short-term forecasting, our model constitutes an acceptable approximation of reality, then the effective demand for such and such a type of capital goods will reach such and such a level in six months. ' Moreover, events serve constantly to remind researchers of the difference between the model whether simulable or not, and the reality which it aspires to represent. Without dwelling on the unduly wide diver­gences between certain economic forecasts and the events that were supposed to match them, w e m a y recall the misfortune that befell Le Verrier: after having successfully 'invented' Neptune to explain the divergences in the trajectory of Uranus as compared to the Newtonian model, then Pluto to explain the 'perturbations' of Neptune, he failed in his effort to explain the perturbations of Mercury by the intervention of another new planet; the latter, called Vulcan, has remained in the realm of mythology, thus revealing the inadequacies of Newton 's theory.

In conclusion, simulation techniques allow of the solution of a problem by which sociologists have been beset since the beginnings of sociology: that of the operative formulation of theories, making it possible to test the coherence and compatibility of those theories with the observations. Simulation is a good substitute for calculation methods when the latter are inapplicable: incomplete formalizations, numerous interactions between the variables, intervention of random factors. It is particularly well suited to the theories which the sociologist needs to account for social facts, because simulable models m a y be very complex, and at the level of formalization which charac­terizes a science in its infancy, since they admit an incomplete formalization. Simulation is the tool that the sociologist has needed in his quest for an expla­nation of social facts. Unable to resort to experimental methods to test the value of simple theories, and faced with the virtual impossibility of having available calculable models sufficiently complex to take account of the observational data, the sociologist lacked a suitable tool to enable him to

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m o v e from the plane of observations to that of theorization. The advancement of macro-sociology has suffered from the absence of such a tool. W e m a y hope that coming developments in sociological theory will be largely due to the n e w possibilities afforded by simulation techniques in regard to the criticism of existing theories, the search for better adapted models, and the investigation of social processes. In this sense, w e m a y say that, although simulation does not replace experimentation, it constitutes a method of experimental analysis which, for the sociologist, counterbalances the impossibility of experimenting on social facts.

[Translated from French]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

1. A B E L S O N , Robert P. A computer simulation model of community referendum contro­versies. Publ. Opin. Q., vol. 27, 1963, p. 93-122.

2. . Simulation of social behavior. In: G . Lindzey and E . Aronson, ne handbook of social psychology, chap. 12. Addison Wesley, 1968.

3. B O R K O , Harold. Computer applications in the behavioral sciences. Prentice-Hall, 1962. 4. B R E T O N , Raymond. Output norms and productive behavior in non-cooperative work groups.

Johns Hopkins University, Department of Social Relations, n.d. (Mimeo.) 5. C O L E M A N , James S. Mathematical models and computer simulation. In: Robert

E . L . Faris, Handbook of modem sociology, chap. 27. Rand McNally, 1964. 6. D A V I D O V I T C H , André; B O U D O N , Raymond. Les mécanismes sociaux des abandons de

poursuite judiciaire. Analyse expérimentale par simulation. L'année sociologique, 1964, p. 111-244. Presses Universitaires de France, 1965.

7. G R É M Y , Jean-Paul. La simulation sur ordinateur des phénomènes sociaux. Institut des Sciences Humaines Appliquées, 1970.

8. G U E T Z K O W , Harold. Simulation in social sciences: readings. Prentice-Hall, 1962. 9. HoGGATT, A . C . ; B A L D E R S T O N , F . E . Symposium on Simulation Models: Methodology

and Applications to the Behavioral Sciences. South-Western Publishing C o . , 1963. 10. J A C Q U A R T , Albert. La reproduction humaine en régime malthusien. U n modèle de

simulation par la méthode de Monte-Carlo. Population, no. 5, 1967 (22nd year), p. 897-920.

11. O R C U T T , G . ; G R E E N B E R G E R , M . ; K O R B E L , J.; R I V L T N , A . Micro-analysis of socio­

economic systems. A simulation study. Harper, 1961. 12. P O O L , I. de S.; A B E L S O N , R . P . ; P O P K I N , S. Candidates, issues, and strategies. A com­

puter simulation of the 1960 and 1964 presidential elections. M I T Press, 1965. 13. Calcul et formalisation dans les sciences de r homme. Paris, Éditions du C N R S , 1968. 14. Simulation in sociology. Special number of: Arch(s) eur. de Sociol., vol. 6, no. 1, 1965. 15. Social research with the computer. Special number of: Am. Behavioral Sei., vol. 8, no. 9,

1965.

Jean-Paul Grémy is assistant lecturer at the Unité d'Enseignement et de Recherche de Sciences Sociales of the Université René-Descartes (Paris). Among his recent articles and works are: 'Le Dépouillement Automatique des Enquêtes sur Ordinateur', Bulletin de Psychologie, Vol. 21, Nos. 9-11, 1968; 'L'Analyse Dynamique des Phénomènes Sociaux', in: L'Informatique au Service de l ' H o m m e (1970), La Simulation sur Ordinateur des Phénomènes Sociaux (1970), and Initiation à l'Informatique à l'Usage des Sciences Humaines

218 (with F. Pottier) (in press).

Dominique Lépine T h e use of computers in experimental psychology

Introduction and foreword

Without going into the question—polemical rather than scientific—whether 'computers are endowed with intelligence' or whether 'the brain functions as a computer', w e m a y legitimately ask ourselves w h y data-processing and computers should play a special role in psychology, and in particular in expe­rimental psychology. It is quite obvious that, in this discipline as in others, computers m a y be put to m a n y uses, some of which have an impact upon the trend taken by research. But is this anything more than a result of the increas­ingly rational and differentiated exploitation of the ability of modern machines to 'process data'? Are there, in research in experimental psychology, specific uses for the computer with no equivalent in any other field—such uses, indeed, as would m a k e the computer in some sense the 'base' of the scientific process? C a n the computer be used to construct 'models' for certain types of behaviour? Does the writing, in an appropriate symbolic language, of a programme enabling the machine to 'simulate' certain behavioural sequences constitute a n e w form of psychological theory?

W e shall not attempt to give a complete and objective answer to all these questions, but simply to outline a few present and possible future uses of the computer in experimental psychology. The reader is warned that, in doing so, w e shall adopt a certain standpoint linked to a particular theoretical and methodological trend within the sphere of experimental psychology. This is too vast and too heterogeneous a field for a single author to be able to cover fully, in a brief account, a question that concerns it in its entirety. This article will, therefore, necessarily be incomplete and even one-sided, and w e shall probably overlook certain interesting and potentially rewarding uses of the computer, either because w e are unacquainted with them or because they do not correspond to the point of view adopted in this article.

A classic use

It is self-evident that the computer is (and above all can be) used in experi­mental psychology as a 'calculating machine' for carrying out the statistical

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and other calculations required for the processing and elaboration of the, frequently numerical, data collected by research workers in the course of their experiments. Although it is not always entirely a matter of routine, this type of use gives rise to no particular problems and does not, in our view, call for lengthy comment . Clearly the interest of a result (for example, the value of a statistic) lies in the method applied and not in the m o d e of execution of the relevant calculations; whether or not these were carried out on a c o m ­puter, for instance, would appear to be of secondary interest. Nevertheless, it must not be overlooked that the power and speed of modern computers m a k e it possible for research workers to employ techniques and methods of data analysis which they have frequently been aware of for a considerable time but which, owing to the length and complexity of the calculations required for the application, were in practice almost unusable (e.g. Hotelling's method of factorial analysis).

M o r e generally, the value of computerized data-processing lies in the multiplicity of the analyses which it makes possible—a multiplicity that itself allows all sorts of comparisons to be m a d e both between groups of data and between methods; this possibility opens the way to a concrete study of data-processing methods through the study of their interactions with the data themselves.

In this connexion, it is worth noting that the systematic use of computers m a y help put an end to the traditional controversies concerning which method is to be given preference to which, for a remarkable convergence is often observed in practice between the conclusions produced by the application of different methods to the same set of data. Such a convergence is frequently noted, for example, between the so-called non-parametric methods and the linear methods such as variance analysis, even when the conditions for the valid use of these latter do not, probably, obtain. Such results, however, are far from being theoretically evident; on the contrary, it is by and large fairly simple to show, by means of ad hoc counter-examples, that different methods might in some circumstances lead to divergent and even conflicting results. The convergence observed w h e n different methods are applied to actual data leads us to two conclusions which are in some ways reassuring for research workers: first, that the methods they use are often 'tough' enough for their validity to remain comparatively unimpaired by inadequacies in the data, which in practice do not always meet the criteria that would have to be satisfied in order to guarantee the validity of the methods in question (normality of distribution, homogeneity of variance, for example); this 'toughness' meaning that, in spite of the non-fulfilment of such criteria, the methods remain approximately valid and hence usable. The second conclusion is that the 'reality' (the data collected) is appreciably less rich than the 'potential', in the sense that the data exhibit properties of regularity which in fact explain the convergence of the results obtained by applying methods whose bases are dissimilar. It thus becomes clear h o w the exhaustive analysis of data that the generalized use of computers alone makes possible can bring about a rethinking of the traditional approach to the methodology of data-processing.

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If, therefore, w e do not dwell at greater length upon this type of use, the reason is not that it has no bearing on scientific research techniques, but that the computer here plays a part that is subordinate to the theoretical and methodological activity of the research worker—and one, moreover, that is no different from the one it plays in any other discipline—and performs no integral function in the scientific process properly so-called.

The position would appear to be slightly different—at least on first analysis—with regard to a category of uses that w e shall group together under the title of 'simulation', and which will, w e feel, repay closer study.

The computer and simulation

The concept of simulation plays a major role in a discipline such as cybernetics, or again in engineering research into the automatization of complex tasks. In both these fields attempts are being m a d e to devise systems capable of simulating certain activities, or the results of certain activities, of living orga­nisms; for example, research on 'artificial intelligence' or on the automatic translation of one natural language into another. This type of research is obviously highly suggestive from the point of view of the experimental psy­chologist, but w e shall restrict our remarks here to the field of psychology proper, and more particularly to what m a y be termed 'computerized simula­tion' in psychology.

In this field, the concept of simulation has significance only in connexion with that of the model. In experimental psychology (and particularly in its most highly formalized sector, k n o w n as 'mathematical psychology') the term model is given to any mathematical construction involving concepts and hypotheses (relations) that have been formalized and articulated in such a way as to allow 'predictions' concerning some of the observable features of the behaviour of subjects placed in a given experimental situation. M o r e concisely, a model m a y be said to be a formalized and 'derivable' micro-theory; 'micro' inasmuch as the field of application (the type of behaviour being studied and the category of experimental situations considered) of the model is generally considerably m o r e restricted than it would be in the case of a theory properly so-called, and 'derivable' because w e require of a model (and this is not so in the case of all theories, even formalized ones) that it should allow us (given certain specifications regarding the experimental situation and possibly regarding certain of the model's parameters, etc.) to m a k e predictions concerning observable features of the behaviour whose mechanism the model is designed to formalize. (These predictions concern for example the 'theoretical values' of statistics for which the experiment is intended to provide observed values, the comparison between the two forming the basis for that between the model and the observable behaviour.)

Broadly speaking, 'simulation' can be applied to the process of deduction leading from the model to the predictions on observable phenomena. W e might say that the aim is, through simulation, to ' m a k e the model work'

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in order to obtain simulated data that will be compared with the data observed in the experiment. It is here that the computer comes in: it is, in fact, a pri­vileged instrument of simulation, in the sense in which the latter has been defined. It m a y , nevertheless, be noted that the use of a computer is not always necessarily called for; in some privileged cases, in which the structure of the model as a mathematical object is fairly simple, it is sometimes possible to extrapolate certain forecasts by direct mathematical methods. The first sto­chastic learning models that marked the beginnings of mathematical psy­chology were, for example, studied in this way. But it is none the less true that in m a n y cases the computer plays a vital role in the simulation of models, and this role will, it m a y be predicted, assume increasing importance in the future as researchers devise more complex models which will not lend them­selves to direct analysis.

This role of the computer appears at times to be so fundamental that some authors do not hesitate to suggest that data-processing has given rise to a new and entirely original form of psychological theorizing. This opinion appears to be based on the fact that, in m a n y cases, it is possible to give a particularly clear and concise formulation of a model in terms of an algorithm expressed in an appropriate programming language (for example in F O R T R A N , in P L 1 , etc.). If the model and the programme are then treated as identical (that is, if the abstract object constituted by a formalized theory is identified with the translation that can be given of it in data-processing language), it is clear that the link between theory and predictions becomes particularly simple and direct: simulation is simply the result of applying the programme which expresses the theory. This approach appears to avoid the considerable methodological difficulties that in general stem precisely from the indirect nature of the link between a theory and its predictions, and that m a k e it so difficult, from the point of view of the validity of the theory, to interpret the result of the confrontation between predictions and experimental data. The fact that w e can, so to speak, 'write' the theory 'for' the computer and leave it to the latter to draw the consequences appears to m a k e possible a direct confrontation of theory and experiment that could constitute an ideal of methodological simplicity to which experimental psychologists can only aspire.1

Such a conception (of which traces at any rate can, w e feel, be detected in the trend of some present-day studies) appears to us symptomatic of a certain fascination that data-processing and computers have for m a n y research workers in psychology as in other disciplines. It is, in fact, by no means clear w h y the methodological problems (which are of a theoretical not an empirical kind) that w e referred to in connexion with the links between theory, predictions

1. W e have not sought here to summarize the thinking of one or more particular authors, bu rather to identify and synthesize, in a perhaps somewhat schematic form, some opinions and trends that, in our opinion, underlie the tendency of a certain number of contemporary studies to accord the computer and the various symbolic programming languages a privi­leged position in the framing of psychological theories.

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and experiment should simply vanish once the theory can be expressed in a form suited to the language of computers and the latter take over the task of simulation; unless the problems in question are false problems—and this, in our view, remains to be proved. The crux of the question lies in the precise meaning attached to the term 'model'; if it is true, as w e have said, that a model is a logico-mathematical, and hence formal, construction (which takes account of the fact that it m a y possibly be formulated in algorithmic and therefore programmable terms), the fact remains that such a construction results from a process of formalization based on non-formalized concepts and hypotheses. Metaphorically speaking, it must be considered that the 'substance' of a model comprises not only its finished state as a formal con­struction, but also all the stages of construction leading to this finished state through abstraction, isolation, definition and articulation of concepts and relations. T o identify model and programme with one another, however, is tantamount to identifying the model with its finished state in algorithm form by isolating this stage from the process of formalization; it is to pretend that a fully fledged theory can emerge, ex nihilo, from the brain of a computer-oriented psychologist. O f course, it is, in our opinion, wholly to the good that the abstract structure of a model should be expressed in programme form, whenever this is possible, always provided that the programme is taken for what it is, namely, a simulation programme linked to the model, and not for the substance itself of the theory underlying the simulation.1 The fact that it has been possible to associate a simulation programme with a model is, therefore, n o guarantee that the methodological problems raised by the relationship between theory and predictions and, a fortiori, between theory and experiment have been solved.

'Real time'

W e shall n o w consider a use of the computer that is quite different from those so far discussed and, moreover, even less c o m m o n ; w e believe, however, that it will rapidly gain general acceptance since it represents an exploitation of the computer's capacities that appears particularly suited to the specific characteristics of research in experimental psychology. This is the use of computers in 'real time' (the stock phrase) or, to put it more precisely, the integration of the computer in the experimental mechanism.

1. It should be added that for reasons of space, w e have taken no account here of the fact that a model m a y lead not to one but to many simulation programmes. The transition is not in fact direct from even a completely formalized theory to a workable programme; a certain number of specifications regarding the experimental situation, the model's parameters, etc., must, as we have already emphasized, be introduced. T o consider the programme and the model as being one and the same would, therefore, lead to a severe limitation of the model's field of application. In this connexion, it would certainly be of advantage to distinguish precisely between 'model' and 'category of models', as also between 'programme' and 'cate­gory of programmes'.

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T o explain the significance and bearing of this use, w e must first give some idea of what constitutes an 'experiment' in psychology. The purpose of an experiment is to allow specific aspects of behaviour (for example, the solving of certain problems, learning to use words, a perceptual response, etc.) to be observed in a situation controlled by the organizer of the experiment. This control allows him to vary certain features of the situation in order to study the link between such variations and those of the behavioural charac­teristics that are being observed and recorded. W e shall use the expression 'rule of experimentation' to designate the procedure followed by the experi­menter in order to determine, at each m o m e n t , the 'state' of the situation viewed in terms of the variable characteristics under his control. The concept of the rule of experimentation is particularly clear in those cases (and they are numerous) in which the duration of the experiment can be divided up into a series of periods characterized by the recurrence of events of the same kind; for example, in the first stage of the establishment of a conditioned reflex, the experiment is split up into a sequence of 'trials', each of which comprises the following successive events: presentation of the conditional stimulus, then of the unconditional stimulus, response. The rule of experi­mentation determines the m o m e n t of occurrence and the duration of each stimulus. Generally speaking, it determines the distribution in time of the various events linked to the variable characteristics controlled by the expe­rimenter.

For the sake of simplicity, let us call the series of events the 'stimuli' and the set of behavioural characteristics that are observed and recorded the 'responses'. Stimulus and response are, therefore, the two types of variable phenomena occurring during the experiment, but whereas the variation of the stimulus is controlled by the experimenter, that of the response is, by definition, outside his control (being his subject of study) and results from an interaction between the subject and the situation.

The advantage of introducing the computer into the experimental pro­cess is obvious: taking over the implementation of the rule of experimentation in accordance with a programme specifying it, the computer is continuously in control of the state of the peripheral mechanisms that form the supporting framework of the stimuli, and it simultaneously records the distinctive features of the response registered by other appropriate mechanisms. The experimental use of the computer thus leads to the automation of experimentation; over and above its value in allowing perfect standardization and total reproduci­bility of experiments, this makes it possible to study far more complex rules of experimentation and to record far more subtle response indices than is possible using traditional—even electronic—techniques. But automation in itself would be a minor achievement, hardly worth describing as a 'technical breakthrough', were it not for the fact that the computer thereby opens up entirely new vistas by making it possible to apply certain very special rules of experimentation which have never previously been used for the simple reason that no means of implementing them existed.

A m o n g the rules of experimentation w e must, in fact, single out those

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whose property it is to m a k e the stimulus depend, at a given m o m e n t , not only upon the foregoing stimuli (a commonplace feature) but also upon the earlier responses. It is quite certain, however, that, apart from some rare and—by virtue of their exceptional simplicity—privileged cases, the condi­tions governing classical (i.e. non-computerized) experimentation preclude the use of such rules, since the choice of the stimulus to be applied at a given m o m e n t (a choice that m a y result, in the case of really interesting rules, from a complex elaboration or even computation incorporating numerous data) has to be made within an extremely short time from the m o m e n t at which the previous response was recorded, failing which the experiment could not be enacted at a normal ' tempo ' corresponding to the subject's spontaneous rhythm of activity. B y contrast, such an operation is simplicity itself (at least in theory) using high-speed computers which are capable of calculating at each m o m e n t the state to be imparted to the system, thanks to the incorpo­ration in the programme defining the rule of experimentation of the requisite information concerning previous stimuli and responses, including the most recent. W e have here, then, a quite specific use of the computer, in which its capacity to operate in 'real time' is fully exploited.

Our assertion that the computer's potential in this respect opens up n e w avenues of approach for experimentation is based in particular on the follow­ing considerations : the development of experimental psychology is founded on the recording of observable behavioural characteristics in controlled situations. But behaviour is, as regards such characteristics, the result of the interaction between 'mechanisms' (this term being understood in a non-literal sense) appertaining to the subject and the changes occurring in his external situation. B y confining itself to rules of experimentation which do not m a k e the changes in the situation dependent o n the subject's responses, i.e. his activity, experimental psychology considerably limits the quantity and quality of the data that behavioural observation might yield with regard to the sub­ject's mechanisms, through the analysis of this interaction. In the classic experimental situations it is, in fact, hardly proper to speak of an 'interac­tion', since situational changes are governed by a process that is defined quite independently of the subject's responses. Interaction is, however, the rule in 'natural' behaviour sequences, the subject's activity resulting in a continuous modification of the state of the system around him.

It should be noted that it is not the 'artificial' character as such of the classic experimental situation that we are here calling into question, but rather the impoverishment that in most cases results from the limitations inherent in the rules of experimentation applied; the artificiality itself of laboratory situations is merely an inevitable consequence of the need for experimental control of those situations—a need which cannot be avoided. O n the other hand, w e consider it highly desirable that every effort should be m a d e to break free from the limitations imposed by traditional conditions of experimentation—desirable and indeed essential if w e are to develop a somewhat more up-to-date approach to the problems of experimental psy­chology; it is this that could m a k e the more or less systematic incorporation

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of the computer in the experimental process abundantly worth while. This would in no way m e a n a return to 'natural' conditions which, in any case, are perpetually to hand (though they also remain signally impenetrable), but rather an enrichment of the artificial environment of the laboratory, while at the same time the conditions for rigorous control of observations would be maintained in their entirety and even strengthened.

A final remark

Let us conclude by outlining some possible consequences that the use of computers could have for the conduct of scientific research. It is possible to imagine a time, perhaps in the not-so-distant future, w h e n the use of c o m ­puters of all calibres will have become so widespread that the comparatively 'artisanal' nature of the work of the present-day experimental psychologist will give way to something more or less equivalent, on the scientific research level, to industrial-type production. The proliferation of experiments, experi­mental data analyses, possible rules of experimentation and models m a y well entail some problems of information-handling. The automation of a certain number of operations (collection and processing of data, simulation of models and their confrontation with the data), of which research workers at present have first-hand experience and for whose execution they tend to rely quite happily on intuition with a m i n i m u m of theory and formality, will m a k e the adoption of a watertight methodology more necessary than ever if w e are not to find ourselves fairly rapidly submerged beneath an unmanageable mass of heterogeneous and unusable data. It is our opinion, therefore, that the development of the use of computers will indirectly oblige research workers to m a k e a major effort to put their scientific practice, which is still largely empirical and intuitive, on a sound theoretical basis. It m a y well be that this is by no means the least of the advantages to be gained from the use of computers in experimental psychology.

[Translated from French]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

W e will cite here only two important works which can be referred to for a detailed biblio­graphy. Moreover, numerous articles devoted to the use of computers or touching upon this subject are published every year in the specialized journals of the various disciplines.

G R E E N , B . Digital computers in research. McGraw-Hill, 1963. This work is not recent, but it deals with the theoretical and methodological problems connected with the use of computers in a perspective that is still timely.

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U T T A L , W . Real-time computing. Harper, 1968. This is a m u c h more technical work than the one by Green, and is principally devoted to hardware problems specific to the use of computers in real time. " >

Dominique Lépine is a research worker at the Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale et Comparée, and is the author of several articles in the field of psychology, among which 'La formalisation de la Notion de Comparaison', Bulletin de Psychologie, Vol. 22, Nos. 9-13, 1968-69, 'Information Posi­tive et Information Négative dans l'apprentissage de Concepts Unidimensionnels Simples', Bulletin de Psychologie, Vol. 23, Nos. 1-3, 1969-70, and 'Comparison between Treatments in a Related Measurements Design: ANOVA and Multivariate Methods', British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1970.

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the analysis of myths

T h e h u m a n mi nd can explore its o w n workings as revealed in t w o of its m o r e powerful manifestations, namely, the m y t h and the computer, in each of which it is possible to detect echoes of the other.

A m o n g those opinions which are produced by a little knowledge, to be dispelled by a little more, is the belief in an almost boundless creative power of the human imagination. . . . The treatment of similar myths from different regions, by arranging them in large compared groups, makes it possible to trace in mythology the operation of imaginative processes recurring with the evident regularity of mental law ; and thus stories of which a single instance would have been a mere isolated curiosity, take their place among well-marked and consis­tent structures of the human mind [Tylor, 1958, p. 273, 282].

Tylor wrote those lines a hundred years ago, in 1871 ; and in our o w n day the demonstration has been taken further by Lévi-Strauss. But n o instrument lends itself better—in principle at any rate—to this sort of rigorous intellec­tual self-contemplation than the computer [l].1

Let us first of all suggest a metaphor. B y analogy with water, let us dis­tinguish between heavy and non-heavy symbols. T h e former are cultural key w o r d s ; they constitute the semantic framework o n which h u m a n societies rest, to which they o w e their diversification and from which they d r a w their d y n a m i s m . Such key words are found in myths, and it is also they which m a k e it possible to elicit semantically significant replies from, for example, the heads of groups (Maranda , 1969a). W o r d s of this kind are: 'shark' a m o n g the coastal peoples of Melanesia, 'parents-in-law' a m o n g a very large n u m b e r of tribes and clans, 'incest', etc. N o n - h e a v y symbols are literary inventions and as such ephemeral.

T h e slow development of the heavy symbols through generations of thought entails a refining of parole (utterance), which is gradually raised to the level of langue (language) and in s o m e cases actually comes to coincide with it. This is the stylization inherent in oral literature, which is capable of formal definition, as the w o r k of Felice, Shimkin, Sebeok, K ö n g ä s M a r a n d a and others has s h o w n . H o w e v e r a great deal m o r e w o r k of a highly syste-

1. T h e figures in square brackets refer to the notes at the end of the article.

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matic kind is still needed (for possible lines of research see Maranda, 1969e). It will then be seen h o w the study of myths can contribute to the theory of communications. For example, myths have a higher entropy, and conse­quently a lower redundancy rate, than our written languages, which at first seems surprising in view of the need to transmit without distortion messages which are supposed to remain stable from one generation to another (cf. Maranda and Köngäs Maranda, 1970; Maranda, 1970a). Similarly, it seems that the structure of myths is related to Shannon's theorems of audience capacity and channel capacity, as set out in his Mathematical Theory of Commu­nication (cf. Maranda, 1970a). Since it is possible to measure the social cohe­sion and possible transmission channels of a myth-preserving group, a better understanding of myth structures will in all probability contribute to the fur­ther development of those theorems.

In this connexion m u c h could be said about the structural similarities between the circuits of a computer with its switches—especially the double reverser k n o w n as a 'flip-flop'—and the Boolean circuits of mythical thought (cf. Maranda, 1969Z>). A s early as 1955, Lévi-Strauss pointed the way with his hypothesis of a standard enigma-formula. Since then, recent work by Lévi-Strauss himself (Mythologiques), Greimas (cf. 1970 especially) and a number of others (Morin, 1966; Köngäs Maranda, 1969; Leach, 1970; c o m ­puter analyses of French proverbs at the Musée des Arts et Traditions Popu­laires; Maranda, 1970Ô) has done m u c h to clarify the basic mechanisms of myths. The subject is one that would lend itself admirably to joint research by mythologists and data-processing experts [2].

Unfortunately it is not the purpose of this article to carry these consi­derations further or to inquire h o w the study of mythology can contribute to communication theory and data-processing, but rather to see h o w the latter can be of assistance in the study of mythology. H o w , then, do heavy-symbol syntagmata emerge from machine processing?

In the first place, let us repeat what others—e.g. Granger, 1960; Bowles, 1967—have already said, namely, that the computer forces the analyst to subject himself to a number of constraints of a sort to which he attaches little if any importance when working 'by hand'. The computer's most funda­mental contribution to our researches probably lies in the fact that it obliges us to resolve ambiguities. Our hypotheses, our procedures, the questions that we ask, the stages that we postulate and the adjustments that occur to us as w e go along are often ambiguous: but this sort of cheerful, hit-or-miss approach is out of the question if we are using a computer [3]. Not that myths, any more than computers, were designed for narcissistic trifling; but it is only with computers that the exercise is expensive.

Let us at this point say a few words, still in very general terms, about the research parameters within which our ambiguities are to be resolved. O n the one hand we have algorithms and on the other heuristics. A m o n o ­graph might be written on the different meanings that the term 'algorithm' has in mathematics and logic. Let us define it rather loosely in order to avoid

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falling into any pitfalls, and call 'algorithm' a 'verified system of steps towards a precise objective'. A 'heuristic', on the contrary, is an ad hoc strategy: the computer is merely given enough information to enable it to carry out selective explorations. In other words, the machine is launched on a limited set of paths which there is reason to believe will lead somewhere when some parti­cular course is followed (cf. Maranda, 1969c).

The construction of algorithms in mythological studies is a complicated business; it is m u c h easier, given a m o d i c u m of ingenuity, to propose heu­ristics. In that case, the researcher 'plays it by ear', so to speak, loosing the computer on the scent like a hound or aiming it like a radio telescope. H e discovers one or more sets of particular interest in the light of certain criteria of relevance, e.g. nodes in a network, multiple intersection points, position in a chain or at the tail-end of a curve, etc. The set or sets thus selected are filtered and refiltered by using various templates, either separately or in super­position. A s results appear on the printer, probes are m a d e left and right, above and below, etc. Because the replies to his questions are almost instant, the analyst can steer his research and gauge its value as rapidly as he is capable of thinking and translating his thoughts on to the master keyboard.

I shall not repeat the specific observations on 'common-or-garden' ambi­guity which have been m a d e elsewhere, nor shall I discuss certain key pro­blems such as those of descriptors, the formal analysis of structures, etc. (cf. Maranda 1967, 1968, 1969c, 1970a, 1970c; Gardin, 1970; Richard and Levy, 1970). If I refer here to the necessity of resolving common-or-garden ambi­guities, i.e. those of natural languages, it is because this is the only w a y of isolating the operative ambiguities of mythical thought. The term 'operative ambiguities' is here taken to m e a n the intersection operators (mediators) which m a k e it possible to link together the various sets of which these media­tors are members. The work of Lévi-Strauss on this important point is funda­mental. In this connexion, w e m a y recall that tropes such as metonymy and metaphor exploit ambiguity for semantic purposes. M e t o n y m y and metaphor are in fact reduction mechanisms and can therefore be used to effect such operations as subordination, transformation, modification of taxonomies, etc. (cf. Köngäs Maranda, 1969). A n example of metonymy which makes possible a multiplication operation by prior division is to be found in Maranda (1968): here the principle to be seen at work is actually the same as that which ope­rates in the multiplication of tubers, where the harvest comes from the division of roots into pieces which are then planted.

The computer is eminently capable of exploring operative ambiguity. It does so (a) by furnishing contingency tables for each descriptor (see below), or for each word, of the myths under analysis, and (b) by generating all the possible combinations of these descriptors and/or words and of their trans­formations—according, for example, to instructions in terms of Klein groups (cf. Barbut, 1966)—thereby enabling us to propose and test hierarchies of symbols, from the most to the least 'heavy', that is, in terms of frequential and contingential analysis at the level of units such as the 'sentence', the 'phrase', or the 'episode' (see Maranda, 1968, for definitions of these terms).

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Moreover, if the computer is supplied with chains such as those defined for specific cultural models (e.g. for Russian folklore, cf. Propp, 1968), it will, on the one hand, produce artificial myths—here Markov chains will be an invaluable aid in formulating exact instructions—and, on the other hand, discover similar patterns in other corpora. But there is a further expectation. W h a t w e are actually seeking is an understanding of the rules governing the formation of combination models within a society: by virtue of what cultural axioms or what rules are certain syntagmata possible, others excluded, others latent, etc.? Then w e should like to discover the transfer operators in a set of rules which m a k e it possible to go from one system of signs to another (code), either within the same society or in different societies.

Let us go more directly to the heart of our subject. Concrete cases will no doubt be welcome. W e must first of all introduce the terms 'dictionary' and 'descriptor' which have been defined in other publications (cf. Maranda , 1967, 1968, etc.; Gardin, 1970). A 'dictionary' is, briefly, a battery of des­criptors. A 'descriptor' is a category formed exclusively by the list of entries which define it. Descriptors must inevitably lend themselves to intuitive inter­pretation so long as words of the language are used to n a m e them, but recourse might just as readily be had to strings of figures, as with the computer. The fact that their formation rests upon semic analysis, or resembles it, is a conver­gence; in fact, they constitute the foundation of a meta-language without which it would be impossible to go any further (on this problem, cf. Gardin, 1970; Armstrong, 1959; Propp, 1968; Meletinsky, 1969). But the rules govern­ing membership of the specific sets (paradigms) designated by the various descriptors must be specified, either a priori when a working hypothesis or theory is being followed, or on the basis of an empirical knowledge of the taxonomies ordering the data that are to be analysed. Anyone asked to judge would agree that ' h a m m e r ' , 'hatchet', 'saw', etc., in English, should c o m e under the heading of 'tool'. But that the word 'shark' in Melanesian should be put in the category 'incarnation of ancestors', along with 'crocodile', 'snake', and 'octopus', would be obvious only to an analyst w h o was familiar with primitive societies.

Let us pursue the subject of Melanesian mythology a little further. It is well k n o w n that in this cultural area sexual dichotomy is a highly im­portant principle of social organization. It is also well k n o w n that this dichotomy is expressed along several semantic axes in a network whose limits, configuration and cluster types are unknown. The following instruc­tions, which go from the general to the particular, illustrate a possible first approach. 1. List all the occurrences, in sentences of natural speech, of references to

sexual dichotomy (having recourse to the descriptor as it is defined in the dictionary).

2. Indicate the position of these occurrences in each myth. 3. Plot the graph of 2. 4. G r o u p the occurrences in which the m a n - w o m a n relationship, R , is such

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that R — dominance (as defined in the dictionary), which w e shall express here by a colon and read from left to right.

5. Reverse the direction of reading in 4 in which case R = subjection. 6. Group together the myths where both 4 and 5 are found. 7. For each myth which comes out at 6, indicate the respective positions of

4, M : W and (5), W : M ; which then leads to the following query (8). 8. Does M = W occur? If so, give a list.

If it is seen on the printer that the computer gives results in which, for example, M = W in the village and in the home , we shall wish to ask 9 and 10.

9. Are there other relations of equality, in the sociological sense of the term as defined by the dictionary, in the home?

10. Or outside the home? If it is discovered that such relationships exist between brothers on the one hand and sisters on the other, the queries 11 and 12 will then be put. 11. brothers : sisters in what context? 12. sisters : brothers in what context? It is then possible to go further by examining other relationships between kinsfolk, or even such relationships as that between feeder and fed, seducer and seduced, aggressor and victim, etc. Thanks to the context, which has been retained, there will quickly be available an inventory of the cosmological, meteorological and other connexions of these relationships. Having thus defined a network for one corpus, we shall then be able to go on to another one in order to test the configurations that have been found and uncover possible reasons for variation. Moving on from one population to another in which the ecological factors are either the same or different, w e shall isolate certain constants. In like manner, by varying, for example, relationships between w o m e n , we shall generate myths or hypothetical constellations, which w e shall in fact find exemplified in certain societies of N e w Guinea [4]. Or again it will be seen that the rules governing the mythical place of origin of culture-assets (e.g. pig, coco-nut, etc.) are responsible for a 90-degree topographical swing according to the habitat of the societies in question. Malaita, in the Solomons, is an example. For the coastal peoples, the place of origin will be the horizon, while for the people from the mountains it will be the depths of the earth.

It will be easy for the computer to 'sweep' the whole of Melanesia, and other cultural areas, in order to check the scope of this rule. A few minutes will suffice for this once the corpora have been put on a machine-readable medium (card, paper strip or magnetic tape).

But here we must already interrupt this brief excursion in order to ask a further question: where does the computer stop?

W e refer once again to the text of Tylor quoted at the beginning of this article. Myths, computers and the human mind are commensurable in this mechanistic approach. Let us reject that approach, however, for one reason or another, as being too restrictive. The reply to the question remains none

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the less that the capacity of the computer is only limited by that of the h u m a n mind. Like the aeroplane, the computer will go where one wants it to go provided one knows how to pilot it. W e build it and we programme it. W e shall keep trying to build one in our o w n image and likeness. S o m e day there m a y be a computer capable of total self-programming. If so, this will simply be a tribute to its creator.

NOTES

1. The computer was first used for text analysis about 1950. In that year J. W . Ellison drew up the plans for his work on textual criticism, which began in 1951 using the first-generation computer M a r k IV at the University of Harvard. (At the same computer centre, A . Oettinger was exploring the possibilities of automatic translation from Russian to English.) A n e w threshold was crossed in 1956 by S. M . Parrish and his Cornell Univer­sity associates. At the same time, or shortly thereafter, T . A . Sebeok applied the computer to folklore analysis at the University of Indiana. Then followed the work of B . N . Colby, that of the present author and others, most of it based on the General Inquirer Programme, which n o w exists in four substantially different versions.

2. A s a matter of fact, an international team is n o w being formed and can be expected to m a k e concerted efforts in that direction. Its members will be drawn from the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale of the Collège de France, the École Pratique des Hautes Études, the Computer Centre of the Maison des Sciences de l ' H o m m e , the Computer Centre of the Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires (all in Paris), and the Department of Anthropology and Sociology in the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).

3. W e m a y mention the case of a literary critic, Professor Kroeber, w h o went boldly up to the analytical programmers of his university's computer centre:

'I should like to use your machines to analyse the style of the prose novel.' 'Very well. W e think w e can help you. But you must first of all tell us what you

m e a n by "style".' Several months later, Kroeber was still trying to define his concept of 'style' and

concluded: 'I have been forced to realize h o w little I k n o w m y subject and I have become highly

critical of assumptions that I accepted without question years ago' (Kroeber, 1967, p. 136). T w o objections are sometimes raised against the use of computers in the social sciences

and humanities. Ultimately, both of them spring from a lack of information. S o m e people think of the computer as a large-scale adding machine, whose work is therefore almost exclusively defined in terms of arithmetical operations, i.e. addition, subtraction, multi­plication and division. They mistakenly reduce the computer to an oversimplified model, ignoring its capacity for logic. C a n it be that these critics themselves are not, or do not wish to be, conscious of the logical operations underlying their research?

The second objection sometimes merges with the previous one. It springs from a more or less lordly disdain for quantitative data. Frequential analysis is decreed to be irrelevant. Yet m a n y examples from the social sciences and humanities bear witness to the short­sightedness of this type of mandarin attitude. But let us take an example from another field. Astronomy offers a concise and eloquent case which is not without analogy to our disciplines. The theory of cometary orbits used to be one of random distribution. There were statistics on orbits but nothing else, no structural model. In order to check the theory, descriptions of more than 550 comet orbits which had been carefully recorded were put into the computer. The results showed that the orbits were grouped round an axis like the petals of an artichoke. There are analogous theories in the social sciences and humanities: in literary criticism, speech analyses, politics, history, etc. Perhaps there,

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too, structures will emerge from what was thought to be nothing but a mass of statistics, and perhaps what was considered to be an unanalysable residue will turn out to have dynamic configurations as interesting as those of comets (cf. inter alia Raben's work on Milton and Shelley, and the elucidation of the Stonehenge mystery by Hawkins).

4. For the technical implications of analysis, cf., in addition to the references given in the bibliographies of m y articles, the interesting B A S E B A L L programme of Green, Wolf, Chomsky and Laughery; Minsky's character-algebra model; Tonge, 1963; and Slagle, 1963.

[Translated from French]

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

A R M S T R O N G , R. P. 1959. Content analysis in folkloristics. In: I. de Sola Pool (ed.), Trends in content analysis. Urbana, 111.

B A R B U T , M . 1966. Le sens du mot structure en mathématiques. Les temps modernes. B O W L E S , E . A . 1967. Toward a research of new dimensions. In: E . A . Bowles (ed.), Computers

in humanistic research. N e w York. F E L I C E , A . de. 1958. Essai sur quelques techniques de l'art verbal traditionnel. Arts Trad.

popul., vol. 6. G A R D I N , J . -C. 1970. Procédures d'analyse sémantique dans les sciences humaines. In:

P. Maranda and J. Pouillon (eds.), Échanges et communications. Paris and The Hague. G R A N G E R , G . G . 1960. Pensée formelle et sciences de l'homme. Paiis. G R E I M A S , A . J. 1970. Du sens-essais sémiotiques. Paris. K Ö N G Ä S M A R A N D A , E . 1969. L a structure des énigmes. L'Homme. K R O E B E R , K . 1967. Computers and research in literary analysis. In: E . A . Bowles (ed.),

Computers in humanistic research. N e w York. L E A C H , E . R . 1970. Genesis as myth. London. M A R A N D A , P. 1967. Formal analysis and inter-cultural studies. Soc. Sei. Inf., vol. 6, no. 4.

. 1968. Analyse qualitative et quantitatives de mythes sur ordinateurs. In: Calcul et formalisation dans les sciences de l'homme. Paris, Éditions du C N R S .

. 1969a. Structuralism and fieldwork. Sentence association tests as semantic investigations of decision-making. Lecture delivered at the symposium on structuralism held on the occasion of the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, N e w Orleans, November 1969.

. 19696. Review of Buchler and Selby, A formal study of myth. Am. Anthrop., vol. 71.

. 1969c. D u filtre au microscope; contribution méthodologique de l'informatique à l'analyse de textes. L'informatique au service de l'homme. Grenoble.

• •. 1970a. Redundancy and structure in myth. Lecture delivered at the symposium on computerized analyses of myth, held on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Winnipeg, June 1970.

. 19706. Cendrillon et la théorie des ensembles. Lecture delivered at the symposium on structures and types of ethnic literature, Palermo, April 1970.

. 1970c. Informatique et mythologie. Informatique en sciences humaines. ——; K Ö N G Ä S M A R A N D A , E . (eds.). 1970. Structural analysis of oral tradition. Philadelphia,

Pa. M E L E T T N S K Y , E . et al. 1969. Problemy strukturnogo opisanija volsebnoj skazki. Trudy po

znakovym sistemam, 4. M O R I N , V . 1966. L'histoire drôle. Communications. P R O P P , V . 1968. Morphology of the folktale. Austin and London. R I C H A R D , P.; L E V Y , F. 1970. Rapport du groupe d'études sur les possibilités d'emploi des

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ordinateurs par les spécialistes du folklore. Paris, Centre de Mathématiques Appliquése et de Calcul, Maison des Sciences de l ' H o m m e .

S E B E O K , T . A . 1959. Folksong viewed as code and message. Anthropos, vol. 54. S H I M K I N , D . B . 1964. Wind River Shoshone literary forms: an introduction. In: D . H y m e s

(ed.), Language in culture and society. N e w York. S L A G L E , J. R . 1963. A heuristic program that solves symbolic integration problems in freshman

calculus. In: E . Feigenbaum and J. Feldman (eds.), Computers and thought. N e w York. T O N G E , F . M . 1963. S u m m a r y of a heuristic line balance procedure. In: E . Feigenbaum

and J. Feldman (eds.), Computers and thought. N e w York. T Y L O R , E . B . 1958. Primitive culture, vol. I. N e w York.

Before becoming associate professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Pierre Maranda held teaching and research posts at the University of Harvard and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). He is the author of a dozen articles and a like number of contributions to collective works dealing with kinship, mythology and social structures, among which may be cited: Échanges et Communications—Mélanges Offerts à Claude Lévi-Strauss à l'Occasion de son 60e Anniversaire (ed., in collaboration with Jean Pouillon) (1970), Structural Analysis of Oral Tradition (ed., in collaboration with E. Kongos Maranda) (1970), and French Kinship: Structure and History (in press).

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Documentation in the social sciences

Robert N . Broadus T h e literature of the social sciences: a survey of citation studies

T h e great concern with scientific communication in the last few decades has produced a n u m b e r of studies analysing the use of information. O n e approach to these matters has been via the citation study—a method often used in the physical sciences, but applied less frequently in the humanities and social sciences. H o w e v e r , in the latter area, enough citation studies have been completed to produce material for interesting comparisons.

Nature of citation studies

Briefly, a citation study is conducted something like this : a source publication or group of publications is searched for bibliographic citations. These refe­rences, generally footnotes, are copied and then analysed in various ways. T h e typical study provides four different breakdowns of the total citations: the n u m b e r or percentage in (a) each subject field, (b) each major language, (c) each form of publication (such as b o o k , periodical, thesis, etc.), and (d) each age category by five- or ten-year intervals.

O n e crucial matter is the selection of the publications from which the citations are gathered. A n attempt must be m a d e to find a source as repre­sentative of the field as possible. The official journal of the leading national society in a given discipline is often used for this purpose. S o m e investigators use pilot studies to gain evidence on what sources are the most representative.

There are certain obvious weaknesses in this method, and it m a y be well to review them here. First of all, the various authors w h o publish in the source documents do not necessarily have the same bibliographic habits. T w o writers m a y use the same number of books, pamphlets and periodical articles, yet one m a y m a k e footnote references to twenty and the other to thirty items. O n e author m a y cite all the material he used, even if remotely related to his study, while the other m a y cite only the most important. There is no indication in the citation itself as to its weight or importance. A n item which was crucial to an entire research project looks the same as one of little value, or even one cited merely for purposes of refutation. Actual use itself does not m e a n

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T h e literature of the social sciences: a survey of citation studies

that the item was of supreme importance ; the author might have used others had they been available.

T o overcome these weaknesses, investigators usually gather a substantial number of citations for each study. Furthermore, such studies have the advantage of being objective. They measure what was really used, not what the author n o w thinks he might like to have used ten years ago.

A review of the studies

This article surveys all the British and American citation studies which could be located for the social sciences, and attempts to analyse and combine their findings in an understandable and manageable form. In some cases it was necessary to calculate percentages where the original author had presented raw numbers only. Sometimes it seemed best to m a k e abstractions of the original studies, or to select parts which were parallel with approaches in similar investigations. First, a brief review of the studies themselves.

Martin [l]1 used as his sources forty-six books listed in the law and political science section of the United States Quarterly Booklist. These source books were published in 1948 and 1949. H e sampled the citations; the number chosen for analysis was 3,024. Livesay [2] also started with the 1949 United States Quarterly Booklist, and examined thirty-nine economics books as sources. Taking approximately seventy-five citations from each, she had 2,871 references to analyse. M a r k [3] likewise studied citations relative to economics, but used a sample of 3,471 citations found in ten of the field's representative journals published in the years 1945 to 1950. Quinn [4], working with publications in sociology, used forty-seven books issued in 1948 and 1949 as listed in the United States Quarterly Booklist. H e gathered a sample of 3,018 citations. Meier [5], also in sociology, used six journals published in 1947 and 1948, resulting in a sample of 2,993 citations. Broadus [6] took all 1,016 bibliographic citations in the 1950 volume of the American Sociological Review. Fifteen years later, he analysed the 1965 issues of the same journal [7]. The number of citations had grown to 1,448.

In addition to these studies in what might be termed the 'pure' social sciences, three are available for applied fields. Sarle [8] drew a sample of 1,095 citations from nine journals of business administration, using chiefly articles published in 1956. For education, Broadus [9] obtained a sample of 1,372 references from the 1950 Encyclopedia of Educational Research. The 1960 edition of the same work was used as a source for 1,525 items [10].

T w o citation studies dealing with the literature of the social sciences have recently been completed in the United Kingdom. Guttsman [11] used as sources 116 articles published in eight representative British journals. Earle and Vickery [12], in a study which included science and technology, gathered 23,228 citations from social science books and journals published in 1965,

1. Figures in square brackets refer to the bibliographical references at the end of the article.

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but their analysis was based largely on their 13,412 references to social science literature.

Subjects of the citations

Table 1 gives the subject spread for citations m a d e by writers in each particular discipline. For all studies except that of Earle and Vickery, the subjects are defined by the Library of Congress classification. The column for 'special subject' shows percentages of references made to the same field as the respec­tive source documents from which they were gathered. For political science, the references coming under the Library of Congress class J are treated as the special subject, and for economics those in classification H B to H J . Socio­logy is included in class H M to H X . For education, class L is the special subject, and for business administration it is class H F (commerce). This latter is the class designated by Sarle as 'special' ; however it is narrower and perhaps less clearly defined than are the other 'special subjects'.

The column for 'social sciences' includes the percentages of citations in each study coming under a broad group of Library of Congress classi­fications which are usually considered as making up the social science area: G (geography and anthropology), H (social sciences), J (political science), K (law), and L (education). It should be noted that psychology (other than social psychology) and history are (somewhat arbitrarily) omitted from this column, and included with 'others'.

T A B L E 1. Subjects of citations gathered from social science literature (in percentages)

Investigator and field References to o w n Citations to Q ^ * I . Y « « . 1 . B O H , I <uiU " u special subject social sciences1

Martin, political science Livesay, economics M a r k , economics Quinn, sociology Meier, sociology Broadus, sociology, 1952 Broadus, sociology, 1967 Sarle, business administration Broadus, education, 1953 Broadus, education, 1965 Earle and Vickery, general social

science

1. Includes those in special subjects.

30.9 64.9 72.3 16.8 39.3 32.9 42.8 29 67.9 56.3

—

66.2 78.2 89.3 52.7 65.7 56.1 65.8 78.3 76.2 67.1

57.7

33.8 21.8 10.7 47.3 34.3 43.9 34.2 21.7 23.8 32.9

42.3

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The literature of the social sciences: a survey of citation studies

Earle and Vickery did not check their citations against the Library of Congress classification, but m a d e a guess as to the subject content of each work cited, based on its title.

O f the studies dealing with the 'pure' social sciences, the two in economics show a concentration of citations both in the special subject and in the social sciences. M o r e or less the same pattern is evident in the three studies of applied subjects (business administration and education), except in the case of Sarle's special subject category. A s noted previously, H F (commerce) m a y not in fact be very representative of the field of business adrniriistration. A s regards the column 'social sciences', however, Sarle's references come under the same Library of Congress classification as those of the companion studies.

Another curious fact is that Quinn's references to the special subject, sociology (16.8 per cent), are far fewer than those in the other three studies for sociology. His citations are drawn from books; the other three are based on journals. It m a y imply that writers of books limit themselves to a less restricted subject area than those writing articles in professional periodicals. Such a hypothesis is somewhat strengthened by comparison of the two studies of economics literature. Mark ' s references from economics journals show a higher concentration both in the special subject and in the social sciences than do Livesay's, drawn from books in that field.

Languages cited by social scientists

Though there are difficulties in categorizing bibliographic references by subject, an analysis by language is clear and precise. Table 2 shows a marked similarity a m o n g writers in the various 'pure' social sciences: their propor­tionate use of English-language materials. For the United States sources, the range found in the seven studies was 89.4 to 93.3 per cent. This is not a great variation from the 87.7 and 89 per cent revealed by the two British articles. The three studies in applied fields show a variation from the 'pure', but a similarity a m o n g themselves; the percentages of English-language citations being 98.5, 99.2, and 99.3 respectively.

It seems evident that English-speaking social scientists do not depend greatly upon research materials in foreign languages, and that in education and business administration they are used practically not at all. This conclusion can be supported by reference to some citation studies m a d e in other branches of knowledge.

In a study of the literature used by American chemists and physicists in 1939, Fussier [13] found that for chemistry 64.5 per cent of the serials and 67.2 per cent of the monographs cited had been published in the United States or the United Kingdom. For physics, the respective percentages were 66.6 and 69.4. Vaughan [14] placed the percentage of references in English found in two American music periodicals at 57.3. Tucker [15], using the Transactions of the American Philological Association as a source, found that only 45.5 per cent of the citations referred to publications in English. Simonton's [16]

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T A B L E 2. Languages of citations from social science sources (in percentages)

Investigator and field English French G e r m a n Russian Spanish Others

Martin, political science Livesay, economics M a r k , economics Quinn, sociology Meier, sociology Broadus, sociology, 1952 Broadus, sociology, 1967 Sarle, business administration Broadus, education, 1953 Broadus, education, 1965 Guttsman, general social science Earle and Vickery, general social

science

89.4 93.2 91.9 92.5 93.3 90.8 91.9 98.5 99.2 99.3 87.7

89

4.2 1.0 2.4 0.9 0.3 1.2 1.6 — 0.4 0.4 —

—

1.4 2.9 2.2 1.4 4.5 1.0 5.3 —. 0.4 0.3 —

—

2.7 2.6 1.2 2.0 0.3 5.4 1.0 — — — —

—

— 0.1 1.5 — — 1.2 — — — — —

—

2.3 0.2 0.8 3.2 1.6 0.5 0.2 1.5 — —

12.3

11

analysis of citations in Art Bulletin showed (a very low) 32.7 per cent in the English language, and for the Burlington Magazine (a British art journal) the percentage of publications in English was 44.9. O n the other hand, Louttit [17] discovered that in English-language psychology publications 92.5 per cent of the citations referred to English materials, and in a recent study of geology literature Craig [18] found that about 87.5 per cent of the references were in English. A n important factor which influences the choice of language is the location of the subject studied or of the research concerning it, as well as the native language of the author. Brown and Gilmartin [19] estimate that 'three-fourths of today's research in sociology has its setting in the United States'. Simonton, on the other hand, says that in the part of Art Bulletin which he examined in his study, only 9 per cent of the articles were on British or American subjects. For the Burlington Magazine, 20.1 per cent were on British subjects, none on American.

Forms of publication cited

It is difficult to compare the studies from the standpoint of kinds of material cited, since terms like 'book' , 'monograph' and 'serial' were used with slightly different meanings by the various investigators. For instance, a monograph which is a part of a series, e.g. Psychological Monographs, m a y be classed as a serial by one, as a monograph or book by another. In spite of this lack of precision, it is possible to draw some general conclusions from the follow­ing breakdown which gives for each study the percentage of the total citations referring to 'books' or similar forms of publications :

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The literature of the social sciences: a survey of citation studies

Martin, political science, found 51.3 per cent 'monographs'. Livesay, economics, found 51.3 per cent 'monographs'. M a r k , economics, found 47.6 per cent 'monographs'. Quinn, sociology, found 45.2 per cent 'monographs'. Meier, sociology, found 55.6 per cent 'monographs'. Broadus, sociology, 1952, found 53.7 per cent 'non-serials'. Broadus, sociology, 1967, found 61.5 per cent 'non-serials'. Sarle, business administration, found 32.6 per cent 'monographs'. Broadus, education, 1953, found 30.9 per cent 'books'. Broadus, education, 1965, found 32.7 per cent 'books'. Guttsman, general social sciences, found 43.9 per cent 'treatises and monographs'. Earle and Vickery, general social science, found 46.2 per cent 'books'.

In two recent studies by Brown and Gilmartin and by Lin and Nelson [20], the percentages of citations referring to books ranged from 42 to 56. These proportions take on meaning when compared with data obtained from cita­tion studies in other disciplines. Vaughan, in music, found that 69.5 per cent of the references were to 'monographs'; Tucker, in philology, classified 60.4 per cent as 'monographs'. Simonton, in his study of fine arts literature as a whole, discovered that 71.4 per cent of the citations referred to 'books'. Fussier's analysis for 1939 showed chemists using 5.21 per cent 'monographs', while physicists were using 7.75 per cent. Craig found that 'books' used in geology m a d e up 17.5 per cent of the total references in 1960; 21.5 per cent in 1965.

With one exception, each of the studies dealing with the literature of the humanities showed a higher percentage of citations referring to 'books' or 'monographs' than did any of those in the social sciences. Apparently, h o w ­ever, physical scientists use m a n y more serials than monographs, and the contrast with the social scientists is notable.

A g e of literature used

Here again it is not easy to make a close comparison of the various studies because of the slightly different ways of estimating and describing the age of the references at the time they were cited. However, the following list shows a pattern of use :

Martin, political science, 47.6 per cent of materials published within 10 years (not more than 10 years old when cited).

Livesay, economics, 45 per cent published within 10 years. M a r k , economics, '1 of 2 published within 6 years . . .'. Quinn, sociology, 57 per cent published within 10 years. Meier, sociology, 'over half' less than 10 years old. Broadus, sociology, 1952, 69.9 per cent published within 10 years. Broadus, sociology, 1967, 69.6 per cent published within 10 years. Brown and Gilmartin, sociology, approximately 80 per cent published within 10 years. Lin and Nelson, sociology, median ages of 5.3 to 7.8 years. Broadus, education, 1953, median age of 12 years. Broadus, education, 1967, median age of 7 years. Sarle, business administration, 56.2 per cent published within 10 years. Earle and Vickery, general social science, 'half-life' of 9 years.

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Again the findings m a y be compared with those of other representative stu­dies. For geology, Craig found 70 per cent of the literature cited had been published in the previous fifteen years. Fussier discovered that 71.2 per cent of the serials used by chemists in 1939 were no more than ten years old. For physics serials, the percentage was 88.2. In philology, Tucker found 34.9 per cent published within ten years. Vaughan (music) classified 25.5 per cent in the same time span, and Simonton says that '22.8 per cent of the citations in fine arts were no more than 16 years old'.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

1. M A R T I N , Gordon P . Characteristics of the literature used by authors of books on political topics. (Unpublished master's dissertation, University of Chicago, 1952.)

2. LrvESAY, Martha J. Characteristics of the literature used by authors of books in the field of economics. (Unpublished master's dissertation, University of Chicago, 1953 )

3. M A R K , Frances M . Characteristics of the literature used by contributors to American and English economic journals. (Unpublished master's dissertation, University of Chicago, 1956.)

4. Q U I N N , Edward W . Characteristics of the literature used by the authors of books in the field of sociology. (Unpublished master's dissertation, University of Chicago, 1951.)

5. M E I E R , Elizabeth L . Characteristics of the literature used by contributors of American sociological journals. (Unpublished master's dissertation, University of Chicago, 1951.)

6. B R O A D U S , Robert N . A n analysis of literatuie cited in the American sociological review. A m . Sociol. Rev., vol. 17, June 1952, p. 355-7.

7. B R O A D U S , Robert N . A citation study for sociology. A m . Sociol., vol. 2, February 1967, p. 19, 20.

8. S A R L E , Rodney G . Characteristics of the literature used by authors of journal articles in business administration. (Unpublished master's thesis, University of North Carolina, 1958.)

9. B R O A D U S , Robert N . The literature of educational research. School and Soc, vol. 77, 3 January 1953, p. 8-10.

10. B R O A D U S , Robert N . A n analysis of references used in the 1960 Encyclopedia of educa­tional research. J. educ. Res., vol. 58, March 1965, p. 330-2.

11. G U T T S M A N , W . L . The literature of the social sciences and provision for research in them. / . Docum., vol. 22, September 1966, p. 186-94.

12. E A R L E , Penelope; V I C K E R Y , Brian. Social science literature use in the U K as indicated by citations. / . Docum., vol. 25, June 1969, p. 123-41.

13. F U S S L E R , H e r m a n H . Characteristics of the research literature used by chemists and physicists in the United States. Part II. Libr. Q., vol. 19, April 1949, p. 119-43.

14. V A U G H A N , David L . Characteristics of the literature cited by authors of articles in The musical quarterly, 1955-58 and The American Musicological Society journal, 1953-56. (Unpublished master's thesis, University of North Carolina, 1959.)

15. T U C K E R , B . R . Characteristics of the literature cited by authors of the Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1956 and 1957. (Unpublished master's thesis, University of North Carolina, 1959.)

16. S I M O N T O N , Wesley C . Characteristics of the research literature of the fine arts during the period 1948-1957. (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Illinois, 1960.)

17. L O U T T I T , C . M . The use of foreign languages by psychologists, chemists, and physicists. A m . J. Psychol., vol. 70, June 1957, D . 314-16.

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18. C R A I G , Jr., J. E . G . Characteristics of use of geology literature. Coll. Res. Libr., vol. 30, M a y 1969, p. 230-6.

19. B R O W N , Julia S.; G I L M A R T I N , Brian G . Sociology today: lacunae, emphases, and surfeits. A m . Sociol., vol. 4, November 1969, p. 287.

20. L iN'Nan; N E L S O N , Carnot E . Bibliographic reference patterns in core sociological journals, 1965-1966. A m . Sociol, vol. 4, February 1969, p. 49.

Robert N. Broadus is professor of library science at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. He has contri­buted articles dealing with various aspects of library science to journals in the fields of sociology, education, religion, speech and librarianship, and is likewise the author of a monograph The Research Literature of the Field of Speech (1953).

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D . J. Foskett Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences

Far from having become less critical as a result of the application of compu­ters to the organization of documentation, it has become increasingly evident that problems of indexing and classification require solution more urgently than ever before. The reasons are obvious: so long as indexing and classifi­cation were applied only to the arrangement of books in libraries, no great harm was done if the arrangement proved to approximate only sketchily to the specialist's view of his o w n subject. H e could see, in the small space occupied by a few shelves, a reasonable conspectus of his field and, if the shelves were adequately marked, browse efficiently and quickly a m o n g a large number of books and stand a good chance of finding something useful. It is often forgotten that a book contains more text than its title and that the information content of a shelf of books is enormous. O n e of the pathetic fallacies entertained by the bibliographical innocent is that a citation is the equivalent of the document cited; hence the confusion, in the minds of some computer specialists, between two types of information that are produced by retrieval systems. There is, first, the type that is usually called 'data', and which consists of statements of what is the case—the enumeration of facts. Everyone is n o w familiar with data banks, or data archives, in the social

^sciences, which are repositories or stores of such statements as are elicited in response to specific questions, the archetype being probably the census. The second type of information, which should preferably be named 'dis­course', consists of series of statements which purport to do more than merely answer specific questions. They can of course be produced in response to specific questions, but their terms of reference are not bounded by those of the question.

Thus a document dealing with the influence of broken homes on the incidence of juvenile delinquency m a y well contain a specific statement con­cerning the number of divorces recorded in a certain place in a certain year. The purpose of the document, however, is not merely to answer that question, and indeed the chances are that the author is actually quoting those parti­cular data at second hand. Conversely, neither the author nor the reader would claim that this single document gave the answer to a question on the relation between broken homes and delinquency.

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Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences

It might reasonably be claimed, I think, that this confusion between data and discourse has never existed in the minds of librarians, w h o have always distinguished 'reference' books from others, on the grounds that a reference book is designed for ad hoc consultation and not to be read conti­nuously from beginning to end. A reference book usually carries its o w n internal classification and index, and does not need to be displayed in relation to any other books. O n e can, therefore, reasonably shelve all dictionaries, time-tables, directories and so on in one part of the library, and the 'dis­course' books and periodicals in another, even though their subject coverage will overlap considerably.

The notion of arranging books in groups according to their subject content existed in antiquity, but it was not until the Decimal Classification of Melvil Dewey , first published in 1876 and n o w in its eighteenth edition, that a truly scientific basis for such an arrangement was put forward. It was no accident that this occurred in the heyday of the classificatory sciences, when m u c h of the basic documentation consisted of descriptions of individual species, enumerating their characteristic features and degrees of likeness to and difference from other species. Such monographs could be classified in the same w a y as the objects they described, and D e w e y realized that the simple way to effect such an arrangement, on the library shelves, was to label subjects with a decimal fraction notation. Thus each step of the genus-species sub-division was reflected by the addition of another notation symbol at the right-hand end of the number:

M a m m a l s Primates

Apes Gorillas

599 599.8 599.88 599.884

F r o m the beginning, however, Dewey realized that objects and monographs could be classified in more than one series—that a group could be divided on the basis of more than one characteristic :

Birds Birds Swallows Birds of California Starlings Birds of Massachusetts

H e provided for such geographical sub-division by enumerating a geogra­phical table which could be added to the main schedules where appropriate, and indicated by the introducing digits 09. Later editions of D C have extended this technique, but only in a very limited w a y ; for example, one can divide 'Strikes' as follows:

331.892 331.8928

Since 622 Then 331.892822

Strikes In special industries, divide like

001-999 is the mining industry is Strikes in the mining industry

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D . J. Foskett

In 1895, Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine set out to establish a universal card index of the world's documents and decided that it should.be arranged in a systematic subject sequence. They wished to use D C , but found that its flexibility in concept co-ordination was too limited for the more complex subjects then appearing, particularly in periodical literature. They accor­dingly developed what was called the Brussels Expansion, but for m a n y years has been k n o w n as the Universal Decimal Classification, U D C . Although founded on the same basis as D C , that is, a mono-hierarchical series of terms based on the genus-species relation, the recent trend of U D C — n o w under the control of the International Federation for Documentation (FID)—has been to give more freedom for the individual classifier to choose his terms and combine them in the most useful sequence. This is mainly done by the Auxiliary Signs and Tables, in which sub-divisions which can apply to m a n y subjects are listed, with their o w n notation symbols which can be added to the subject symbol by means of an indicator digit :

Symbol

+ l

['] = (0)

(1/9) (=) " "

A/Z -

.00

.0

Expressed as

Plus Stroke Colon Square brackets Equals Brackets nought Brackets Brackets equals Inverted commas A to Z Hyphen Point double 0 Point nought

Significance

Connexion of non-consecutive numbers Connexion of consecutive numbers Relation Relation (suboidinate) Language Form Place Race and nationality Time Individual sub-divisions Special analytical numbers Point of view Special analytical numbers

The Abridged English Edition, BS1000A, urges restraint in the use of these numbers, and suggests that 'as a rule application of the sign of Relation : and the auxiliary numbers of place between parentheses is sufficient'. Most of these tables are straightforward lists, as their names imply, with some useful extensions. Place, for example, has numbers for topo­graphical features and for local limitations:

(-1) (-11) (-13) (-15) (-17) (22) (28) (282.3)

Points of the compass East, south, west, north Islands Surface waters Waterfalls

U D C has not, however, succeeded in freeing itself from its D C base, in that subject fields are still divided up in single hierarchies. In the recent revision of class 37, education, one finds sequences like this :

37.018 Fundamental forms of education

37.018.2 School education

37.018.26 Attitudes of parents to school

37.018.263 Parent-teacher relations

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Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences

Clearly, the last two subjects cannot be regarded in any sense as being 'species' of the subjects immediately preceding, but in the schedule, and in the notation, they are presented as if they are. This continued combination of false with true hierarchies has certainly limited the usefulness of U D C for modern documentation, particularly in social science fields, where false hierarchies are most likely to represent an old-fashioned view of the subject. This was, of course, pointed out seventy years ago by Durkheim and Mauss in their well-known paper, ' D e Quelques Formes Primitives de Classification'.

The basic problem here has been to leave terms 'free' to develop inde­pendently of each other in order that they m a y continue to reflect the pro­gress of knowledge. One of the commonest criticisms of classification is that it necessarily fixes terms in a preconceived sequence which is then fossilized for all time. There is some truth in this; is it not indeed the case that U D C 37 has n o w fixed the compound subject 'Attitudes of Parents to School' as a species of 'School Education'? But the solution is surely not to abandon all hierarchical sequences because some are unsound. W e have to consider what the users of our systems require of them.

If w e start from the basic truth that users of documentation systems are seekers after knowledge, w e can say that what they are trying to do is to complete a partially constructed pattern of concepts in their minds. Such a pattern, if it is to make sense in relation to the real world which it purports to reflect, must have a structure into which successive items of information m a y be successfully articulated. Such information m a y be sought by direct investigation or experiment, by conversation with experts, or by consulting the literature. A reader consults the literature because he hopes to find in it a description of what he is trying to find out. A nineteenth-century botanist read Linnaeus in order to find descriptions of plants, from which he would be able to identify himself the specimens he had collected. The social descrip­tions of cultural anthropologists serve a similar purpose. Information about things that are n e w to us becomes comprehensible to the extent that w e are able to perceive its relations to what w e already know—in other words, to classify it. If, then, the system by means of which w e arrive at this new k n o w ­ledge gives us false information about such relations, w e shall not be helped, but hindered, in our search. For some inquirers, 'Attitudes of Parents to School' would quite clearly not be a type of 'School Education' ; they would find this classification puzzling, and not enlightening.

Nevertheless, it is clear from the work of modern experimental psycho­logists such as Jean Piaget, J. S. Bruner, J. P . Guilford, and m a n y others, that classification, or categorization of items of information, plays a major role in advancing our understanding of the world around us. They have shown, however, that such classifications are multiplicative; not single hierarchies, but lattices. The fundamental problem of modern documentary classification systems is therefore to provide a lattice-type network of terms rather than a single linear sequence.

The technique of 'facet analysis', which does this, was devised during the early 1930s by two m e n , independently of one another, G . Cordonnier

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in France and S. R . Ranganathan in India. Cordonnier confined his effort to the field of engineering, but Ranganathan, first through bis Colon Classi­fication and, in recent years, in the research work of the Documentation Research and Training Centre ( D R T C ) of the Indian Standards Institute at Bangalore, has gone on to develop a general theory applicable to the whole of knowledge. His influence has spread throughout the world, to such an extent that facet analysis is n o w incorporated into revisions of U D C and even of D C itself.

Facet analysis means the division of a subject or class into several sets of terms, each set, or facet, bearing its o w n relation to the class, and given separate notation symbols so that it can be manipulated or added to independently of the other facets. Moreover, these facets are all considered as being concrete manifestations of five fundamental abstract categories, called Time, Space, Energy, Matter, Personality. The Time and Space facets, which are c o m m o n to all classes, represent their chronological and geographical sub-divisions; Energy contains the 'process' or 'operation' type of terms found in a subject; Matter the material or substance type of term. The most important, and the most difficult to explain precisely, is the Personality facet, which contains those terms that name the core entities that are central to the subject. The application of facet analysis is most easily exemplified in techno­logy, where the 'product' terms make up the Personality facet, 'raw materials' the Matter facet, and the 'processes that convert the raw materials into the product' are the Energy facet.

Thus the Personality facets include:

Class X. Economics 4 Transport industry 41 Land 42 Water 43 Air 5 Commerce 512 Retail 518 Wholesale 62 Banking 621 Central 6212 Federal Reserve 7 Public finance 72 Tax 75 Public loan

Î Energy facets include:

X Economics 2 Production 3 Distribution 8 Management 9 Personnel management

Class Y. Sociology Persons

1 3 31 33 4 5 51 592 7

Y 2 3 4 45 8

By age and sex By residence

Rural Urban

By occupation By birth and status

Royalty By caste

By race

Sociology Physical character and feature Activity Social pathology

Crime Equipment

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Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences

The notation symbol introducing an Energy facet is the colon. Thus the subject 'Personnel Management in the Federal Reserve Bank ' receives the notation X6212 : 9 and the subject 'The Incidence of Crime in Urban Popu­lations' receives the notation Y 3 3 : 45.

Thus facet analysis enables a classification scheme to provide notation symbols for even the most complex subjects, and since each facet is enumerated and notated separately from all the others, the several aspects of complex subjects are not fixed, or 'pre-co-ordinated', but are combined as required by the literature, or 'post-co-ordinated'. Unfortunately, recent D R T C research has far outstripped the development of the Colon Classification, which remains quite inadequately developed for general application in the social science fields. Neither is there any satisfactory alternative, but the British Classi­fication Research Group, like several other national groups formed on its pattern in Europe and the United States, has carried out a great deal of work on the development of a new generalized classification scheme or 'indexing language'. Their results are embodied in two recent publications of the British Library Association.1

The notion that classification has something to contribute to an 'indexing language' m a y seem strange, but in fact it cannot be ignored. The modern forms of subject analysis, paradoxically enough, have most to contribute to computerized systems, where the usual practice has been to discard classi­fication altogether, and then slowly and laboriously smuggle it back under some other name .

The most favoured n a m e is, of course, 'thesaurus'. Scarcely a week passes without the announcement of a thesaurus covering some fresh field of knowledge. There is, in fact, nothing new about a thesaurus, and none of the modern ones approach in detail of analysis the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases of Peter M a r k Roget. In this, words are arranged in groups based, like Ranganathan's facets, on fundamental abstract notions—Existence, Quantity, Time, Change, Causation, Space, Matter and so on. There are five classes of categories, more than twenty individual categories, and m a n y sub-divisions. Following the Thesaurus itself, there is an alphabetical index, in which many words are shown to appear in several different categories according to the different contexts (including metaphors) in which they m a y appear. W h e n one turns from the alphabetical index to the classified set of categories, one finds one's word grouped together with m a n y others to which it is related, grammatically, syntactically or semantically. The classification helps the user to think by showing him a structured pattern, after he has formed his o w n way in by means of the alphabetical index. This structure reflects the way w e think and use language to express our thoughts, while an alphabetical index does not. S o m e of Roget's categories and thesaurus and index entries are as follows:

1. Classification Research Group, Classification and Information Control, London, Library Association, 1970; D . J. Foskett, Classification for a General Indexing Language, London, Library Association, 1970.

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D . J. Foskett

CATEGORIES Class 6. Sentient and moral powers 6.1 Affections generally 820-826 6.2 Personal 827-887 6.3 Sympathetic 888-921 6.3.1 Social 888-905 6.3.2 Diffusive 906-913 6.3.3 Special 914-915 6.3.4 Retrospective 916-921

THESAURUS ENTRIES

910. Philanthropy—N. philanthropy; altruism, humanit-y, -arianism; cosmopolitanism, utilitarianism, social science, sociology.

c o m m o n weal, public welfare, socialism, communism. patriotism, nationality, love of country, public spirit. chivalry, knight errantry; generosity & c . 942 philanthropist, altruist & c . 906; utilitarian, socialist, communist, cosmopolite, citizen

of the world; knight errant; patriot. Adj. philanthropic, altruistic, humanitarian, utilitarian; cosmopolitan; public-spirited,

patriotic; humane, large-hearted & c . 906; chivalrous, generous & c . 942. Adv. pro bono publico. Phr. 'humani nihil a m e alienum puto'.

INDEX ENTRIES

public: general—372 make—-531 —-enemy 891 —good 644 —opinion 488 —school 542 —spirit 910 —welfare 910

The categories, or groups, of terms used in three systems in education (one faceted classification and two thesauri) m a y be compared in the Appendix.

Most modern thesauri, however, rely for their base on the alphabetical list of words; some have included a primitive set of categories (in one case as an afterthought), with little or no attempt to build up a relational network of concepts. These are, in fact, not based on the Roget pattern at all, but follow a very well-known library tool of respectable antiquity, the List of Subject Headings first established in the United States in the nineteenth century. The two best known are Sears' List of Subject Headings, n o w in its eighth edition, and the Library of Congress Subject Headings, in its seventh edition. Both of these were drawn up to provide alphabetical subject cata­logues for classified libraries: Sears for libraries using Dewey 's D C , the Library of Congress primarily for itself but also for the increasing number of American libraries using the Library of Congress Classification scheme. In both, the notion is implicit that all subjects can be reduced to a single word or phrase that can be allotted a unique position.

With the introduction of mechanical and even semi-mechanical sorting devices (such as edge-notched cards) after the Second World W a r , it was realized that indexing terms could be restricted to what m a y be called 'simple' terms, as opposed to complexes like 'attitudes of parents to school'. In a

250

social 892 —circle 892 —evil 961 —gathering 892 —science 910

Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences

punched-card system 'attitudes', 'parents' and 'school' could all be used separately as entry terms on index cards. This system was given the n a m e 'Co-ordinate Indexing' by Mortimer Taube, w h o called the simple terms Uniterms. Each term card has inscribed on it (either as a mark or a punched hole) the number of all documents dealing with that term. Given a three-term subject, the three term cards are extracted from the pack and inspected to find the numbers that appear on all three. M a n y varieties and examples of co-ordinate indexing using term cards have been described in the literature; they are perhaps most suitable for small personal files.1

The advantages offered by the technique of post-co-ordinating terms to give a precise subject analysis for any document are immediately obvious when w e consider the immense co-ordinating power of computers, and the proposal to organize uniterms, or 'descriptors' as these simple terms are also called, into 'families of notions' in the manner of a thesaurus, came from H . P . Luhn of I B M , in 1951. After Luhn , the 'thesaurus of descriptor terms' became the standard method of compiling a controlled vocabulary for use with a computerized information retrieval system. The user was apparently freed from the rigidity of the single hierarchy classification, and could choose the combination of terms he required with m u c h greater precision :

Attitudes of parents to school Attitudes of parents to teachers Attitudes of headteachers to parents Attitudes of children to art teachers

and so on. N o term need be inextricably linked with any other term; the computer is capable of making all the necessary co-ordinations, provided that the descriptor terms have been correctly chosen.

There are three persons w h o use terms to describe a given subject: the author, writing what he takes to be a true description of his subject; the indexer, selecting suitable terms to state the author's subject; the reader, stating what he thinks is the subject on which he requires information. These terms are not, as R . A . Fairthorne has repeatedly emphasized, the same as the subject, neither do they give the same information as a document on the subject. They are always substitutes, and different people m a y choose different substitutes. The information retrieval system, to function efficiently, must be able to effect an accurate match between all three.

With regard to data, there is really very little problem in this respect, and it certainly represents no great technological achievement for a computer to be able to control a data archive (though m u c h has been m a d e of the feat). Data—even social-science data—are already highly organized by their collec­tors, by means of a controlled vocabulary. Most data are expressed as quan­tities, and therefore the entities regarding which the data are collected must be very precisely defined and labelled, so that all those w h o count the quan­tities are counting the same classes of entity. Moreover, data are absolutes ; that is, they are (or purport to be) a statement of what is the case, under

1. See, for example, A . C. Foskett, A Guide to Personal Indexes, London, Bingley, 1967.

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D . J. Foskett

certain conditions. The fact that some data are incorrect does not affect the argument: so far as retrieval systems are concerned, data are input to the system on the terms of the collector; the system itself has nothing to say about correctness or incorrectness, any more than an abstract reporting some chemical analysis guarantees the correctness of the results.

'Discourses', on the other hand, are neither absolute nor organized in terms of a publicly accepted vocabulary. This is not to suggest that all dis­courses are imprecise in their terminology (though many are), but that, par­ticularly in the social sciences and still more in the humanities and arts, a writer claims the right to describe his work in his o w n terms. This is not hard to understand: these areas deal, not with laboratory matters, but with the everyday world, and in that world we are accustomed not only to give things names that seem appropriate in the light of our o w n experience, but also to discuss them in our o w n idiosyncratic language. M a n y attempts have of course been m a d e to establish a standardized nomenclature and terminology in social science, but none has so far w o n universal acceptance. The result, as w e know, is that the terms used by a reader to state his needs do not always correspond with those used by an author whose work would meet those needs.

All the more reason, therefore, for incorporating a visible and compre­hensible structure in the indexing language used in any retrieval system. O f course, one need not discard alphabetical sequence entirely; it is used successfully in some Czech and American mechanized systems. But, in prin­ciple, alphabetical sequence should be introduced only when no more useful arrangement suggests itself. For however their choice of words m a y differ, both the author and the reader are attempting to describe a reality which exists independently of both of them. They have their o w n knowledge of what is the case, but this is not always the full story. Both have the same aim, to complete the story, and what is c o m m o n to both is the general pattern or structure of the concepts in the field. W h a t the indexing language has to do , therefore, is to provide a matrix, a frame of reference, into which the terms of authors can be inset, and which will also provide help to the reader in formulating his request to the system. It must make it possible to identify and locate concepts, no matter what words m a y have been used to label them.

In proposing to give the name 'informatics' to the n e w discipline of infor­mation control and dissemination, our Russian colleagues in VINITI have m a d e use of not only mathematics and computer engineering, but also philo­sophy, psychology, sociology and linguistics. These sciences are of equal, if not greater importance, for at present the biggest problem of all in the sciences of information is h o w to prevent their reduction to a mere technology. The notion that something called 'information' exists as a commodity is very strong in the United States, where most of the computer promotion originates. If w e give in to this pressure, w e shall witness the spectacle of marks on paper being processed through all the costly and intricate mechanisms of computers in order simply to reappear on other pieces of paper; the measure of success will be the score—the number of marks that can be so processed. 'Increased production' will be the panacea for all intellectual deprivation.

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Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the K W I C index. A n y h u m a n indexer w h o produced such an index would be instantly dismissed as incompetent, because a K W I C index is hardly an index at all: it is merely a list of words, which affords no help for the user and makes no attempt to effect the match of concepts. K W I C cannot do this, and indeed at least one K W I C editor rejects the suggestion that it should even try. The result is that, after a rapid scanning or first receipt, K W I C indexes lie mouldering on the library shelves. Where such an index proves at all useful, as in the case of the Czech Index Radiohygienicus, it is where it is used as an entry to a classified sequence of citations, and not by itself.

Classification and indexing are two sides of the same coin, and neither will be rendered out of date by the advent of computers. O n the contrary, the most advanced work on subject analysis, such as that going into the development of the P R E C I S system for use with the M A R C (A/achine .Readable Catalogue) programme of the British National Bibliography,1 relies not on the rejection of classification, but on the development of complicated classi-ficatory techniques soundly based on modern thinking concerning the sciences of the h u m a n mind. The aim is not to provide some superficially attractive but primitively simple technique that will give less work to the producers of indexes; rather it is to continue and improve upon the honourable tradition of good indexing, so that care and thought at the input stage will, once for all, lay d o w n the means for helping future users at the output stage of infor­mation retrieval.

There are m a n y problems to be solved, but they must be faced if users are not to be gorged instead of nourished with bibliographical aids. A system, like P R E C I S , which has been developed from a study of the user's approach, aims to allow the m a x i m u m refinement of concept specification with the m a x i m u m flexibility of concept co-ordination. Thus the information store, like the traditional library, will be highly structured in a manner which reflects that in which the users think about their material. The schedules of the classi­fication scheme should themselves prompt the user to think further and more clearly; a faceted classification, which combines analysis in construction with synthesis in use, avoids the rigidity of nineteenth-century classifications, but does not reject hierarchies where they are helpful. In using a term such as 'capital', for example, it helps if w e k n o w whether w e are discussing capital cities, or capital and interest. This kind of assistance, derived from a high degree of refinement in the index and search vocabulary, will enable computers to play a really effective part in the improvement of information control, whereas the use of alphabetical keywords, or even of the natural language of authors, will add little or nothing to the resources of an inquirer. If he chooses a word, and draws a blank, h o w should he k n o w whether or not there really is nothing useful in the store? Again, if he picks a word and finds a few citations, he m a y well think that he has succeeded in his search; it m a y

1. D . W . Austin and Peter Butcher, PRECIS: A Rotated Subject Index System, London, British National Bibliography, 1969.

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well be, however, that there are other valuable citations indexed under a synonym, or related term. O n e K W I C index, for example, has citations under the words 'abroad', 'foreign', and 'overseas', merely because these words happen to appear in the titles of the articles indexed. There is no cross-referencing, nothing to link them together.

Alphabetical key-words, and authors' terms, represent the folly of reductionism—the equivalent, in indexing, of imagining that all social-science phenomena can be explained without residue in terms of biology, chemistry and physics. There is no attempt to penetrate to the underlying complexities of relationships between concepts. This is not merely an 'academic' or 'philo­sophical' question; it has intensely practical implications. The purpose of an index is to enable the user to specify a subject in terms of his o w n requi­rements, and he should be hampered by the indexing system as little as possible. H e should not draw a blank when there is something to be found—the system should offer suggestions; he should not extract only a fraction of what is available—the system should show alternative paths for investigation ; he should not be overwhelmed with irrelevancies—the system should show him h o w to refine and give precision to his inquiry. If w e recognize the role that modern techniques of classification can play in providing both a hospitable indexing language and an enlightening search strategy, w e shall surely be capable of using economically and effectively the full capacity of automated systems of information control. Only if w e do this can w e claim to have met the challenge, and taken the opportunities, offered by modern scholarship.

APPENDIX: THREE EXAMPLES OF THE GROUPING OF

EDUCATIONAL TERMS IN CATEGORIES

1. THE LONDON EDUCATION CLASSIFICATION1

Summary of facets B Education, general, principles, etc. K Students' work D School buildings and equipment L Teaching method F The teaching profession M - P Curriculum G School, college and university officers R - S Educands and schools H School, college and university T Exceptional children

management J Educational psychology and

measurement

2. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL THESAURUS OF EDUCATION TERMS*

Facet 1 People Facet 6 Ability Facet 2 Activities Facet 7 Affect Facet 3 Measurement Facet 8 Physiological Facet 4 Time Facet 9 Sensation Facet 5 Relationship Facet 10 Mental constructs

1. University of London, Institute of Education, 1963. 2. Case Western Reserve University, 1968.

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Problems of indexing and classification in the social sciences

Facet 11 Data-message Facet 12 Social Facet 13 Finance Facet 14 Educational level

3. THESAURUS OF ERIC DESCRIPTORS1

Eric descriptor groups 010 Abilities 020 Administration 030 Art 040 Attitudes 050 Audiovisual materials and methods 060 Behavior 070 Biology 080 Communication 090 Counseling 100 Culture 110 Curriculum 120 Demography 130 Development 140 Education 150 Employment 160 Environment 170 Equipment 180 Evaluation 190 Evaluation techniques 200 Experience 210 Facilities 220 Finance 230 Government 240 Handicapped 250 Health and safety 260 Humanities

Facet 15 Things Facet 16 Symbols Facet 17 Subject matter

270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400 410 420 430 440 450 460 470 480 490 500 510 520

Instruction Instructional program divisions Language and speech Languages Learning and cognition Library materials Library science Mathematics Occupations Opportunities Organizations (groups) Personnel and groups Physical education and recreation Physical sciences Programs Psychology Race relations Reading Research Resources Schools Social sciences Sociology Standards Techniques Tests

United States Office of Education, E R I C Bureau of Research, United States G P O , 2nd ed., 1969.

D . J. Foskett has been head librarian of the library of the University of London Institute of Education since 1957, and is vice-president of the United Kingdom Library Association and chairman of the Library Association Education Committee. He has compiled several classification schemes at present in use in several countries, and is the author of numerous books and articles dealing with various aspects of documentation and classification, the more recent including: H o w to Find Out: Educational Research (1965), Classification for a General Index Language (1970), 'Progress in Documentation: "Informatics" ', Journal of Documentation, Vol. 26, No. 4, 1970, 'Structure in Classification and Index Systems', in: D . J. Foskett et al. (eds.), Library Systems and Information Services (1970), and 'The Changing Role of the Librarian', The Times Literary Supplement, 15 January 1971.

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W . D . Garvey, N a n Lin A comparison of scientific and Carnot E . Nelson , • 1 1

communication behaviour of social and physical scientists1

In studying nine disciplines [l]2 over the past three years, w e have discovered that the communication process does differ a m o n g disciplines. In this article, w e shall focus on differences between the physical and the social sciences, in terms of three major communication characteristics associated with infor­mation dissemination and assimilation: (a) lags in the information flow process, (b) organization and effectiveness of informal networks, and (c) the transfer of information from the informal to the formal domain.

Lags in the information flow process

TIME INTERVALS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRODUCTION OF JOURNAL ARTICLES

Part A of Figure 1 shows the average times at which critical stages associated with the production of 'core' journal [2] articles occurred. Graphs A.l to A . 4 display: when the work reported in the articles was started (A.1); when the work was completed (A.2); when the authors began first drafts of journal-article manuscripts (A. 3); and when they submitted manuscripts to publishing journals (A.4). Each stage of this process—from inception of work to publi­cation—occurred closer to the time of publication for the physical sciences than for the social sciences.

The graphs in Part B of this figure show where the lags in the process occurred. The major lag (B.l) is associated with the actual conduct of the work, which took each group, on the average, about a year to complete. The next graph (B.2) shows that little time was wasted between completion of

1. The work reported here was supported by the National Science Foundation. This article is drawn from a paper presented at the Symposium on Communication A m o n g Scientists and Technologists jointly sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University and the National Science Foundation. Proceedings of the symposium were published by Heath Lexington Books, D . C . Heath & C o . , Lexington, Mass., in 1970.

In addition to the authors of this article, Kazuo Tomita and Gayle R u m m e l contri­buted significantly to the work reported here.

2. Figures in square brackets refer to notes and references at the end of the article.

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Scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists

1. Time work was initiated (months prior to publication)

2 . Time work was completed (months prior to publication)

3. Time first drafts of manuscripts were started (months prior to publication)

4 . Time manuscripts were submitted to journals (months prior to publication)

1. Time to complete work (months)

2 . Time between completion of work and starting manuscripts (months)

3. Time between starting and submitting manuscript to publishing journal (months)

4 . T ime between submitting manuscript and journal publication (months)

30 32

F I G . 1. A : Pre-publication schedule of work reported in articles. B : Time lags associated with production of journal articles. (The broken bars represent the physical sciences and the solid bars represent the social sciences.)

work and initiation of first drafts of manuscripts, and that the lag which did occur here (two months) was identical for the two groups. The third graph (B.3) shows h o w m u c h time authors spent preparing their manuscripts before submitting them to the publishing journals. These lags were relatively short (four months) for the physical sciences, but were seven months for the social sciences. The final graph (B.4) shows the publication lags, which were generally the second longest lags encountered in the entire process. The publi­cation lags reported by the physical sciences were four months shorter than those reported by the social sciences.

A s a result of these longer lags in the social sciences, the social scientists started making their pre-publication reports earlier (on the average, twenty-eight months before journal publication) than the physical scientists (on the average, sixteen months before publication). The average social scientist also continued his pre-publication reporting over a longer period (thirteen months compared to seven months for the physical scientist).

While most authors had disseminated their work on one or more occasions before publishing it in journals, 83 per cent of the physical-science authors, compared to 72 per cent of the social-science authors, had done so.

Thus, the physical scientists had not only a shorter interval between inception and publication of work, but also shorter intervals between earliest pre-publication report and article publication, and between earliest and latest pre-publication reports; in other words, they m a d e more pre-publication reports and they did so in a shorter interval of time than the social scientists.

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Perhaps more significant is the delay between the most recent pre-publi­cation report and publication of the journal article, since the material appears to be effectively obscured from the scientific public during this interval. This lag (between latest pre-publication report and journal publication) is fifteen months for the social sciences, and nine months for the physical sciences.

TIME INTERVAL BETWEEN PRESENTATION OF MATERIAL AT MEETINGS A N D PUBLICATION IN JOURNALS

Another series of studies, also relevant to the examination of lags in the flow of information, traced the journal publication status of material presented at national meetings. Graph A . l in Figure 2, which indicates the percentage of authors w h o submitted presentation-based manuscripts to journals within one year after the meetings, shows that over half the physical- and social-science authors have done so.

Graph A . 2 shows the percentage of all presentations published within one year after the meetings. Over one-third of the physical-science-meeting presentations had been published, compared to only one-sixth to one-fifth of the social-science presentations.

The next graph (A.3) shows the percentage of submitted manuscripts which had been published. Here w e see clearly the effect of the longer publi­cation lag in the social sciences.

DELAY IN PUBLICATION INDUCED BY MANUSCRIPT REJECTION

Understandably, rejection of submitted manuscripts produced considerable lags in the information-flow process. Graph B.l in the second part of Figure 2 shows the percentage of meeting-presentation-based manuscripts which were submitted to, but not accepted by, one or more journals during the first year

1. Meeting presentation authors submitting manuscripts

2 . Meeting presentation authors publishing their work

3 . Submitted manuscripts published

1. Submitted manuscripts not accepted by one or more journals (one year after meeting)

2 . Articles published in core journals previously not accepted by one or more journals

3 . Rejected manuscripts which received more than one rejection before publication

0 10 Percentage

F I G . 2. A : Publication status of presentation-based manuscripts (one year after national meeting). B : Journal non-acceptance of presentation-based manuscripts (within one year after national meeting). (The broken bars represent the physical sciences and the solid bars represent the social sciences.)

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Scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists

after the meeting. Clearly m u c h of the time lag associated with publication of the social-science meeting material resulted from the high rate of manuscript rejection.

W e obtained additional data on manuscript rejection in another study pertaining to manuscripts initially rejected by other journals and subsequently published in the core journals of a particular discipline. (These data are especially interesting because core journals, usually high rejectors, are usually low recipients of previously rejected manuscripts.) The next graph (B.2) shows the core journals of the social sciences to have published a dispro­portionately large number of previously rejected manuscripts.

A n initial rejection of a physical-science manuscript adds an average of four months to the delay in its publication; the average additional delay for the social sciences is eight months. This lag is compounded for the social sciences, since a large proportion of submitted social-science manuscripts are rejected more than once before they are accepted for publication in core journals. The last graph (B.3) shows the percentage of rejected manuscripts, eventually published in core journals, which had received more than one previous rejection. Over six times as m a n y social-science manuscripts as physical-science manuscripts had received multiple rejections.

OVER-ALL LAGS IN DISSEMINATION PROCESS

In Figure 3, w e attempt to summarize these findings on lags. The diagram sequences events associated with articles published in core journals, in terms of w h e n (average number of months after initiation of work) they occurred. In studying the published articles for each group, w e separated those which had been rejected one or more times prior to publication from those which had received no previous rejections.

First, let us consider those articles in the latter category. The pre-publication events appear on the left in each diagram. Note that the intervals between completion of work and initiation of manuscript and between in­itiation of manuscript and submission are the same for the social and the physi­cal sciences, but the social sciences have a considerably longer publication lag.

Next, let us examine the lags associated with those manuscripts which had been previously rejected. Note that the interval between first (unsuccessful) submission and final (successful) submission is seven months for the social and three months for the physical sciences. This delay is longer for the social sciences primarily because a larger proportion of the social-science manuscripts received multiple rejections, but also because the social sciences encountered greater editorial delay, i.e. delay on the part of editors in informing the social-science authors that their manuscripts were not acceptable.

Another example of the longer publication lags in the social sciences is the interval between submission of previously rejected manuscripts to the publishing journals and publication. It might be noted that for both the physical and the social sciences, these lags averaged one month longer than the publication lags for manuscripts with no history of rejection. These

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previously rejected manuscripts apparently required more time for editorial processing.

F r o m these findings it seems clear that the longer lags exhibited by the social-science dissemination system should not be attributed to lethargy or inefficiency on the part of individual social scientists. Instead, they result from characteristics of the dissemination system currently functioning in the social sciences.

P H Y S I C A L S C I E N C E S S O C I A L S C I E N C E S Work initiated

Earliest report

Work completed

Manuscript started

1— Latest report

1

National meeting

Manuscript submitted

Journal publication

Submission of rejected manuscript

Journal publication

Earliest report

Work completed

Manuscript started

Latest report and manuscript. submitted

National meeting

Submission of rejected manuscript

Journal publication

Journal publication

F I G . 3. The dissemination schedule of information contained in journal articles. The dis­semination events are displayed in terms of months after authors initiated the work reported in their articles.

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Scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists

Also noteworthy is the compactness of the dissemination process, i.e. the duration of the interval between earliest report and journal publication. This range—from sixteen months for the physical sciences to twenty-six months for the social sciences—is largely due, of course, to differences in the publication lags (i.e. in the lags between submission and publication of m a n u ­scripts). But since the typical author does not disseminate his work after sub­mission, it is the compactness of the dissemination process u p to the point of submission which is of most interest. It is during this period that the bulk of the informal communication in science actually occurs.

Organization and effectiveness of informal networks

PRE-PUBLICATION DISSEMINATION OF THE MAIN C O N T E N T OF PUBLISHED ARTICLES

There is a period, beginning twenty-six months prior to journal publication for the social sciences and sixteen months prior to journal publication for the physical sciences, during which authors are involved in pre-publication dissemination of the main content of their articles. W e will refer to what occurs during this period as the informal dissemination process. O u r studies revealed that the majority of authors in both groups participate in this process, but that the social scientists are less actively involved.

The two groups, in reporting their work, used the various informal media to different extents. The social scientists did relatively little reporting to small, select audiences (e.g. colloquia, conferences by invitation), with the exception of thesis committees, to which they frequently reported their work. The major occasion for pre-publication reports to relatively large audiences—used by one-third of the physical scientists, compared to one-sixth of the social scientists—was the national meeting. The physical scientists participated more often in international meetings as well as national meetings : one physical scientist in ten, compared to one social scientist in forty used this m e d i u m . Social scientists reported their work more frequently than physical scientists at meetings of local, state or regional societies; they tended to use these meetings almost as frequently as they did national meetings.

Theses or dissertations were the major media through which the social scientist generally distributed pre-publication written reports, while the technical report tended to be the written m e d i u m most frequently used by the physical scientists.

Authors usually m a d e their pre-publication reports before submitting their manuscripts to journals; therefore, they had the opportunity to receive feedback, which frequently led to modification of manuscripts subsequently published in journals. M o r e of the social scientists modified their manuscripts as a result of such feedback, but although the social scientists m a d e more modi ­fications, this quantitative difference evidently did not involve modifications

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in the substance of the manuscripts (e.g. re-analysis of data, redefinition of concepts, revision of interpretation of findings, etc.) as m u c h as it did changes in style and organization. However , at this stage of the process, feedback appears to have had a significant effect on both the physical and the social scientists: one author in five reported substantive changes in his manuscript as a result of such feedback.

Over half the authors in each group participated in another m e d i u m of pre-publication dissemination, distribution of pre-prints (i.e. drafts of article manuscripts). The primary targets of pre-print distribution were colleagues working in the same areas as the authors, in which cases the authors handled distribution personally. The secondary targets (persons w h o had earlier become acquainted with the authors' w o r k and w h o had requested that the authors send the manuscripts as soon as possible) reflect the effectiveness of previous pre-publication networks: over a quarter of the authors w h o distributed pre-prints sent them to such persons. F e w authors (fewer, in fact, than one in twelve) routinely distributed pre-prints through 'formally' orga­nized pre-print-exchange groups.

The social-science authors were led to modify their manuscripts as a result of pre-print feedback m o r e frequently than the physical-science authors. For the physical scientists, such modifications were distributed equally be­tween stylistic and substantive changes; for the social scientists, stylistic changes were relatively more frequent than substantive ones. The social scientists, however, m a d e slightly m o r e substantive changes than the physical scientists; this perhaps indicates that the social scientists have adopted this intimate dissemination process as a source of critical feedback, which enables them to revise their manuscripts before subjecting them to the arduous editorial process in the social-science field.

STRUCTURE OF THE PRE-PUBLICATION DISSEMINATION PROCESS

O u r investigation revealed that the informal networks associated with the phy­sical sciences have a tighter structure and more sequential orderliness than the informal networks associated with the social sciences.

W h e n the various pre-publication media used by authors were arranged according to the times at which they typically occurred in the dissemination process, it became evident that this process was more compact (encompassed a shorter period of time) for the physical sciences than for the social sciences. Also, and perhaps m o r e important, there existed for the physical sciences an almost perfect pattern of information dissemination, starting with the most specific and ending with the most general of audiences. The sequence associated with the physical sciences was as follows: thesis committee, written thesis, reports to contractors, in-house oral reports, colloquia (within author's institution), in-house written reports, colloquia (outside author's institution), scientific/technical committee meetings, local, state or regional meetings, proceedings, technical reports, conferences by invitation, national meetings

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Scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists

and international meetings. This dissemination process took 80 per cent longer for the social sciences and the sequence of events formed a m u c h less perfect pattern than that just described for the physical sciences; that is, for the social sciences, the flow of information in the informal domain appeared to be far less organized.

PRE-PUBLICATION ASSIMILATION OF THE MAIN CONTENT OF JOURNAL ARTICLES

U p to n o w w e have been discussing pre-publication dissemination as such dissemination affected the authors. Also important is the effectiveness of this information as it was disseminated to other workers in the field. The data revealed that most of the scientists working in the same areas dealt with by the authors' articles [3] were acquainted with the specific work described in the articles prior to their publication. The pre-publication dissemination in the social sciences, however, was less effective than in the physical sciences : only 70 per cent of the social scientists, compared to 84 per cent of the phy­sical scientists, were acquainted with the main content of the articles, prior to their publication in journals.

PRE-MEETING DISSEMINATION OF THE MAIN CONTENT OF MATERIAL PRESENTED AT NATIONAL MEETINGS

The major occasion on which scientists reported their work before publishing it was the national meeting. W e turn n o w to the authors' pre-meeting dis­semination of their presentation material. O u r studies revealed that 75 per cent of the physical and 66 per cent of the social scientists m a d e some report of their work before the meeting. Half the authors of presentations in both groups had m a d e pre-meeting written reports, but more of the physical scien­tists had reported them orally. Pre-meeting written reports by the physical scientists were more frequently technical reports; pre-meeting written reports by the social scientists were more frequently theses or dissertations. Collo-quia were the most frequent type of pre-meeting oral report for both groups, but the physical scientists m a d e them m u c h more frequently.

The main difference between the two groups, aside from these findings, was simply that the physical scientists m a d e more pre-meeting reports than the social scientists and did so on a greater variety of occasions, even though the interval between completion of the presented work and the actual meeting was shorter for them.

PRE-MEETING ASSIMILATION OF INFORMATION PRESENTED AT NATIONAL MEETINGS

W e would like n o w to examine the efficiency of this pre-meeting informal dissemination for those persons w h o attended the author's presentations at the meeting [4].

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W . D . Garvey, Nan Lin and Carnot E . Nelson

Graph A . l in Figure 4 shows the percentage of attendants w h o were familiar with the authors' earlier work, i.e. work conducted prior to that reported at the meeting, and indicates that more of the physical scientists were acquainted with such earlier work. Their acquaintance could, of course, have been acquired through formal channels, such as (previously published) journal articles.

The remaining graphs in Part A of the figure present data on attendants' pre-meeting familiarity, acquired through informal channels, with the material which authors presented at the meeting.

The second graph (A.2) shows the percentage of attendants w h o were familiar, prior to the meeting, with the content of at least one of the sample presentations. M o r e of the physical scientists reported such familiarity with the presentation material.

The next graphs present information on the various ways in which atten­dants had had pre-meeting knowledge of material. The third graph (A.3) shows the percentage of attendants w h o , before hearing the presentations, were in some way acquainted with the authors of the presentations and knew their work was in progress. Such 'personal' acquaintance with authors appears to have been the main source of pre-meeting familiarity with presentation material. The physical scientists more frequently reported such pre-meeting familiarity.

Graph A . 4 shows the percentage of attendants w h o had heard authors make pre-meeting oral reports of their work and A . 5 shows the percentage of attendants w h o had read pre-meeting written reports of the main content of the presentations. F e w attendants in either group appeared to have had access to information from such pre-meeting reports, but this is not surprising, since such reports were usually disseminated to small audiences and typically occurred within five months before the meetings.

The last graph (A.6) shows the percentage of attendants w h o , prior to the meeting, had read abstracts of at least one of the four sample presenta­tions they had attended. Curiously, the social scientists, w h o had less pre-meeting familiarity with the presentation material, had m a d e fewer attempts to remedy this by reading abstracts of presentations in advance of hearing them.

These findings relative to prior acquaintance with presentation material suggest that there must be important differences in the informal networks associated with the disciplines under study and that these differences must in part determine the effectiveness of the individual information-exchange activities. The physical scientists seem to m a k e more intensive efforts to disseminate information than the social scientists, and to do so in a shorter period of time and in a more effective manner.

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Scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists

INFORMATION-EXCHANGE ACTIVITIES AT A N D RESULTING FROM THE MEETING

It might be expected, then, that the information-exchange activities which occur at meetings of the physical and of the social scientists would differ, and our results showed the social scientists generally to be more active infor­mation-seekers on these occasions. The graphs in Part B of Figure 4 show the percentage of attendants w h o contacted authors at the meeting and w h o corresponded with authors afterwards; in both cases, the social scientists showed greater activity than the physical scientists.

The remaining graphs in Figure 4 present data pertaining to requests m a d e to authors for copies of their presentations.

Graph C.l shows that while most authors received requests for copies of their presentations, more social- than physical-science authors received such requests. Distribution of copies of presentations is evidently a major dis­semination activity associated with meetings: the average author received five requests and some received over 200.

The next graph (C.2) shows that social-science authors are more apt to fulfil as well as to receive such requests. The last graph (C.3), however, shows

1. Familiarity with author's earlier work

2 . Familiarity with content of at least one sample presentation

3. K n e w author's work was in progress before meeting

4 . Had heard an author m a k e an oral report of his presentation material

5. Had read a written report of an author's presentation material

6. Had read an abstract of at least one of the sample presentations

1. Contacted authors at meeting

2 . Contacted authors after meeting

1. Authors w h o received requests

2. Requesters w h o received copies of presentations

3. Requesters w h o received copies and had read them

F I G . 4. A : Pre-meeting familiarity of attendants at national meeting with work of authors of presentations. B : Contact of attendants at national meeting with authors of presentations. C : Requests for copies of presentations m a d e at national meeting. (The broken bars represent the physical sciences and the solid bars represent the social sciences.)

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W . D . Garvey, Nan Lin and Carnot E. Nelson

the social scientists to be less efficient in assimilating information: within two months after the meeting, only 80 per cent of the social science requesters, compared to 93 per cent of the physical science requesters, had read the copies they requested.

A comparison of the dissemination activities occurring prior to the national meeting, with the information-exchange activities occurring at and resulting from the meeting, suggests that it became an occasion on which social scientists devoted considerable time and energy to interacting and es­tablishing lasting informal contacts in order to compensate for the inefficiency of their informal pre-meeting channels of communication.

Transfer of information from the informal to the formal domain

In the scientific communication systems w e have studied, information appears first to flow through the informal domain and then, at a certain stage, to be transferred to the formal domain, where it becomes genuinely public and archival. A s w e have mentioned, the flow process in the informal domain seems more orderly for the physical than for the social sciences. W e turn n o w to the problem of transferring information from the informal to the formal domain.

POST-MEETING DISSEMINATION OF MATERIAL PRESENTED AT NATIONAL MEETINGS

At the time of the meeting, over 90 per cent of the authors of presentations in each group planned to disseminate their presentation material in written form, and most—79 per cent of the physical- and 74 per cent of the social-science authors—planned such dissemination in journals. M a n y authors had started writing and some had actually submitted their manuscripts within a few weeks after the meeting.

In our discussion of lags, w e mentioned the extent to which these publi­cation plans with respect to journal articles were fulfilled within one year after the meeting. (These data are shown in Part A of Figure 2.) W e saw that over half of both the physical- and the social-science authors had submitted manuscripts based on their presentations to journals during the first year after the meeting. This amounts to 70 per cent of those in each group w h o had planned journal dissemination at the time of the meeting.

The data also showed the difficulty encountered by the social scientists in transferring information from the informal to the formal domain. Within the first year after the meeting, the social-science transfer process had clearly become bogged d o w n ; only about a third of the submitted social-science manuscripts (compared to over 60 per cent of the submitted physical-science manuscripts) had been published in this interval.

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Scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists

M u c h of the delay in the journal publication process for the social sciences seems to be attributable to the high rates of rejection and to the lack of 'page charges' levied by their journals. T h e first graph (A) in Figure 5 shows the percentage of authors of presentations whose manuscripts had been submitted to, but not accepted by, one or more journals during the first year. Only about one physical scientist in eight, compared to more than one social scien­tist in three, had unsuccessfully submitted a manuscript.

The second graph (B) in this figure shows the percentage of presentation-based manuscripts which were accepted during the first year by journals requiring page charges; i.e. requiring some portion of the publication costs to be shared by the authors (and usually covered by their institutions or research grants). The physical scientists, unlike the social scientists, use page charges as a way of sharing the burden of publication costs with their journals, so the number of pages their journals can publish is not strictly limited by annual publication budgets.

The transfer of information into the formal domain was further compli­cated for the social sciences by the diffuseness of the dissemination process. Graph C in Figure 5 shows the percentage of presentation-based manuscripts accepted during the first year after the meeting by core journals. Note that most of the physical-science manuscripts, but only a little more than one-quarter of the social-science manuscripts, were accepted by core journals.

A

B

C 1. Presentation authors not planning Journal publication

of their material (one year after meeting)

D : 2 . Presentation authors having had manuscripts rejected

w h o abandoned publication plans 1. Non-accepted manuscripts rejected on basis

of inappropriateness of subject-matter

2 . Non-accepted manuscripts rejected on basis of statistical or methodological grounds

E 3 . Non-accepted manuscripts rejected on basis

of theoretical or interpretations! grounds 4 . Non-accepted manuscripts rejected on basis

of controversial findings

0 20 40 eo 80

Percentage.

F I G . 5. A : Submitted presentation-based manuscripts not accepted by journal to which they were first submitted. B : Accepted presentation-based manuscripts which were accepted for publication in journals requiring 'page charges'. C : Accepted presentation-based manuscripts which were accepted by 'core' journals. D : Presentation material not destined for journal publication (one year after meeting). E : Bases on which manuscripts were rejected by journals. (The broken bars represent the physical sciences and the solid bars represent the social sciences.)

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Another indication of the diffuseness of this transfer process in the social sciences was the large number of journals accepting presentation-based m a n u ­scripts during the first year after the meeting. O n e hundred and eight journals accepted 488 presentation-based physical-science manuscripts; 107 journals accepted 193 social-science manuscripts. In other words, using the same number of journals, and in the same amount of time, the physical sciences published two-and-a-half times as m a n y presentation-based manuscripts. Thus, the bulk of the literature produced by the physical-science disciplines is concentrated in relatively few journals and their core journals annually publish large numbers of articles, but the literature of the social-science disciplines is diffused through m a n y journals and their core journals publish relatively few articles. (In general, the core journals in each physical-science discipline published two to four times as m a n y articles, relative to m e m b e r ­ship, as the core journals in any of the social-science disciplines.)

Though the typical social scientist is a potential user of the information contained in these journals, he m a y have difficulty in discovering the existence of the information in its published form. After the presentation material had been published in journals, w e contacted persons w h o had requested copies of these presentations at the time of the meeting to determine whether or not they were aware of its subsequent publication. W e have not yet completed this study for all disciplines, but it is already evident that far more physical scientists than social scientists were aware that the mateiial had been published. W e found, for example, that of our main group of physical scientists, 86 per cent were aware of the publication of the material, compared to 46 per cent of our main group of social scientists. For both groups, awareness was greater when the material was published in core journals.

Formal dissemination does not stop with initial publication in journals, and this is especially true for the social sciences. Over half of the social-science authors w h o had achieved journal publication of their work during the first year after the meeting planned further formal dissemination. Only 40 per cent of the physical-science authors reported such plans. The principal m e d i u m chosen for further dissemination by the social-science authors—and reported by a quarter of them—was books or parts of books (e.g. collections of papers). For the physical scientists, the principal m e d i u m was additional journal articles: over one-sixth reported plans for additional articles, based to some degree on material they had already published in journals. Very few authors in either group planned further informal dissemination, e.g. less than 2 per cent planned further dissemination via technical reports.

Next w e would like to consider those authors of presentations w h o , one year after the meeting, reported no plans to publish their work in jour­nals. Part D of Figure 5 presents the relevant data and shows (D.l) that the social scientists were more unlikely to plan journal publication at this time than the physical scientists. W e thought at first that since so m a n y of the social scientists had not had their manuscripts accepted by journals within the first year, they might simply have abandoned publication plans. Graph D . 2 in this figure shows the percentage of authors of presentations w h o , after

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Scientific communication behaviour of social and physical scientists

having had their manuscripts rejected during the first year following the meeting, actually did abandon publication plans. The graph indicates that the social scientists were not so easily discouraged from publishing their work in journals as w e had suspected. They seemed instead to be aware of h o w their system works and to have learned to behave accordingly, i.e. they k n o w that a high rate of manuscript rejection is a c o m m o n characteristic of the system, but that publication can be attained if they keep trying.

Apparently both the physical and the social scientists are strongly moti­vated to disseminate information about their work. The major reason for not seeking journal publication given by over 60 per cent of the physical-and social-science authors of presentations w h o were not planning journal publication was that their work was adequately available in other forms. The data revealed that the physical and the social scientists differ regarding the media which they use as alternatives to journals. The major alternative m e d i u m for the physical scientists was the technical report; the major alter­native m e d i u m for the social scientists was books.

PUBLICATION OF ARTICLES IN CORE JOURNALS

O u r discussion concerning the transfer of information from the informal to the formal domain has been based up to n o w on data concerning post-meeting publication of presentation material. W e wish at this point to consider addi­tional data on the process, data provided by a study of the production of articles in core journals. First w e would like to examine h o w scientists selected the journals to which they submitted their work.

Mos t authors reported that they selected a particular journal because its audience was most appropriate for their articles. Publication speed was also reported as being important a m o n g the m a n y reasons for selecting a journal. O n e physical scientist in six, compared to one social scientist in fifteen, selected a journal on this basis. Since their systems exhibited more publication lags, one might expect the social scientists in particular to select journals having short publication lags. But publication lag apparently pervades the social-science system so thoroughly that the social scientists do not even attempt to try to avoid this systemic characteristic.

Editorial policy was also of great concern to authors, particularly to social scientists, one in six of w h o m selected a journal on this basis. It is not clear what, specifically, is meant by 'editorial policy'; implicit in this category, however, is an anticipated receptiveness on the part of the editor and his associates to the content of the author's manuscript. It is not surprising that the social-science authors, w h o are particularly anxious to avoid one of the distressing characteristics of their dissemination system, the high rates of non-acceptance, should be particularly sensitive to editorial policy in selecting journals to which to submit manuscripts.

In spite of such caution, nearly one-quarter of the social-science authors w h o published articles in core journals experienced one or more instances of

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non-acceptance before they submitted their manuscripts to the publishing journals. Not all these authors experienced out-and-out rejection, however; some chose to withdraw their manuscripts, usually because they considered the revisions required by editors to be inappropriate. O n e author of a non-accepted social-science manuscript in six (compared to one physical-science author in ten) withdrew his manuscript for this reason. Delay in editorial action did not appear to be a major reason for withdrawing manuscripts; there was some indication, however, that the physical scientists tended to be slightly more sensitive to such delay than the social scientists.

Most authors w h o failed to publish in the first journals to which they submitted their work gave direct rejection as the reason. Graph E.l in Figure 5 shows that the main reason given for rejection was inappropriateness of the subject-matter for the specific journal. In the physical sciences, this usually indicated that work submitted to a basic research journal, for example, was really applied in nature and should have been submitted to an applied work-oriented journal. For the social sciences, 'inappropriateness' was often a euphemism given by the editors and was almost always accompanied by additional reasons for non-acceptance, examples of which are given in the remaining graphs in Part E of Figure 5. The second graph (E.2) shows the percentage of manuscripts which were rejected for statistical or methodolo­gical reasons—rarely given in response to the physical-science manuscripts, but received by one social-science author in eight whose manuscript was rejected.

The third graph (E.3) shows the percentage of authors of non-accepted manuscripts whose work was rejected for theoretical or interpretational reasons. Here w e find that although the theoretical framework of social science is not so well developed as that of physical science, the social scientists more frequently encountered theoretical or interpretational problems as a main reason for manuscript rejection.

The last graph (E.4) shows the main reason (other than inappropriateness of subject-matter) for which the physical-science manuscripts were rejected. O n e physical-science author of a non-accepted manuscript in ten had his manuscript rejected because the reported findings were controversial. It is interesting to note that this was the most infrequent reason given for rejsction of social-science manuscripts.

O n e cannot help but interpret the data shown in Part E of Figure 5 as reflecting the eclectic nature of social-science subject-matter. A s w e have seen, social-science authors and social-science editors often disagree on the appropriateness of required revisions; the social-science editorial process tends to concentrate heavily on the mechanics of the work, i.e. on statistical procedures and methodology; although social science lacks the theoretical framework of physical science, the reasons frequently given for rejection of social-science manuscripts involve theoretical or interpretational problems; and although social scientists conduct various kinds of research on similar problems, there appears to be relatively little ground for judging the contro-versiality of their findings. In addition, though core journals in the physical

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sciences usually reject m a n y manuscripts and receive few previously rejected manuscripts, the social sciences repeatedly recycle manuscripts rejected by some core journals by resubmitting them to other core journals.

Summary

It has been the intention of this paper to demonstrate, by w a y of contrasting the physical and the social sciences, that although there are striking simila­rities in the communication processes and practices of various disciplines, there are also some major differences a m o n g them which are important. W e would like n o w to summarize these major differences in a very general way.

First, the communication systems associated with the disciplines w e have discussed have similar structures and each system is composed of similar elements: meetings, conferences, theses, technical reports, journals, etc. Fur­thermore, for each system, these elements are dynamically interrelated. That is, the system of each group of disciplines is an organization of related elements and information flows through each system in a relatively predictable manner. The major differences a m o n g the groups involve the ways in which these elements operate and are used or the ways in which the elements are func­tionally related.

Second, as information flows through each system, lags and filtering are encountered and m u c h of the communication behaviour of each discipline is devoted to compensating for these. Because the lags and filtering differ in loci and extent within each system and because the members of the various disciplines adjust to them in different ways, the over-all flow patterns differ for the systems associated with each of the three groups.

Third, there is considerable redundancy within each system—the same information is disseminated on a variety of occasions. The extent and the purpose of this redundancy vary a m o n g groups, however, as do the actual redundant elements.

Fourth, each system is characterized by active information-dissemination and information-seeking behaviour a m o n g the members of the disciplines, especially throughout the informal domain. Because of the differences in organization of the systems (and the different roles played in them by inherent elements), scientists associated with each system behave somewhat diffe­rently.

Fifth, the more formal elements in each system usually appear late in the information-flow process, and serve different functions and different audiences from those served by the informal elements. The informal elements within each discipline's system appear to have been initially created to supple­ment the formal ones ; however, this turns out to be a highly interactive process for each discipline, since the efficiency of the informal elements seems in part to determine the degree and manner of use of the formal ones.

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N O T E S A N D R E F E R E N C E S

1. The disciplines being studied are represented by nine professional societies: physical sciences: American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, Optical Society of America, American Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum Engineers; social sciences: American Sociological Association, American Educational Research Association and Association of American Geographers; engineering sciences: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Since the data related to the engineering sciences are incomplete, they are not reported on in this paper. The findings reported in this article were selected from data collected in a series of studies representing over 30,000 scientists.

In addition to the three social sciences studied in our programme there were c o m p a ­rable data available relative to another social science, psychology, on m a n y of the measures discussed in this article. F r o m these it was clearly evident that psychology is behaving as other social sciences w e studied.

2. In a study of authors of presentations at national meetings, data were obtained o n the journals to which these authors planned to submit the main content of their presentations. Those journals which were mentioned most frequently, as well as those published by the societies sponsoring the meetings, became the basis for a citation analysis. References found in the issues of these journals published during the previous two years were analysed; journals frequently cited by this group, but not included in it, were added to the sample, and similar analyses were, in turn, m a d e of their references. This process was continued until a point of diminishing returns had been reached, i.e. until the remaining journals were clearly out of the mainstream of a discipline's literature. Such analyses, conducted for the various disciplines in our programme, have indicated that: (a) a small number of journals are central (core) to the discipline's journal literature; (b) a larger number of journals are peripherally related (tangential) to this core literature; and (c) a very large group of journals are loosely associated with this core literature.

3. These were persons w h o m the authors reported were conducting work in the same areas as those reported in their articles, i.e. work which was derived from the authors' findings, stemmed from the same conceptual or theoretical framework, attacked the same problems

- from different points of view, stimulated the authors' o w n work, etc. 4. In our study of meeting attendants w e obtained a random sample of persons attending

sessions at the meetings. Subsequently, each attendant was queried about four presenta­tions which were m a d e at the session for which he had been chosen in the sampling.

W. D . Garvey is professor of psychology and director of the Center for Research in Scientific Communication at Johns Hopkins University. From 1959 to 1961 he headed the project sponsored by the American Psychological Association on information exchange, and likewise from 1961 to 1966 a subsequent study on scientific communication in psychology. Among his works and articles may be cited Scientific C o m m u n i t y in Psychology (co-author) (1965), Scientific Communication as a Social System (1967), and 'Innovations in Scientific Communication', American Psychologist, 1966. Nan Lin is assistant director at the Center for Research in Scientific Communication and assistant professor of social relations at Johns Hopkins University. C. E. Nelson is a research associate at the centre and assistant professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins. Both have also published numerous studies on the topic of scientific communication.

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Aleksandr L . Goldberg Information needs of social scientists and ways of meeting them

There has been a growing tendency in recent years towards improved orga­nization of the supply of information to specialists, based on a study of their information needs, so that the information systems created m a y correspond as far as possible in nature and scope to the needs.

A study of the information needs of social scientists

A large-scale survey on these lines was recently carried out in the U . S . S . R . In order to ensure that the material collected was properly representative, the survey enlisted the co-operation of a great m a n y scientific institutions and over two hundred libraries, which, while working to a unified programme, used various methods of exploring information needs (questionnaires, inter­views, collecting written suggestions). M o r e than 470,000 reader's requests for publications and over 130,000 requests for bibliographical assistance and references were analysed. In this w a y data were collected on the infor­mation needs of over 34,000 specialists in different branches of science.

A m o n g the subjects of investigation were the needs of specialists in the social sciences. According to the Soviet classification of science, this term (obScestvennye nauki) includes the following branches of knowledge: economics, sociology, law, psychology, philosophy and history.

In view of the complexity of the problem, it was decided to consider only one of the two basic sub-systems making up the communication system in the social sciences (printed and written sources; personal contacts) [l].1

The main purpose of the survey was to ascertain and analyse the needs of social scientists in respect of printed and written information and the relations between the specialists and the bodies supplying the information.

S o m e 1,350 social scientists were questioned at their normal places of work. They included people of various ages (303 under thirty, 563 in their

1. Figures in square brackets refer to notes at the end of the article.

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thirties, 322 in their forties, and 168 over fifty) and different levels of quali­fication (42 per cent of those questioned were research workers and teachers in higher education, the others working on the applied side), and over half of those polled have writings published and take part in scientific conferences.

At the same time about 2,670 specialists were approached in the course of their work at libraries (806 were under thirty, 1,071 in their thirties, 444 in their forties and 303 over fifty). They included 1,684 research workers and teachers in higher education. The investigators examined over 110,000 requests for documentation submitted by these specialists and were thus able to deter­mine the subjects, years of publication and types of literature they required, as well as obtaining particulars of the bibliographical assistance given to 650 of those specialists.

The data collected were thus sufficiently representative to give some idea of the needs of social scientists in regard to printed and written sources of information, and of ways of meeting these needs.

There is one school of thought which holds that examination of the current information needs of specialists does not provide a full picture of the problem under investigation [2], and which proposes, in place of the inductive method of investigation, that of pure deduction, maintaining that the information needs of specialists can only be ascertained if they are reckoned as a derivative of the objective role of the specialists in the life of the community. This is an extremely biased view; any solution to the problem in hand needs to be based both on a concrete analysis of everyday information requests and on data illustrating the general trends and patterns of development in the corresponding branches of scientific and social activity.

It can, for instance, be argued, from general considerations about the specific nature of the social sciences, that printed and written documents are the primary sources of information for scientists and practitioners in this sphere, and are of paramount importance [3]. However, it is only possible to determine the importance of each of these types of source and break d o w n the demand for publications by subject-matter, year of publication, etc., by analysis of the relevant empirical observations.

The survey revealed that 94 per cent of the social scientists questioned elsewhere than in libraries need to consult books (monographs and collections) in the course of their work, 87 per cent need periodicals, some 25 per cent need standards, patents and other special types of documentation, 9 per cent need m a p s and 10 per cent manuscript materials.

A similar picture—with a still greater gap between the different types of source—was obtained by counting the requests for publications and materials from 2,500 social scientists over the period of observation (two to three months): books, 77,040; periodicals, 15,360; newspapers, 5,260; m a p s , 110; special documentation, 230; manuscripts, 790.

A s w e can see, books have a safe lead and account for over three-quarters of the materials requested in libraries. The somewhat lower figures for perio­dicals and newspapers as compared with the figure for 'needs' obtained above m a y be explained by the fact that most specialists take out subscriptions

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to the most important periodicals in their field and to two or three newspapers, and so do not have to get them from libraries.

Requests for special types of documentation (standards, patents, etc.) and manuscripts were considerably below the need revealed by the survey. These types of material are kept only in the biggest libraries and information establishments, and for specialists living in small towns or in the country they are obviously hard to c o m e by. Thus the question of h o w to provide the specialists with these materials stands out as one of the important prob­lems to be considered when creating an information system for the social sciences.

It is very useful to k n o w the subject-matter of the publications required by social scientists. The 1,350 participants outside libraries w h o were polled provided 4,267 replies, from which the following breakdown of requirements emerges: economics, 868; sociology and social sciences as a whole, 556; history, 404; philosophy, 322; education and science, 282; jurisprudence, 282; art, 102; literary criticism, 71; linguistics, 59; literary works, 371; other subjects, 1,047.

Thus three-quarters of the requirements appear to be for literature on social sciences and humanities and one-quarter for other subjects. The last figure is a fairly high one and would seem to indicate that the interests of m a n y social scientists go beyond their o w n subjects. However, a comparison of this information with data obtained by counting requests actually submitted by social scientists substantially changes the picture.

Over 80 per cent of these requests were for literature on economics, sociology, philosophy, psychology, history, education and law. If w e add to this the requests for works of literature and material on philology and art (11 per cent), the over-all demand for social sciences and humanities amounted to 91 per cent of the requests from this category of specialist. The people questioned outside libraries probably somewhat overstated their requirements for materials beyond their speciality since they were not borne out by the actual demand figures.

It is true that within the group under consideration there are definite divergences from the general trend which emerged (it was found that eco­nomists requested literature on individual branches of the national economy, philosophers wanted material on the natural sciences, and so on), but all this does not substantially alter the general situation, which is that, despite the opinions expressed by some authors that at present the partitions between groups of sciences are being eroded and that there is a growing demand for literature outside the speciality ('everyone needs everything'), in the over­whelming majority of cases social scientists in fact continue to ask for subjects within their o w n field. This should undoubtedly be taken into account in libraries' acquisition policies and in the organization of the work of infor­mation establishments serving social scientists.

The findings of the investigation substantially modify the opinion seen in the press that social scientists, both theoretical and practical, m a k e very little use of documentation more than ten years old [4]. Close analysis reveals

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T A B L E 1. Frequency with which specialists in the social and economic sciences consult publications of different periods (number of instances per ten people)

Date of publication Research workers Practitioners

Before 1917 2-3 0-1 1917-45 5 1-2 1946-60 8-9 6-7 1961-66 14 8

that there is a very noticeable difference in the use m a d e by research workers and by practitioners of the publications of bygone years (Table 1).

It follows that libraries serving practitioners in the social sciences can perfectly well confine their stock to publications of the last ten or fifteen years. Likewise the information to be supplied to them about printed and written sources will not extend beyond that period. O n the other hand, libraries used by research workers in this branch of knowledge must not only keep stocks of old publications but must also add to their stocks retrospectively. Information facilities for these scientists must clearly provide them both with particulars of the most recent documents in their field and with a variety of information on old documents (including archival items) [5].

Data on the needs of social scientists in respect of informational and bibliographical assistance reveal, a m o n g the basic types of such aid, that in which the reader himself uses the library's services on the spot: nearly two-thirds of the social scientists noted the importance to them of library catalogues and index cards, and one-third of them that of library displays. Thus the most important forms of library work are those which enable the specialist to obtain rapid information on the availability of documentation and on new additions to the book stocks.

The principal aspects of informational and bibliographical assistance to the reader by librarians and bibliographers are: collecting documentation according to research topic (roughly half of the replies), advice o n questions regarding the selection and description of literature (30 per cent) and clari­fication of data on specific publications (20 per cent). Here it m a y be noted that queries from social scientists on particular subjects are, as a rule, fairly distinctly specialized. Thus, of the queries received during the period of the study, 88 per cent were on economics, law, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology or education, 6 per cent referred to literature, linguistics or art, and only 6 per cent concerned other subjects. T o satisfy such requests, libraries serving social scientists must clearly be staffed with bibliographers sufficiently well versed in those realms of knowledge and have specialized information facilities.

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The part played by libraries in meeting the information needs of specialists

Data on social scientists' requirements regarding documentation and library methods of providing information thereon give an idea not only of the general trend of specialists' inquiries but also of the extent to which they use libraries. These and other data gathered in the course of the investigation disprove the view of a number of authors that the role of libraries as centres of infor­mation for specialists is today in decline.

Nowadays work in libraries occupies a great part of social scientists' time. O f those approached, 65 per cent used the libraries conducting the survey at least once a week, while the proportion of other specialists using libraries that often was 59 per cent. Interviews with readers revealed that m a n y social-science research workers visit the library almost every day, particularly at the start of work on a n e w subject, w h e n preparing lectures, and so on. Seventy-five per cent of the social scientists questioned spend between two and seven hours at the library on each visit. These figures incontestably show a huge demand for the sort of information for which libraries provide.

These observations do not of course in themselves constitute an adequate basis for a scientifically meaningful forecast of the role of libraries in providing information to social scientists. The conclusions arising from these obser­vations are, however, strongly confirmed by the fact that they tally with a number of general rules established earlier which are indisputably correct.

First, the organizational forms which have been evolved in library ope­rations and the channels of communication created within national and international library systems secure access to printed and manuscript documents for an extremely broad range of users. Which of these forms are the most effective m a y be a debatable point [6], but it is clear that their potentialities are at present far from exhausted, and as far as source materials in the social sciences are concerned, libraries are likely to continue unsur­passed for a long time yet in their role as conservers and spreaders of infor­mation.

With the development of the modern methods of duplication and other techniques, which are altering the traditional form of some information documents, there will certainly be substantial changes in the organization of library operations. However, the storage and distribution of the infor­mation and data needed by social scientists will continue to be one of the primary functions of libraries.

Finally, w e should not forget one specific factor characteristic of the part played by libraries in the professional activity of social scientists, which is that library work not only enriches them with the necessary information but also has a considerable heuristic value. The very fact of using library stocks and facilities leads to a conscious (and at times unconscious) realization of n e w links of cause and effect in the field under consideration and generates new views, hypotheses and scientific theories.

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Primary and secondary sources of information

So far w e have spoken of primary sources of information, which include books, periodicals and other publications and written documents necessary for work in the various branches of the social sciences. The rapid increase in the number of all such documents means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to retrieve and assimilate the primary sources of information.

The most rational solution is to develop and perfect secondary sources of information which notify the user of the appearance of documents he needs ('current awareness information') or reproducing the content of those documents in a processed, concentrated form (abstracts). Opinions differ on the relative values, as regards the social sciences, of these two secondary sources of information. In particular, attention has been drawn to the parti­cularly high risk of loss when information in this branch of knowledge is condensed; and therefore the abstracting of information in the realm of the social sciences will be effective only if the quality of the abstracts is high and if there are reasoned conclusions regarding the content of each docu­ment [7]. It is also clear that the development of abstracting services must have a firm bibliographical basis and, accordingly, all types of secondary information in the realm of the social sciences must form a unified, closely co-ordinated system.

The survey also examined the system of secondary information for the social sciences in the U . S . S . R . and the extent to which it corresponds to the needs of specialists, both research workers and practitioners. The findings indicate that specialists in the social sciences and humanities as yet consult journals of abstracts and scientific reviews less often than repre­sentatives of the technical, biological and medical sciences, but m a k e fairly wide use of the various kinds of bibliography, particularly in branches where there already exists a reliable system of notification of new publications. The organization of information in a broad field of knowledge such as the economic sciences [8] m a y be taken as an example.

The basic principles for the creation of an information system covering literature on economics are: (a) a close co-ordination of enumerative biblio­graphy and abstracts; (b) systematic, prompt publication of bibliography; (c) interdependence and complementarity of bibliography on general economic questions and on individual branches of economics. These principles have been partly applied in the existing system of current bibliographies and abstracts informing economists of new literature in their field.

The widest and promptest coverage is given in the bibliographical indexes published by the Institute of Scientific Information for the Social Sciences ( I N I B O N ) (until 1969 the Fundamental Library for the Social Sciences— F B O N ) : New Soviet Economic Literature (NSEL) and New Foreign Economic Literature (NIEL). Both bulletins appear monthly, and in each issue NSEL gives particulars of some 2,000 books and articles, while NIEL gives approxi­mately 1,200. Thus in the space of a year the I N I B O N bulletins list some 40,000 titles of books and articles.

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The I N 1 B O N indexes are intended for economists in different specialities, dealing both with the theoretical problems of economics and with the complex problems of the national economy and the different branches of economics. The compilers attempt to cover as completely as possible all types of printed work on the economic sciences, and the bulletins include entries for books, collections of articles on specific topics, pamphlets, author abstracts of theses, articles from miscellaneous collections, and articles from periodicals (including the main newspapers). Wide coverage is given to United Nations publications, to parliamentary, government and legislative material from various countries and to official publications.

NSEL covers the entire range of relevant literature published in the U . S . S . R . Factors influencing the selection of material for the NIEL bulletin include the desire to avoid overlapping with other I N I B O N publications which deal with all the literature on a number of countries (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, G e r m a n Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania , Yugoslavia and Asian and African countries), and also the availability of foreign literature in Soviet libraries. Thanks to the co-operation n o w existing between the major libraries which receive economic literature, the NIEL index covers a considerable part of the world repertoire of publications on economics.

The material in both bulletins is set out in accordance with a specially devised plan with individual sections for the various aspects of economics (political economy, economic statistics, the application of mathematical methods to economics, economic geography), publications on international economic problems (economic competition and co-operation of various countries, economic activity of the United Nations, international trade, etc.) and the economies of individual countries. Particular prominence is given in the NSEL bulletin to the section on the national economy of the U . S . S . R . Both bulletins end with supplements including entries on reference and biblio­graphical works on economics.

This arrangement enables each specialist rapidly to trace the litera­ture on the subject which particularly interests him and at the same time to keep abreast of developments in the basic theoretical problems of economics.

S o m e 30 per cent of the publications covered in the I N I B O N bulletin are annotated. The annotations are explanatory, clarifying the subject-matter where it is not clear from the title, or giving additional details. The notes also contain additional geographical and chronological data, and information on the date and place of individual conferences. Monographs are annotated in greater detail: the main sections of the book are identified or the main questions considered in it are Usted.

This last kind of annotation borders on abstracting, and so in such cases 'current awareness information' services do a job which should not as a rule be theirs, that of publishing abstracts. In some instances the I N I B O N bulletins have to assume this function since the abstracts published in the U . S . S . R . as yet cover by no means the entire range of problems in economics

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and deal only with a number of actual branches of the economy (e.g. industry and transport) and economic geography.

A more comprehensive coverage is provided by the journal of abstracts of the Ail-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI) entitled Ekonomika PromySlennosti (Economics of Industry; EP). In each monthly issue EP covers from 600 to 700 books and articles (seven to eight thousand titles a year).

The entries in EP vary from simple notes to abstracts, including a great m a n y facts and figures. The abstracts are generally of works published in limited editions and works not readily available, the aim being that they can be used by the reader as basic sources for research.

The EP abstracts draw on 120 Soviet and 1,200 foreign periodicals (including 150 British and 200 American), and give the subject-matter of a number of collections and monographs. Information on Soviet publications accounts for about 30 per cent of the material. Wide coverage is given to works in all the European languages; among publications in Oriental languages, Japanese sources occupy a particularly important place.

The abstracts are grouped into sections on general questions of the economics of industry, on the economics and organization of individual industries, on the application of mathematical methods in economic research and planning, on industrial management, etc.

The .EP journal has a large circulation and is widely used by a considerable range of research workers and practitioners concerned with the economics of industry.

The Soviet system of current information publications on economics described above is on a larger scale than similar publications elsewhere. These include the monthly bulletin brought out in Bratislava, Bibliografie Ekonomické Literatury (Knihy, Clanky, Recenze), covering up to 15,000 titles a year and the Polish bi-monthly bulletin Przeglad Bibliograficzny Pismie-nictwa Ekonomicznego, which in a year gives information on between 6,000 and 7,000 books and articles. A distinctive feature of both these bulletins is the extensive notes on most of the material mentioned. This makes it easier to glean information on the books and articles published, but it takes the compilers a great deal of time, thus increasing the time lag between the publication of the work and the appearance of information about it, and hence detracting from the topical value of the bulletins.

T o a lesser extent this applies to the bi-monthly bibliographical index Economic Abstracts, published in The Hague. The time lag in the information on periodical articles is the same as that for the I N I B O N bulletins (from two to three months), but information on books is given considerably more promptly. However, there are comparatively few entries (1,600 to 2,000 a year), since the selection of material for the index is subject to a number of linguistic and geographical limitations, and statistical publications and official documents are wholly excluded. In the way the material is set out, this index comes somewhere between an enumerative bibliography and a journal of abstracts since each entry is accompanied by an explanatory text,

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but gives only the subject of the work and not its content. In other words, they are not abstracts, but annotations of varying length.

T w o current economic bibliographies containing abstracts deserve mention here: the American quarterly Journal of Economic Literature (Cambridge, Mass.) and the French bi-monthly publication Documentation Économique (Paris). The American periodical gives about 1,000 abstracts a year, and the French some 1,200. In both cases, only periodicals are abstracted as a rule and there are hardly any abstracts of books, while the material covered is restricted in the main to works in Franch, G e r m a n or English. The great virtue of the Paris publication is its handsome presentation, the high quality of its abstracts and its convenient system of indexes.

In addition to the current indexes of literature on economics, there are publications covering literature over a longer period (a year and more) and representing transitional forms between current and retrospective bibliography. The best k n o w n of these is the International Bibliography of Economics, first published in 1955. The publishers' effort to extend co-operation with economics and information centres in m a n y countries makes this bibliography an important source for literature, mainly on general economic problems.

The above brief review of bibliographies and abstracts of economic publications gives a general idea of lines along which the secondary sources of information for the whole of the social sciences might be developed. The coverage and quality of the corresponding publications are not the same in all branches of the social sciences (bibliography is better developed in history, law and psychology, and less so in sociology), but the basic trends of the process n o w taking place can be distinctly traced. They include trends towards reduction of the time lag and fuller coverage in bibliographies and the extension and improvement of abstracts. It is essential to this work that there should be a network of institutions providing information in the social sciences and a clear-cut distribution of responsibilities a m o n g them.

A n information system for the social sciences

Nowadays m a n y countries are establishing networks of this sort, and the question of their structure is therefore the subject of lively discussion in the press. Despite the variety of solutions proposed, the various parties agree that the specific nature of the social sciences (in which printed and written documents play a special part) makes it necessary to combine the information institution and the library and, consequently, to use the traditional library and bibliographical system alongside special information-retrieval techniques.

Thus a particular type of institution is required, representing a cross between a library (with a corresponding stock of printed publications and manuscript materials) and a special subject reference and information bureau with broad responsibilities for providing bibliographical and factual infor­mation [9]. The findings of our investigation confirm this view and are evidence that the needs of social scientists can best be met by institutions of this kind,

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which provide both information on the documents they need and the documents themselves, of which as complete as possible a stock is kept.

A n important step towards the creation of this n e w type of information institution has been taken in the G e r m a n Democratic Republic [10], A few years ago the government decided to decentralize information work in the social sciences. A separate system of information and documentation services was set up for each of the social-science disciplines and was placed under the major and most influential institute in the field. Within each institute an information centre was set up to process and distribute the relevant infor­mation. The main research libraries specializing in the particular field act as the support points for these centres.

A discrepancy emerged during the implementation of this decision between the highly developed network of information centres being set up and the underdeveloped sector structure of the libraries. A great deal of effort is therefore being put at present into creating major specialized libraries for individual branches of the social sciences and adapting their stocks and their reference and bibliographical facilities accordingly.

Since the information centres and libraries for the social sciences in the G e r m a n Democratic Republic are in most cases geographically dispersed, their interrelation depends on a close co-ordination of their functions. Hence the importance of the Central Directorate for Social Science Information and Documentation (Zentrale Leitung für Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Informa­tion und Dokumentation), which is based on the national library (Deutsche Staatsbibliothek) and works in close contact with the country's library institutions.

The creation of an information system for the social sciences in the U . S . S . R . is taking a different course [11]. A combined library-information centre—the Institute of Scientific Information for the Social Sciences, es­tablished on the basis of the former Fundamental Library for the Social Sciences—has become a pivotal institution in this system. This institute ( I N T B O N ) can rely for support on one of the country's largest stocks of books and periodicals, which receives a deposit copy of all Soviet publications and all foreign social-science literature of scientific interest, including government and official publications. The highly developed bibliographical facilities built up by the library over several decades, and its accumulated experience of publishing various kinds of bibliographical index, are n o w being turned to account in the organizing of a large-scale information service.

I N I B O N will continue to bring out bibliographical bulletins and indexes and will begin publishing collections of abstracts covering economics, phil­osophy, history, sociology and other social sciences. It plans to produce analytical surveys of literature giving condensed coverage to new developments in various fields. The functions of I N I B O N also include giving prompt replies to queries by individual institutions and specialists and providing them with both bibliographical and factual information.

Obviously no single institution, however big, can hope to cover the whole of a vast country. The system of scientific information for the social sciences

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in the U . S . S . R . therefore includes other institutions besides I N I B O N . They include information departments and groups in social-science research in­stitutes and institutions of higher learning preparing information materials in their o w n field and meeting the needs of their scientists by means of their o w n reference and information stocks. The major general libraries in the country (the Lenin State Library of the U . S . S . R . , the Saltykov-Scedrin State Public Library in Leningrad, and others), which provide readers with refe­rence and bibliographical services on a large scale and prepare various types of bibliographical publication from the material in their o w n stocks, will also have an important part to play.

O f course the individual institutions of the system described above are not as yet equally experienced and differ from one another in their material and technical equipment, their publishing facilities, and so on. There are grounds for supposing, however, that the principles underlying this system will m a k e it viable and m e a n considerably better coverage of all the informa­tion needs of social scientists.

[Translated from Russian]

NOTES

1. B E R G E N , D . The communication system of the social sciences. Coll. res. Libr., vol. 28, no. 4, 1967, p. 240.

2. E N G E L B E R T , H . Probleme der Erforschung des Informationsbedarfs der Gesellschafts­wissenschaftler. ZIID-Z., no. 6, 1968, p. 244.

3. F O S K E T T , D . Information retrieval in the social sciences. Wilson Libr. Bull., no. 9, 1964, p. 756. GuTTSMAN, W . The literature of the social sciences and provision for research in them. / . Docum., vol. 22, no. 3, 1966, p. 189-90.

4. E N G E L B E R T , op. cit., p. 247.

5. R A A B E , P. Dokumentation und Geisteswissenschaften. Z. Biblioth. Biblphie, no. 1, 1966, p. 19.

6. R I C H N E L L , D . National lending library or national lending service for the humanities. / . Docum., vol. 17, no. 4, 1961, p. 197-224. W A L F O R D , A . Documentation services and library cooperation in the social sciences. / . Docum., vol. 21, 1965, p. 256-60.

7. S H M O L , G . Podgotovka obScej i special'noj informacii v oblasti obäeestvennyh nauk. In: Teoreticeski problemy informatiki, p. 116. Moscow, 1968.

8. B E S P A L O V , M . N . Vozniknovenie i razvitie v S S S R sistemy tekuäcej bibliografii eko-nomiceskoj literatury. In: Bibliografija obiiestvenno-politiieskoj literatury, p. 127-47. Moscow, 1967. V O L F S O N , L . F. Problemy organizacii svodnoj informacii ob inostrannoj ekonomiCeskoj literature. In: Nauinaja bibliografija, p. 68-9. Moscow, 1967. D R E I Z E N S H T O K , I. B . Principy otbora i sistematizacija materiala v bibliograficeskom bjulletene 'Novaja inostrannaja ekonomiceskaja literatura'. In: Nauinaja bibliografija, p. 80-110. Moscow, 1967. A R K H A N G E L S K A Y A , V . A . ; B A Z H A N O V A , E . V . et al. Tekuscaja bibliografiíeskaja infor-macijapoekonomike, p. 26-78. Leningrad, 1969. (Sbornik materialov vpomoSi' razrabotke problemy 'Biblioteka i nauinaja informacija', vol. 15.)

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9. W I L S O N , J. O . Legislative reference service. Unesco Bull. Libr., vol. XVIII, no. 4, 1964, p. 178-83.

10. K U N Z E , H . Zur gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Information und Dokumentation in der D D R Z. Biblloth., no . 4, 1966, p. 195-7. WnucNER, E . Die Weiterentwicklung der Zusammenarbeit des Systems der gesell­schaftswissenschaftlichen Information und Dokumentation mit d e m Bibliothekswesen der D D R . Z. Biblioth., no. 5, 1967, p. 259-63.

11. K u z N E T Z O V A , S. I.; K H O D O S H , I . A . Problemy ulucSenija informacii v oblasti obäöe-stvennyh nauk. Vopr. Istor., no. 10, 1968, p. 107-12. G O S I N , I. Y . Obsuzdenie problem informacii v oblasti obäöestvennyh nauk. Nauë. teh. Bibliot. SSR, no. 4, 1969, p. 4-5. K A L M Y K O V , G . V . O b organizacii informacionnoj dejatel'nosti v oblasti obäcestvennyh nauk. Nauf.-teh. Inf., ser. I, no. 9, 1969, p. 3-5.

Aleksandr L. Goldberg is chief librarian of the Saltykov-Scedrin Public Library in Leningrad. He has written a number of works on librarianship and bibliography, and most recently has contributed (as editor and author) to the collective work Specialist. Biblioteka. Bibliográfica (The Specialist, the Library and Bibliography), which includes the findings of an investigation into the information needs of social scientists.

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Jean-Paul Trystram From automatic documentation to the data bank

The creation of data banks has been going on for some years and w e m a y well ask whether people w h o use them are not going to find their work pro­foundly changed by this new method of tackling documentation problems. The spread of data banks can be expected to revolutionize the habits of social-science research workers by multiplying the possibilities open to them of consulting large masses of information.

Automatic documentation and data banks: c o m m o n features and differences

Automatic documentation and data banks have one thing in c o m m o n : both use data-processing methods, or in other words a computer, in order to retrieve information. However, automatic documentation is concerned with finding the documents to be consulted whereas the data bank seeks to provide elementary information units. In this way automatic documentation could be described as a sub-set 0f the data bank and what differentiates the two is simply the degree of refinement of the info nation provided.

The automatic documentation process stops at the moment when thf computer has given the reference for a document, which, almost by definition, contains a very large number of items of information, whether it is a book, an article in a review or a report. The summaries which are used for documen­tation purposes are only véhicules. They m a y be very condensed or approxi­mate to the full text, but the part which they play in their turn is never more than to guide the search and to help select a particular document. The final answer to a question is still a reference to a document which then has to be obtained and sifted for the item or items of information needed, which in turn will be rearranged according to the problem dealt with.

The data bank is concerned with the basic information—citing document, chapter, page and line—and not just the reference but the information itself.

In many cases, the person using a data bank only wants the actual infor­mation. A data bank on chemical bodies will provide information about

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nitrogen and a population data bank will give the number of inhabitants in the town of Rennes in 1968. Here, then, it is no longer a case of being referred to a document which then has to be consulted, and the reference proper is often seen to be superfluous. F r o m the m o m e n t that an item of infor­mation takes its place in the body of scientifically established knowledge, it does not matter very m u c h knowing that it comes from a particular source work.

Following up the reference is only a secondary process, e.g. to determine the precise reliability of information or to add an exact definition. For instance, statistical information can often be ambiguous when the source is not known. The definition of a town population m a y vary, and in France in the course of the 1962 census a modification of this nature was made which has a far-from-negligible influence on certain figures. It would be a serious mistake to compare the populations in 1954, 1962 and 1968 (the dates of the last three censuses) without checking the definition.

Data banks are also distinct from automatic documentation in the sense that the user can generally ask not just for the basic information but also for calculations of a more or less complex nature to be made from these data. Thus economic, social or population data banks allow of the supply of compa­rative statistical tables which include both totals and rates, percentages, etc. The data can also be used directly in models or in statistical calculations such as analyses of variance, factorial analyses, etc. For example, instead of asking for the population of the town of Rennes in 1968, it would be possible to ask for the n a m e of the French town of more than 50,000 inhabitants with the greatest growth rate between 1962 and 1968 and which had been one of the towns with the highest growth rates between 1954 and 1962.

The only limits to the questions which a user can put are those fixed by the limits of his o w n imagination, by the quantity of data accumulated and by the nature of the programmes available. Today and hereafter, it is most often the user's imagination which determines the limits.

A specimen data bank: the SAD

PRESENT SYSTEM

T o give a precise idea of the possibilities of economic, social and demographic data banks, a brief description follows of the Data Accumulation System ( S A D ) of the Délégation à l'Aménagement du Territoire et à l'Action Régionale Française ( D A T A R ) . The reader will note h o w in this case a data bank and an automatic documentation function are associated. S A D is mainly concerned with the statistical data on the French departments. It has already been in operation for two years and is soon to be incorporated in a network of data banks which the Institut National des Statistiques et des Études Économiques is currently installing under the name of Observatoires Économiques Régio­naux.

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The number of statistical series available at the departmental level in France is very considerable. There are about 200,000 basic1 chronological series. But if the net were extended to information which is unpublished but obtainable by processing existing files, the potential information items available would have to be reckoned in millions.

T o be able to m a k e this great mass of information available to users via a data bank, it would have been necessary to transpose these series on to a storage medium directly readable by the computer. However, m u c h of this information is used only very rarely, and it seemed preferable to record only the principal items.

In economic statistics, relatively long delays in obtaining a reply are perfectly acceptable. At the present time, a m o n t h or more often goes by before a research worker can get together the statistics he needs. Out of the 200,000 available series, S A D has chosen about 10,000 which have been put on tape. They start from 1958 and are brought up to date at each new census or as soon as a n e w annual series appears.

In any case, the stock of 10,000 series is continually changing according to requests from users, and it is always possible, with one or two weeks' notice, to effect the changeover. The data are checked by normal accountancy methods, i.e. the s u m of the values for all the departments is calculated and compared with the total printed in the document. If they do not agree, a check is made which m a y go as far as a return to the source material and the corrections are carried on to the magnetic tape. It can therefore be said that there are fewer errors in the stored data than in the published documents.

Working from the stored data, the user can ask for any statistical tables he needs. Standard job tickets, easy to complete, enable him to specify the content of the columns which m a y equally well be basic data or data reached by calculations, simple or complex, on the lines detailed by the applicant. The applicant can also stipulate the degree of refinement he wants in the answers. Again he can ask for the departmental series or for the figures regrouped by regions. Once the job ticket is punched, the computer provides the table or tables ordered very rapidly.

Independently of the work done on the numerical data, S A D has an automatic documentation system, still in the experimental stage, which makes it possible, in a limited number of fields, to retrieve a particular statistical series. This automatic documentation has necessitated the development of specific document-analysis procedures. The fact is that the statistics have a combinatory and recursive structure which makes it possible to use a simple language made up of a restricted number of terms.

Let us suppose that there are tables available for four successive censuses (1936, 1954, 1962, 1968) giving a breakdown of family situations in terms of five different classifications (unmarried, married without children, married with children, widowed, divorced) and six different age groups (under 20,

1. Basic series are those where none can be deduced from the others by means of simple calculation.

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20 to 29, 30 to 39, 40 to 49, 50 to 59, 60 and over) and that there are such tables for each of the ninety-five French departments (Ain, Aisne, etc.).

The tables thus comprise a total of 4 x 5 X 6 x 95 = 11,400 entries of which one example could be : ' N u m b e r of widows and widowers, age group 30-39, for the Department of the S o m m e in 1962.'

It is obvious that if the term 'widows and widowers' were replaced by one of the other four 'family situations', the description of one of the other four entries would be obtained. The combination of a different classification, a different date and a different department would give yet another of the 11,400 possible entries. It can easily be seen that with a few terms only, with 'number of persons' preceding each 'descriptive' and with 4 + 5 + 6 + 95 times making 110 in all, 11,400 statistical items are in fact obtained.

It is also possible with one single condensed 'descriptive' to designate a column, a table or even the whole group of tables. Thus one can write: ' N u m b e r of persons, married without children, by age groups, in 1968, for the Depart­ment of Corsica' ; and also ' N u m b e r of people, per domestic situation, age group, census date and department'.

This last 'descriptive' designates in a single phrase all the 11,400 data items in the tables. Subject to retaining separately the lists of family situations, age groups, census dates and departments, all the useful information about the content of the tables is in fact secured.

The statistical data description language developed by S A D takes these characteristics of documentary material into account and thus allows for rapid retrieval and the degree of refinement desired by the inquirer.

NEW SYSTEM

A new version of S A D at present being developed will make it possible to use the data bank's information direct from a terminal. For this purpose, a limited quantity of data (about 1,000 items) from the stock of the 10,000 recorded series will be transferred on request to a magnetic disc. The access time to this information, called active data, will then be almost negligible. So long as the number of users remains small, it will not be necessary to have recourse to mass memories and the acceptable time for putting information on discs is likely to be of the order of one day. The factor which dictates the organization of S A D in a hierarchy of accessibility is the compromise needed between the time lags acceptable to users and the funds available. It seemed reasonable for the user to be allowed immediate information, kept d o w n to 1,000 series, for 'on line' use with the computer, but to accept a time lag of one day for access to any 1,000 series out of the 10,000 recorded and of two weeks for any series out of the 200,000 registered.

The developed version of S A D from the user's angle will be as follows : his work position will be a viewing screen with a typewriter keyboard. After plugging in to the computer, the user will ask for the statistical information on which he wants to work. This request, which is first of all expressed freely in ordinary, everyday French, will start a series of exchanges which will

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continue until, with the help of the computer, the request has become perfectly precise and comprehensible to both parties, using the statistical data description language briefly mentioned earlier.

A call on the documentation bank will then yield a reply as to the existence and availability of the basic statistical data required. If they exist, they m a y already be on a disc and the work will go ahead immediately; or else they m a y be on tape and the user will be asked to return the following day; or finally, they m a y not yet be recorded and the user will be asked to return a fortnight later. Depending on the status of the applicant, an estimated price might be quoted for this last operation to be submitted to him before the work is carried out.

In any event, the user will finally have at his disposal 1,000 series. In a new series of operations, still carried out in dialogue with the computer, the user will m a k e himself a personalized file, manipulating the basic series to suit himself, transforming basic to aggregate series and making simple calculations based on the four arithmetical operations. Thus he m a y reduce age groups rising in stages of five years to wider groups breaking d o w n a population into young people, adults and old folk; or he m a y prefer to use percentages in relation to France as a whole or again he m a y prefer to use rates of growth. This personal file will be restricted to around fifty series.

The user can then apply models and complex calculations from special programmes to these series. At any point he will be able to come back to his 1,000-series stock to m a k e himself a further personalized file or modify his file's contents in part. H e will also be able to request the use of a further 1,000-series stock and take up his work again the following day.

During all these operations, the user will be able to ask for all or part of his file to be 'posted' on a viewing screen. This can be done either straight­forwardly by showing the numbers themselves or in graphic form by showing curves or superimposing symbols on a geographical m a p . If the user wishes to keep a record of what appears on the screen, he will be able to ask for a print-out which will then be m a d e on an independent printer.

N E W W O R K I N G CONDITIONS

A s can be seen from this description, this is indeed a new manner of working: instead of reference retrieval first followed by recourse to actual documents which are then dealt with more or less manually, the data bank provides both the basic and the comparative data necessary exactly when they are needed in a complex chain of reasoning. It provides, simultaneously the means of calculation and the ready-made models which will allow the hypotheses to be tested as the chain of reasoning is pursued.

O n e is bound to remark, however, that even today researchers only very rarely use these new possibilities which the computer theoretically makes available for their work and it is probably important to try to understand w h y , after a period of great enthusiasm, data banks, in the domain of econo­mics, attract some fairly sharp criticisms.

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N o r has the movement in the United States seeking to m a k e the findings of the very numerous opinion polls available to social-science researchers resulted as yet in the execution of work of great importance. It had been thought at first that the 'secondary' utilization of these documents might make it possible, through comparative research, to develop n e w theories or at least to test the value of general theories.

At the time, the accent was on the technical problems posed by the storing and retrieval of information. Considerable efforts were m a d e on these lines and it can be claimed that today the formation of data-storing centres with automatic retrieval is an accepted practice. Even the 'diplomatic' problems of giving the mass of researchers access to information collected by a few, have been thoroughly studied, if not all solved. Computer-utilization programmes have also developed satisfactorily and it can be claimed that the data archives movement has succeeded completely on the technical plane.

Moreover, it is not the cost which puts the brake on the use of the data banks: as these systems are still prototypes, any 'customers' can mostly use them without being asked for a financial recompense. Therefore the obstacles to the use of the existing data banks originate elsewhere.

A n initial obstacle arises from ignorance of what is really in the banks. In most cases it is still as the result of a manual search that one is apprised of the existence of an information item; as there is poor co-ordination between the data banks, their total scope is only imperfectly known. Until such time as a network of data banks has been created, it will be impossible to present the prospective user with a peripheral equipment which would give him access to all the information.

A second obstacle which is even more important than the first arises from the fact that researchers generally are not equipped to use a very large quantity of data all at once. A s of n o w , w e have not got the procedures, models or techniques whereby vast masses of data can be used simultaneously. The mathematical methods advocated by some researchers usually require such a level of instruction that they still remain the preserve of the few. But a data bank, simply because it is a heavy-duty installation, can only pay its way if it is used by the larger number. Another point which must again be stressed, is the difficulty of interpreting most of the statistical data. N o n -standardization is the general rule: different nomenclatures are in use in the same country and sometimes in the same ministry.

Unless careful attention is paid to the definitions and the underlying concepts, there is a risk of very serious errors of interpretation. S o m e statis­ticians even think that these risks are so real that statistics should never be m a d e available to the public at large. According to them, only highly qualified specialists are likely to be in a position to avoid the pitfalls of wrong inter­pretations. If the advice of this school of thought were to be followed, data banks would be exclusively reserved for this small number, but w e have seen that their cost requires a great number of users to justify the investments essential.

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One final obstacle of a more psychological nature should not be under­estimated. Nobody w h o has had the chance of using a data bank, and w h o has thus been confronted with a computer terminal, can have failed to notice that the h u m a n work rhythm is rather conspicuously different from that of the machine. Given a question involving very numerous calculations and complex searches, the computer answers with a speed which, even after long experience, still remains stupefying, to the point that the user does not even have time to prepare the next question and there are long pauses between each question. At the same time he is mostly not unaware of the cost per minute of using the computer and this disturbs his chain of thought.

Contrariwise, there are m a n y occasions—with a time-sharing system— when he frets at a half-minute lag in the arrival of the answer. The phenomenon is similar to that of the impatient motorist, with a car that will do well over sixty m . p . h . , w h o is stuck at a traffic light which refuses to turn green. In all such cases, the problem consists in the failure of adjustment between disparate operating rates.

The viewing screen, even faster than the tele-printer, and by a great deal, most often avoids the wait, but the m o m e n t the questions are more complex and the time-sharing network is extensive, the two phenomena—the unbearable wait and the intolerable tension caused by the difference between the speed of reply and the slow gestation of the next question to be put—recur at another level.

Some of the obstacles pointed out will probably be lessened when users in sufficient numbers have acquired the habit of turning to data banks and it has been possible to adjust the latter more closely to the users' real needs. At that point, it is probable that immense networks of data banks will make it possible for each individual to make use not only of the data from his o w n work but also of the data of m a n y other researchers, and it can well be imagined that the m o d e of working and especially of reporting one's work will be changed profoundly. At the m o m e n t , knowledge is transmitted through the medium of books or articles, in other words in a fairly well finalized form. Each researcher then extracts the basic data from these works and reorganizes them to suit his o w n purpose: with the addition of a few new facts or some additional data, he refashions a complex discourse into a new work. It is not impossible that one day w e shall be able to dissociate the discourse on particular data from the basic data from which it starts and on which it argues.

If at that point, and independently of their o w n discourses, researchers could publish the basic data on which they had worked, the analytical labour, to which attention has been drawn, would be avoided. All the data would be available, almost of their o w n accord, though all this would presuppose the resolution of the difficulties already indicated over the standardization of names and data.

In the domain of natural science a new phenomenon has a true value when it is possible for any researcher to reproduce it by the same operative procedure. In the h u m a n sciences, things are m u c h more difficult since the

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proportion of conceptualization to observation is m u c h greater. However, given the extreme complexity of modern laboratories, it is not always practi­cable, even in the natural sciences, to repeat experiments and researchers are forced to treat reports of experiments as having the same weight as the actual experiments repeated by themselves.

This referral to authority looms even larger in the h u m a n sciences since there is no real experimentation. The accumulation of knowledge in this field is a m u c h more ticklish business, but it is towards that accumulation that the scientific community is moving in developing data banks.

There is therefore some likelihood of the working conditions being fundamentally different. The data will become 'material', independent of the works in which they are incorporated, just as dictionary entries can have a value outside the context of the dictionary. O f course, no discourse, no theory, can emerge from the mere juxtaposition of dictionary articles or data, however judiciously selected. The data bank can never be a magic wand to bring new theories into being. It needs to be regarded as a tool which helps. However, the help is so powerful that thought itself is bound to be affected by it, although it is not yet possible to say h o w .

T o conclude, the reader will note that the lone researcher erudite enough to have complete mastery of a particular domain of learning, will in all proba­bility yield place to complex teams in which the imagination of the data-bank users m a y be more important than their learning. Nevertheless, it is obvious that a first-class knowledge of a particular domain is the only insurance against posing questions which are absurd. While the computer's speed permits of the method of trial and error, the proliferation of data which is the concomitant of the enlargement of the m e m o r y bank often makes hit or miss researches totally unproductive.

Data bank networks will never be any more than aids to thought for checking hypotheses and theories whose formulation must be the province of the researcher alone and which will be proportionately better as the foun­dation of personal knowledge on which they rest is vaster.

[Translated from French]

Jean-Paul Trystram is director of research at the Institut de Recherche d'Informatique et d'Automatique and consultant to the Délégation à l'Aménagement du Territoire et à l'Action Régionale. His most recent publications include 'Système d'Accumulation des Données et Information Régionale', in: Aménagement du Territoire et Développement Régional (1968), 'Sociologie et Urbanisme', in: Compte Rendu du Colloque de Royaumont de Avril-Mai 1968 (1970), and L a Documentation Automatique (1971).

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Open forum

Richard Attiyeh,

T . L . Johnston,

Keith G . Lumsden

and Charles J. Ritchie

introduction

Economics has been said to be 'the oldest of the arts, the newest of the sciences'.1 The article which follows describes the efforts of those concerned with economics education to reconcile the rigorous approach of the scientist with the art of the teacher.

Previous American and British experience

In the early 1950s the American Economic Association ( A E A ) published in the American Economic Review committee reports on the problems of teaching college economics, and in the late 1950s its Committee on Economic Education appointed a sub-committee to analyse high-school textbooks used in economics and in related fields. It was during the 1960s, however, that the most significant developments took place. Briefly they were: 1. Formation of the National Task Force on Economic Education, appointed

by A E A and financed by the Committee for Economic Development, and the publication of its report.

2. The development of the Test of Economic Understanding (TEU) , published in 1963, and the Test of Understanding in College Economics ( T U C E ) , published in 1968.

3. The increasing participation of A E A , through its Committee on Economic Education, in promoting attention within the profession to the area of economics teaching.

These developments were important because the ideas of the academic economists involved concerning the appropriate content of high-school economics courses were widely disseminated; the tests made it possible to measure economic understanding at both high-school and college level; and, most important of all, interest in teaching economics became respectable. One has only to consider some of the distinguished names involved in different

1. P. A . Samuelson, Economics, 7th ed., N e w York, McGraw-Hill, 1967.

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Int. Soc. Sei. J., Vol. XXIII, N o . 2, 1971

Richard Attiyeh, T . L . Johnston, Keith G . L u m s d e n and Charles J. Ritchie

aspects of these activities to be convinced of the significance of these efforts to improve economics education.

In this favourable climate, new experiments in economics teaching emerged, and for the first time objective evaluation of the results of some of these experiments were m a d e and became available to the profession. Research standards began to be applied to the teaching of the subject, albeit in a modest way , and some of the results which emerged from these studies did not cast a favourable light upon the profession in its teaching role.

While the United K i n g d o m has progressed more slowly than the United States (partly through lack of finance and partly through lack of interest at the higher levels), new attitudes have pervaded the British education scene within the last few years. A climate has developed which encourages change, but which demands evaluation of ideas both new and old. Within this new climate, the Economics Education Project had its beginning.

The Economics Education Project (EEP)

The initial objective of the Economics Education Project (EEP) was to help raise the level of economics literacy in Britain. T o achieve this objective, it was proposed that: (a) a consensus be established as to what constitutes economic literacy and h o w it can be measured; (b) a programme of research be carried out to collect, tabulate and analyse data on both economics teaching and economics understanding in order to provide a profile of the existing situation and to assess in quantitative terms the importance of different factors to the learning process ; and (c) the information necessary to improve economics instruction, such as technical research reports, recommendations based on research results and manuals describing effective teaching methods and materials be m a d e readily available to teachers and administrators.

A n Advisory Board composed of leading economists and educators was formed to help give direction to the project, to focus national attention on the importance of economics education and to evaluate the programme of research. In addition, the board reviews the staff research, reports and helps to prepare the project findings for publication.

W h e n the project came into being, it was obvious that there were two major educational areas, one university and the other secondary school, and within each of these large groupings, several sub-divisions.

The analysis of basic economics education at the university level is based primarily on the statistical study currently in progress at thirty-seven of the forty-four British universities, involving nearly 8,000 students, i.e. 90 per cent of all students taking basic economics. Briefly, each economics department has administered an objective economics test and an intelligence test to students at the beginning of the basic economics course, and a second economics test at the end of the course.1 S o m e universities have used this

1. These tests are discussed below in the section 'Objective Tests'.

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post-test as part of their end-of-year examination. In addition, each student has completed a questionnaire about his individual characteristics, and each lecturer or tutor a questionnaire about his professional training and the characteristics of the economics course he was teaching.

F r o m this information it was possible to measure levels of economics comprehension and the extent to which different factors influence the under­standing of economics. For example, the pre-test results provided answers to questions such as the following: after taking into account individual differences in age, sex, general aptitude, etc., h o w does the level of economics understanding of students w h o have had 'A'-level economics1 in secondary school compare with that of students w h o have not previously studied economics? Similarly, the post-test results indicated what kind of school training best prepares students for university economics, and what kind of university course is most successful in raising the level of economics comprehension.

After analysis of the data, each participating university was given, together with national norms, a detailed computer print-out on each of its students taking basic economics and average scores in economics for the institution in question. A n analysis of the pre-test results is presented in the next section, 'Economics Understanding of Beginning University Students'.

Most persons w h o study economics in the United Kingdom do so at secondary schools and further-education centres.2 Furthermore, the large number of relatively autonomous schools, education authorities and examining boards means that courses at the secondary school level vary considerably in their content. While the scale and diversity of secondary-school-level economics instruction should ensure useful information, they also add consi­derably to the researcher's burden. T o deal with this complex system, the main approach has been to present the case for organized research in secondary-school-level economics to all influential bodies and to seek their support and co-operation. While each head teacher, of course, had to make his o w n decision about whether to take part in E E P , w e expected that the merits of the project and its obvious value to economics teachers, together with the endorsement of the various official bodies, would lead to a high rate of parti­cipation in the study. In fact, approximately 50 per cent of all students of economics at the secondary school level have taken part.

1. In this study no distinctions are made a m o n g the General Certificate of Education Exami­nation Boards or between the General Certificate of Education and Scottish Certificate of Education Examination Boards. A s a result, ' A ' level should be interpreted to include the Scottish Certificate of Education ' H ' grade, and ' O ' level the ' O ' grade. Similarly, in dis­cussing courses and institutions English terminology will be used but should be understood to include the Scottish equivalent. Both ' A ' level and ' H ' grade refer to courses of studies followed between the ages of 17 and 19 years upon successful completion of the preceding ' O ' level (or grade) courses, and the consequent examinations represent terminal assessments of the achievements of students in secondary schools.

2. Further-education centres provide facilities for those w h o have left school but w h o wish to continue their education either on a full-time or a part-time basis.

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Economics teachers in the secondary schools and further education centres have administered to their classes an intelligence test and, just prior to their formal examinations, an objective economics examination, and have supplied information on their courses and qualifications. A s with the university-level study, these data are being used to identify the factors in economics teaching which have a significant effect on student learning. Each secondary school and further-education centre will receive information on each student (and national norms) similar to that given to universities.

The data collected as part of the project's several studies have been used to obtain a complete picture of basic economics education in the United K i n g d o m , including teacher (lecturer), pupil (student) and course charac­teristics. Aggregation of the data which has been sent to individual secondary schools, further education centres, universities and business schools will provide national averages and totals which will be published on completion of the study. O f greater importance than the purely descriptive material will be the results of the multivariate analysis of the data.1 These results will identify and measure the separate effects of various factors on economics understanding. The causal factors of major interest are those which are under the control of faculty and administrators, e.g. course characteristics. However, in order to measure the influence of these factors, it is necessary also to collect data on, and control for, all other variables that can be expected to influence economics understanding, e.g. student characteristics, such as intelligence.

Economics understanding of beginning university students

This section reports on the first of a number of studies that have been undertaken as part of the Economics Education Project. The subjects of this study were students about to begin the first-year university economics course in the academic year 1969/70. The purpose of the study was to determine h o w m u c h economics students k n o w at this stage of their careers and to discover the different factors which contribute to this understanding and their relative importance. The information will be an input of a larger study dealing with basic economics education at the university level, but it is in m a n y ways interesting for its o w n sake. Before beginning the study of basic economics at university, each student took an objective economics test and completed a brief questionnaire. The economics test used in the study to measure economics understanding was a fifty-minute, thirty-five-question, multiple-choice test specifically designed by the staff of E E P for the study.

The questionnaire was designed to provide information on those student characteristics which might be expected to influence basic economics under-

1. For examples of the techniques employed see the next section, 'Economics Understanding of Beginning University Students'.

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standing. Information was obtained on sex, age, year of university, area of major study or speciafeation, type of school attended, 'A'-level examinations taken, grades received by subject and students' opinion of their 'A'-level economics courses and teachers. T o control for differences in student ability, each student was asked to take the A H 5 intelligence test1 during the year.

The number of students in the study was 4,700. The major findings based on statistical analysis of the data are summarized

as follows: 1. Students w h o had taken 'A'-level economics2 knew substantially more

economics than those w h o had not. Scholarship-level economics and 'A'-level economic history also added significantly, but by a lesser margin, to economics comprehension. 'O'-level economics, however, was not a significant explanatory variable. O f non-economics 'A'-level courses, mathematics and general studies did have a significant positive effect, history had no significant effect, and geography had a significant negative effect.

2. O n average, having attended a further education centre rather than a secondary school added significantly to understanding.

3. Males knew significantly more economics than females, but neither age nor year at university at which the study of economics began was important. The effect of intelligence test scores on economics understanding, while significant and positive as expected, was not substantial.

These and other findings were based on the multiple regression statistics shown in Table 1. The dependent variable is the number of correct answers on the Test of Economics Comprehension ( T E C ) . 3 The independent variables are listed in Table 1 and represent personal and background characteristics of the students. The means (column 2 in Table 1) describe the characteristics of the students in the study. For example, it can be seen from the m e a n value for variable 13 that 49 per cent of the students in the sample had attended G r a m m a r Schools, and from the mean value for variable 24 that 46 per cent of these students had taken 'A'-level mathematics. The regression coefficients and '/' statistics show the influence of each independent variable on T E C score.4 The coefficient of the age variable, while statistically significant, was small, adding only 0.06 of a question correct on T E C .

1. A . W . He im, Test A H 5, National Foundation for Educational Research, 1968. The reason for obtaining A H 5 scores was the need to hold intelligence constant when analysing the effects of other variables on T E C (Test of Economics Comprehension) score.

2. See footnote 2 above, page 295. 3. Failure to record a response was accorded a grade of 0.25 since, on average, random choosing

would have a probability of 0.25 of being correct. 4. For readers w h o are not familiar with regression analysis, the regression coefficient indicates

the change in the dependent variable that can be expected ceteris paribus from a change of one unit in an independent variable. In the discussion of these coefficients the criterion for rejecting the hypothesis that the coefficient is zero is that the '/' statistics have an absolute value greater than 1.96. Following this criterion the probability of rejecting the hypothesis that the coefficient is zero when, in fact, it is zero, is less than 0.05.

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T A B L E 1. Multiple regression statistics (dependent variable: score on T E C (mean = 13.83); coefficient of determination = 0.30; standard error of estimate = 3.49; inter­cept = 9.32)

Independent variable (units)

1. Age (years) 2. Sex (male = 0, female = 1) 3. Year at university 4. A H 5 Part I score 5. A H 5 Part II score 6. A H 5 taken (taken = 0, not

taken = 1) 7. Average 'A'-level grade (F = 0,

.... A = 6)

Mean

20.18 0.24 1.22

12.81 14.05

0.27

4.05

Standard deviation

3.33 0.43 0.58 8.74 9.68

0.44

1.33

Regression coefficient

0.06 —0.96

0.03 0.14 0.06

3.97

0.05

statistic

3.10 —7.64

0.27 9.48 4.86

12.95

1.12

Field of specialization (no = 0, yes = 1) 8. Economics 0.33 9. Accountancy, business or commerce 0.19

10. Mathematics, statistics or science 0.08

School type attended1 (no = 0, yes = 1) 11. Independent 0.15 12. Grant-aided grammar 0.17 13. G r a m m a r 0.49 14. Secondary modern 0.01 15. Comprehensive 0.06

'A'-level economics 16. Taken (no = 0, yes = 1) 0.33 17. Grade (F = 0 A = 6) 1.47 18. Years since taken 0.13 19. Course rating (v.p. = 0 , . . . , v.g. = 4) 0.88 20. Teacher rating (v.p. = 0 v.g. = 4) 0.95

Other examinations taken (no = 0, yes — 1) 21. 'O'-level economics 0.20 22. Scholarship-level economics 0.07 23. 'A'-level economic history 0.05 24. 'A'-level mathematics 0.46 25. 'A'-level history 0.37 26. 'A'-level geography 0.35 27. 'A'-level general studies 0.08 28. N u m b e r of T E C questions

unanswered 1.99 4.18 —0.11 —9.03

1. Variables 11, 12 and 13 describe full-time educational establishments (age range 11-19) which select pupils o n the basis of ability. Variable 11 is normally a boarding school, i.e. pupils live in the schools. Variables 14 and IS are also full-time establishments with a similar age range but are entirely non-selective.

0.47 0.39 0.27

0.36 0.38 0.50 0.11 0.24

0.47 1.98 0.72 1.34 1.50

0.40 0.26 0.21 0.50 0.48 0.48 0.28

0.58 0.02

—0.18

—0.45 —0.36 —0.47 —1.27 —1.04

0.81 0.61

—0.09 0.14

—0.23

0.05 0.83 0.79 0.40 0.12

—0.35 0.51

4.44 0.13

—0.86

—1.75 —1.42 —2.06 —2.55 —3.52

1.98 5.54

—1.22 1.08

—2.32

0.30 3.78 3.03 3.27 1.05

—3.08 2.62

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The sex variable which took on a value of 0 if the student was male and 1 if female, had a substantial effect on T E C score. The coefficient of —0.96, which is statistically significant, indicates that being female meant 0.96 fewer correct answers. The coefficient of the variable year at university was not significantly different from zero.

Student aptitude was measured by scores on Part I and Part II of the A H 5 intelligence test. The coefficients of both parts of this test were significant ('/' statistics of 9.48 and 4.86 respectively). A n additional point on the two parts of the A H 5 test was worth an extra 0.14 and 0.06 respectively of a question correct on the T E C . Variable 6 is slightly more complex. It had a value of 0 if the A H 5 examination was taken but for those students on w h o m no A H 5 score existed it had a value of 1.

H a d this variable not been introduced, all students without A H 5 scores would have been assigned an intelligence score of zero. The coefficient of 3.97 can be interpreted as the number of questions correct on the T E C attri­butable to the inferred intelligence of the average student without an A H 5 score. Variable 7, average 'A'-level grade, did not have a significant effect on T E C score. It should be remembered, however, that A H 5 score and all of the other variables are being held constant. The fact that A H 5 score was a significant variable and average 'A'-level grade was not suggests that the former is a better measure of student aptitude. O f the fields of specialization at university, only the coefficient for economics (variable 8) was significant. The fact that a student was specializing in economics added 0.58 of a question correct to score. Variables 11 to 15 indicate type of school attended. A s indi­cated by the sum of the variables' means, 88 per cent of the sample attended schools. The remaining 12 per cent attended further-education centres. The coefficients for the variables representing the different types of schools indicate the difference in T E C score that resulted from attending each of those types of schools instead of a further education centre. All of the regression coefficients are negative, although not all are significant. W h e n one averages the school types, however, the resulting coefficient is significant ('i' = —3.45) and has a value of —0.49, which indicates that a student scores 0.49 of a question higher on T E C from attending a further-education centre rather than an 'average' school.

The coefficients for variables 16 to 20 show the effect of having taken 'A'-level economics. Ignoring grade, having taken the course (variable 16) added 0.81 to T E C score. Each higher 'A'-level economics grade (variable 17) added 0.61 to score, so that an average grade of 4.47 (F = 0, O = 1, E = 2 , D = 3, C = 4 , B = 5, A = 6) was worth an additional 2.74 (0.61 X 4.47) correct answers on T E C . The number of years since the 'A'-level economics examination was taken (variable 18) unexpectedly did not have a significant coefficient. This suggests that there was no depreciation over time in the stock of economics knowledge acquired in studying 'A'-level economics. Student opinion on 'A'-level economics course (variable 19) was not a signi­ficant variable, i.e. h o w good the course was in a student's opinion did not significantly affect his grade on T E C . Student opinion on his 'A'-level economics

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teacher (variable 20), however, was a significant variable ('/' = —2.32), but surprisingly the sign of the coefficient was negative (—0.23). This means that the poorer the student considered his teacher to be the better he performed on the T E C . For example, if he considered his teacher to be 'poor' rather than 'very good' his score was higher, on average, by 0.69 (3 x 0.23) of a question. The results for variables 21 to 27 relate to the effect of having taken selected school-level courses instead of the 'average' course not specified. These subjects which, if taken, had a significant positive effect on T E C score are scholarship-level economics (0.83), 'A'-level economic history (0.79), 'A'-level mathematics (0.40) and 'A'-level general studies (0.51). Having either an ' O ' level in economics or an ' A ' level in history did not add signi­ficantly to T E C score, while having an ' A ' level in geography had a significant negative effect (—0.35).

The final variable in Table 1 is the number of questions out of thirty-five on T E C not attempted. The average number was 2.11. For each question unanswered the student was given 0.25 of a question correct, the equivalent on average to random guessing. However, not answering a question cost the student an additional 0.11 of a question since on average on each question this is the extra score over a random guess which the average student achieved w h o answered all questions.

Table 2 is derived from the regression results in Table 1 and gives predicted scores of students having taken selected subjects.

T A B L E 2. Predicted scores of students with selected subjects

Students' level

1. N o ' A ' levels in economics, mathematics, or economic history

2. ' A ' level in economics 3. ' A ' levels in economics, mathematics, and economic

history 4. ' A ' levels in economics, mathematics and scholarship-

level economics and specializing in economics

Note: Predicted score for student choosing answers at random 8.75

1. T h e combined effect of variables 16 to 20, i.e. the s u m of the product of the variable means divided by 0.33 and the regression coefficients.

A s shown in line 1, for the student of average intelligence, average age and 'average' sex, attending an 'average' type of institution, etc., and not having ' A ' levels in economics, mathematics or economic history, the predicted score is 12.30. A s shown in line 2, had this 'average' student 'A'-level economics his predicted score would have been 3.23 points higher or 15.53. Line 4 shows

Addition to score

3.231

4.42

5.83

Predicted score

12.30 15.53

16.72

18.13

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that this 'average' student by carefully selecting the 'correct' subjects, 'A'-level economics, 'A'-level economic history, 'A'-level mathematics and scholarship-level economics, and also by specializing in economics at university level, would score substantially higher, i.e. 18.13 instead of 12.30.

The conclusions to be drawn from this preliminary study are reported in full in the final section below, 'Conclusion'.

Objective tests

Perhaps the least controversial statement about objective tests is that they are m u c h easier to criticize than construct. Hopefully, the criticism which will accompany such tests will be constructive and will lead to continual improvement in the sets of objective tests which will appear in the coming decade.

The use of objective tests in economics is not new. Teachers at both secondary-school and university levels have seen the advantages of using objective tests, often taken from textbooks. Until comparatively recently, however, large-scale use of carefully specified, pre-tested objective tests in economics was not known. In the United States, the development and extensive use of such objective tests were a direct result of the efforts of the American Economic Association's Committee on Economic Education (see above, under 'Previous American and British Experience'). In the United Kingdom, progress has been more leisurely. Since 1967, however, the Associated Examining Board and the University of London have been co-operating to produce objective tests in economics. The outcome of this research has been a decision to have one c o m m o n objective test paper of one-and-a-half hours duration as part of the 'A'-level economics papers for both boards commencing in the summer of 1971. Other General Certificate of Education boards (which administer ' O ' - and 'A'-level examinations) are also considering adopting similar techniques. There appears to be little doubt that objective tests in economics have become an important tool in economics education and that their importance will grow with time.

The main purpose of any test is to find out h o w m u c h a student knows in the subject being tested. In final examinations, the test, whatever type it be, should give a meaningful rank ordering of candidates. A s a learning device, a test enables both teachers and students to see where answers, while not necessarily wrong, are inadequate. M a n y different forms of tests exist, from the simple 'true-false' to the complex 'oral', and each type has both costs and benefits. The costs of high-quality objective tests in economics lie in difficulty of construction. The benefits lie in ease of marking. Objective tests can measure a substantial amount of student attainment in economics but not necessarily all of it. A s Professor Rendigs Fels1 has pointed out,

1. R . Fels, 'Multiple Choice Questions in Elementary Economies', Recent Research in Econ­omics Education, p. 27-43, ed. by K . G . Lumsden, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. , Prentice-Hall, 1970.

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economics lies somewhere between mathematics and history: 'The scores on good multiple-choice tests in mathematics correlate so highly with grades on other forms of examination that for all practical purposes the correlation can be regarded as 1.0. In economics the correlation can be expected to range between 0.60 and 0.75. In a subject like history the correlation is lower.'

The development and use of objective tests also makes available measuring rods and data which are vital for testing hypotheses in any subject. If the teaching of economics is to be approached scientifically, it is important that the output from this activity be independently measured and not, as has commonly been done in the past, be assumed to be proportional to the input.1

Item analysis of the test can point out areas where student understanding leaves something to be desired and can highlight areas which m a y have been poorly taught or learned. Thus the test, if given prior to formal examinations, can be a useful revision exercise for both teachers and students. In addition, an analysis of why the correct response is correct and w h y the distractors are wrong can prove to be a useful teaching device.

Used as a pre-test, it can be useful in designing courses most suitable for students whose economics comprehension is known.

The provision of norming data for homogeneous groups can enable teachers to discover those areas of the subject in which their students have a relatively good or poor performance.

The Test of Economics Comprehension (TEC) was constructed to comply with the following criteria: students w h o score well on the test should be able to take a real-life economics situation or problem, identify the economics issues involved and choose the likely outcome or appropriate policy; the test should not examine economics terminology or tools per se, but should examine h o w well students apply fundamental concepts and principles in new situations. The test is composed of fourteen questions requiring the use of basic micro-economics and fourteen requiring the use of basic macro­economics. The remaining seven questions require the use of the same basic tools, but were drawn from the applied fields of basic international trade and comparative economic systems.

The questions were prepared by the staff of the Economics Education Project with the assistance of secondary-school teachers, university professors and psychometricians, the first two groups being concerned with economics content and the last named with construction techniques. All questions were pre-tested at least twice on substantial numbers of students. Questions which were 'too easy' or 'too difficult' were deleted or revised, and 'unattractive' or ambiguous questions were reconstructed.

It is important to realize, however, that T E C was not designed to evaluate

1. W h a t factors affect student understanding in economics, and by h o w m u c h , must be inves­tigated and quantified if the 'casual empiricism' approach to the evaluation of 'efficiency' in economics education is to be displaced. T o argue that the teaching of economics is in no more serious plight than that of other social sciences, or m a n y sciences for that matter, should give little comfort to a profession which takes pride in its rigorous scientific approach to every other facet of its activities.

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any existing syllabus, but rather to discriminate effectively a m o n g students with a wide range of economics understanding.

R a n d o m selection of answers would give an expected total score of 8.75 correct answers, since there are thirty-five questions and four potential answers per question. The fact that the average score for students preparing for ' A ' levels w h o had taken no formal economics courses was 11.46 suggests that they knew some economics. In analysing the results of T E C , it is important not to interpret scores, or differences in scores, in terms of any standard marking criteria that m a y be applied to other tests. N o special significance, for example, should be attached to 50 per cent correct, traditionally a passing mark. If the m e a n score for a group of students is significantly higher than 8.75, it means that the examinees on average had some acquaintance with economics. The fact that scores for students in the samples m a y appear low in some absolute sense reflects the challenging nature of the test. It was not intended that brighter 'A'-level candidates or better first-year university economics students should score near 100 per cent correct in this test. Examinees w h o would be expected to score in such a range would be persons w h o had acquired a thorough knowledge of, and the ability to apply, all concepts covered in the test. A s a result, what at first m a y seem to be small absolute differences in T E C scores m a y in fact indicate substantial differences in eco­nomics understanding.

T o facilitate comprehension of the results as well as individual (or group) comparison by teachers, percentile rankings by various n o r m groups have been calculated. S o m e caution should be exercised in using T E C results to evaluate the performance of an individual student or a group of students. Each teacher should examine the test in relation to the content and purpose of the course he is teaching. If, for instance, a course has concentrated, pri­marily on micro-economics, the teacher might wish to examine on the sub­set of relevant questions in T E C , reduce proportionately the amount of time allowed for the test and compare his results with the n o r m group m e a n for this sub-set of questions (found by summing the percentage correct for each question asked).

In estimating reliability of T E C scores for a group of examinees, both m e a n score and standard deviation of the group is required. As a first approximation, however, a teacher can compare a group's m e a n score or an individual student's score with the relative national norms. Percentile rankings can tell where a student lies in relation to the n o r m group, though with only one test there is no guarantee that his score accurately reflects his economics comprehension given the variation in an individual's performance. G r o u p performance is more reliable since individual deviations from true scores tend to cancel out.

The core of basic economic analysis

Our knowledge of economics is such that there clearly exists a corpus of well-established material with which students and others concerned with

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economic problems must sooner or later become familiar. The problem is to ensure that this material is clearly articulated, and to agree on what is—and what is not—indispensable at an elementary level. The Economics Education Project staff, with the help of its advisory board, composed of economics professors and teachers, educators and public figures, has therefore spelled out in detail what it believes must be included in any course purporting to teach basic economics. Unfortunately space does not allow this 'core of basic economic analysis' to be reproduced here.

Basic economics courses serve a wide range of objectives and are taught at m a n y different levels. S o m e prepare students for advanced work, others are simply an element in a programme of general education; some have fourth-form pupils, others have post-graduates working for a professional degree. Differences in the objectives and the level of basic economics courses m a y also require differences in pedagogy. S o m e m a y concentrate on history, others on current policy. Whatever these differences m a y be, however, there are no differences in the economic ideas that are appropriate for the economist and the layman, the young and the old, the historian and the politician. It follows that there is a core of materials defining the discipline of economics that should be c o m m o n to all courses purporting to teach basic economics.1

Each basic-economics textbook, lecture course and examination implicitly defines a set of economics concepts that the teacher believes indispensable. There is no doubt that most of these sets contain a substantial c o m m o n element, which reflects the existence of a well-articulated and widely accepted body of tools and principles. Nevertheless, there exist variations around this c o m m o n element and it is not to be expected that there will be immediate universal agreement on the ideal set for beginning economics courses. In deciding what should be included in this course, and giving due consideration to the time available (taken to be about two-thirds of a typical one-year course), there must be taken into account the relevance of various concepts to past and present social problems, as well as the time and effort required to understand different concepts. While such empirical and value judgements are necessarily an important part of decisions of this type, it is hoped that the opinions regarding fundamentals of all concerned with raising the level of economics literacy m a y be sufficiently similar to make possible a general agreement throughout the country on this matter.

1. T o the pupil or student attempting to find an area of study or specialization which interests him and in which he m a y possibly plan his career, it is important that he be given informa­tion at the decision-making stage of his career as to what the subject of economics is about. M a n y of the arguments in favour of pupils and students studying economic organization and institutions, history and mathematics until the age of 'maturity' (21 years?) fail to take into account the fact that those w h o enter the field of professional economics do so under a set of false assumptions, and that many w h o do not enter fail to do so because of lack of information. It would be unfortunate for both society and the discipline of economics, which purports to teach something about rational choice, to find future economics disciples staggering into the profession, blind through a back door.

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Conclusion

Perhaps the most important conclusion emerging from the E E P study is that the teaching of basic economics is subject to an analytical approach and that m a n y variables which contribute to economics understanding can be isolated and measured. The implications for planning a student's programme become obvious as data become available on the complementarity of different subjects. A t the university level, there can no longer be any doubt that, holding other things constant, students w h o have studied 'A'-level economics k n o w signi­ficantly more analytical economics than those w h o have not. In addition, the benefits of complementary subjects, or costs of not having taken them, can also be taken into account in admitting candidates. With accurate background information, a course can be designed to avoid both repetition and boredom and to build on the structure which already exists.

In terms of the objective economics examination itself, analysis by question can point out those areas of economics understanding where performance is least satisfactory for any given student or class relative to the comparable national norm. Also, in absolute terms, those parts of basic economics which prove difficult for beginning students can be isolated. In short, a framework for analytical teaching in economics as well as for the evaluation of teaching, learning and the subject itself will emerge from the series of studies of which this is but a beginning.

Although the above conclusions are specific to the field of economics education, they can, in our judgement, have an equal validity for all disciplines. It is probable that the broader application of the techniques of assessment and evaluation described above under the heading 'Economics Understanding of Beginning University Students' will present problems which have not manifested themselves in either the natural or social sciences, but the existence of such problems ought to encourage, rather than inhibit, further research.

The fact of ever-increasing numbers wishing to enjoy the benefits of higher education demands the fuller utilization of limited educational means. W e see, as the natural extension of our present field of study, a wide-ranging inquiry into the economics of education. The problem of the efficient allocation of resources faces all nations, but it is perhaps of greatest importance to the developing countries. The rewards which they will gain from a rapid increase in their stock of educational capital will be proportionately m u c h higher than those accruing to the advanced nations.

In the final analysis, the value of any system of education must be measured in terms of the benefit which it brings to society. The measurement of that benefit lies within the compass of the economist, but the formulation of the system of education which produces the benefit is the responsibility of the educator. A partnership of the two provides our best hope for the future.

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Richard Attiyeh is director of research of the Economics Education Project; in 1969-70 he was visiting professor of economics at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh) and is at present associate professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, and a consultant at the Stanford Research Institute. T. L. Johnston is director for universities of the Economics Education Project; in addition to being a consultant at OECD's Manpower and Social Affairs Directorate, he is professor of economics at Heriot-Watt University and dean of the faculty of humanities. Keith G. Lumsden is director of the Economics Education Project; he was visiting professor of economics at Heriot-Watt University in 1969-70, and is at present associate professor at Stanford University and a consultant at the Stanford Research Institute. Charles J. Ritchie is director for schools of the Economics Education Project and is abo head teacher at the Whitburn Academy Further Education Centre.

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World index of social science institutions: research, advanced training, documentation and professional bodies

A special service of the International Social Science Journal

T h e basic edition of this card index, n o w published, contains systematic data on all those social science research, advanced training and documentation institutions and professional bodies (over 1,000) for which information was available in the Unesco Social Science Documentation Centre in mid-1970. It includes all still-active bodies described in the statements formerly published in the International Social Science Journal. T h e index is arranged in alphabetical order by country and n a m e of institution for national institutions, and in alphabetical order by n a m e of insti­tution only (in the appropriate language) for international bodies. A regular updating service for this index is provided, free of charge, to subscribers to the International Social Science Journal which will bring out n e w cards for additional institutions as well as cards containing m o r e recent information on institutions previously included in the index, these latter being identified by an asterisk preceding the n a m e of the body in question. T h e third set of such cards—to be inserted into the original index—is supplied with the present issue. N o other updating service exists. T h e index is available with or without a special ring binder of a format identical with that of this journal and m a y be ordered directly from the Distribution Division, Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, 75 Paris-7e, or through the national distributors listed at the end of this journal. Price: without ring binder, $9, £2.70, 36 F . ; with ring binder, $15, £4.50, 60 F .

T h e headings under which information is classified, as appropriate, for each institution are as follows:

1. Country of location 8. Publications 2. Coverage 8.1 Journals

2.1 Broad subject field(s) 8.2 Bulletins 2.2 Specific subject field(s) 8.3 Monographs 2.3 Geographical area coverage 8.4 Books

3. N a m e of institution (official acronym 8.5 Annual reports in brackets) 9. Size of staff

4. Address (and cable address) 9.1 Teaching 5. Date of establishment 9.2 Research 6. Present head 9.3 Documentation 7. Organizational structure: Governing 9.4 Administration

board, Executive Office, sections, etc. 10. Activity

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10.1 Teaching 10.2 Research 10.3 Documentation 10.4 Research promotion and

co-ordination 10.41 Providing financial assistance 10.42 Policy-making 10.5 Convening conferences

11. Research facilities 11.1 Library 11.11 Conventional 11.12 Mechanized 11.2 Laboratory 11.3 Photoreproduction or printing

equipment 11.4 Documentation storage and

retrieval equipment 11.41 Manual 11.42 Automatic

12. Finance

12.1 O w n budget 12.2 University funds 12.3 Grants and aid 12.4 Membership fees 12.5 Service and consultancy fees 12.6 Sales

13. Relationship with intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) 13.1 Organizations of the United

Nations system: United Nations, ILO, Unesco, F A O , W H O , Unicef, W M O , Ecosoc, etc.

13.2 Non-governmental organizations ( N G O s ) subsidized by I G O s . C o n ­sultative status A , B or C

13.3 Other relationships with I G O s (e.g. assistance in terms of experts, fellowships, scholarships, equipment and other facilities, contracts, work­ing relationships, etc.)

310

Approaching international conferences1

1971

1 July to 5 August

Colchester, United Kingdom

Second half

19-23 July

Addis Ababa

Istanbul

21-25 July

21-25 July

Belgrade

Belgrade

European Consortium for Political Research: Fourth S u m m e r School in Social Science Data Analysis Miss Rosemary Foot, Organizing Secretary, Fourth Essex Summer School, Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex (United Kingdom)

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: African Population Conference P.O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)

N A T O Advisory Group on H u m a n Factors: Scientific Meeting (Theme: Cultural factors in mental test development, application and interpretation) Scientific Affairs Division, NATO, 1110 Brussels (Belgium)

World Association of Judges: Third World Assembly 75 rue de Lyon, 1211 Geneva 13 (Switzerland)

World Peace Through L a w Center: Fifth World Conference 75 rue de Lyon, 1211 Geneva 13 (Switzerland)

1. N o further details concerning these meetings can be obtained through this Journal.

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25-30 July Liège

July London

July Quito

July

18-27 August Canberra

22-26 August Helsinki

23-29 August Ronneby, Sweden

September (?) Asunción (?)

312

International Association of Applied Psychology: Seventeenth International Congress (Theme: Looking ahead after half a century of applied psychology) Institut de Psychologie, Boulevard Piercot 36, 4000 Liège (Belgium)

American Bar Association: Conference Roger Moreau, 1155 East 60th Street, Chicago, III. 60637 (United States)

Interamerican Social Welfare Conference: Congress La Gasea No. 769, Quito (Ecuador)

U N / E C A F E Regional Seminar on Population Aspects of Social Development Planning ECAFE, Population Division, Sala Santitham, Bangkok (Thailand)

Pacific Science Association: Twelfth Quinquennial Congress Australian Academy of Science, Gordon Street, Canberra City, A.C.T. (Australia)

European Society for Opinion and Market Research/World Association for Public Opinion Research: Twenty-fourth Congress E S O M A R , 17 rue Berckmans, Brussels 6 (Belgium)

International Association for Research in Income and Wealth : Twelfth Conference Box 202, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn. 06520 (United States)

Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología: Tenth Latin American Congress of Sociology Professor Domingo M . Rivarola, Centro Paraguayo de Estudios Sociológicos, Eligió Ayala 973, Asunción (Paraguay)

Approaching international conferences

September Strasbourg Council of Europe: Second European Population Conference Avenue de VEurope, 67 Strasbourg (France)

September Detroit, Michigan Institute of Management Sciences: Twelfth American Meeting Mrs. M . R. DeMelim, P.O. Box 6112, Providence, R.I. 02904 (United States)

September Peace Research Society (International): Second Far East Peace Research Conference Walter Isard, Department of Regional Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104 (United States)

8-11 September Berne International Association of Gerontology : European Section Congress Professor B. Steinmann, Medizinische Abteilung C.L., Laury-Haus, Inselspital Bern, 3008 Berne (Switzerland)

27 September to Tunis 2 October

International Association of French-Language Sociologists: Sixth Colloquium Secrétariat Général, Centre d'Études Africaines, 17 rue de la Sorbonne, 75Paris-5e (France)

September to Cali, October Colombia

International Council for Scientific Management: Seventh Panamerican Regional Management Conference (Theme: The multinational company—conditions for its development and development of its managers) Instituto Colombiano de Administración, Apartado Aéreo 5193, Medellín (Colombia)

September to November

U N / E C A F E : Roving Seminar on Communications Techniques in Family Planning Programmes ECAFE, Population Division, Sala Santitham, Bangkok (Thailand)

17-21 October San Francisco Public Personnel Association: International Conference Kenneth O. Warner, 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, III. 60637 (United States)

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17-24 October Tokyo

November N e w Delhi

9-18 December Accra

1972

— Kiev, U . S . S . R .

Netherlands

Federal Republic of Germany

International Fertility Association: Seventh Annual Meeting / . Ascenzo-Cabello, Parque Meliton Perras, 161 Miraflores, Lima (Peru)

International Council for Scientific Management: Fourth A A M O C I O S Regional Management Conference Asian Association of Management Associations of CIOS, c/o All India Management Association, 29 Nizamuddin East, New Delhi 13 (India)

International Union for the Scientific Study of Population/United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: African Regional Population Conference ECA, P.O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)

International Association of Gerontology: Ninth International Congress Professor Dr. D . F. Chebotarev, All-Union Scientific and Medical Society of Gerontologists and Geriatrists, VI. Vyshgorodskaya 67, Kiev 114 (U.S.S.R.)

International Association of Schools of Social W o r k : Sixteenth Congress Room 615, 345 East 46th Street, New York, NY. 10017 (United States)

International Council for Scientific Management: Sixteenth International Management Congress Rationalisierungs-Kuratorium der Deutschen Wirtschaft-RKW, Gutleutstrasse 163-167, 6000 Frankfurt am Main 9 (Federal Republic of Germany)

314

Approaching international conferences

Dublin International Federation of Operational Research : Conference Mrs. Margaret Kinnaird, Operational Research Society, 62 Cannon Street, London, E.C.4 (United Kingdom)

January U N / E C A F E : Seminar on the Population Aspects of Urbanization and Industrialization ECAFE, Population Division, Sala Santitham, Bangkok (Thailand)

27-29 March N e w York Association for Asian Studies : Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting Association for Asian Studies Inc., 48 Lane Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48104 (United States)

March N e w Orleans Institute of Management Sciences: Nineteenth International Meeting Mrs. M. R. DeMelim, P.O. Box 6112, Providence, R.I. 02904 (United States)

June Sweden United Nations: Conference on human environment Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stockholm (Sweden)

August The Hague International Council on Social Welfare: Sixteenth International Conference Mrs. Kate Katzki, 345 East 46th Street, New York, N.Y. 10017 (United States)

August Tokyo International Union of Psychological Science: Twentieth International Congress Professor Yoshihisa Tanaka, Executive Director of the Organizing Committee, The Japanese Psychological Association, 37-13-802, Hongo 4-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113 (Japan)

September Denver Institute of Management Sciences: Thirteenth American Meeting Mrs. M. R. DeMelim, P.O. Box 6112, Providence, R.I. 02904 (United States)

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October (?) Saint Louis, Public Personnel Association : Missouri International Conference

Kenneth O. Warner, 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, III. 60637 (United States)

October U N / E C A F E : Second Asian Population Conference ECAFE, Population Division, Sala Santitham, Bangkok (Thailand)

1973

Canada International Political Science Association: Ninth World Congress 43 rue des Champs Elysées, Brussels 5 (Belgium)

United States International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences: Ninth Congress Unesco House, 1 rue Miollis, 75 Paris-15e (France)

1976

France International Union of Psychological Science: Twenty-first International Congress c/o Professor Eugene Jacobson, Secretary-General, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich. (United States)

316

Documents and publications of the United Nations and Specialized Agencies1

Population, health, food

POPULATION

Economic Commission for Africa: Report of the Working Group on Fertility Studies and Evaluation of Population Programmes, Addis Ababa, 26-30 January 1970. April 1970. 50 p., including annexes, ( U N / E / C N . 14/473.)

Population trends in African countries. Development of their fertility rates. State of research and practical programmes in those countries.

Demographic levels and trends in Africa and its relation with economic and social development. April 1970. 16 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 4 / P O P / 2 0 . )

Brief summary by the group of population experts of the Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa, 8-10 June 1970) concerning population growth and ur­banization in Africa. Education problems. Available population data. Population development factors in Africa: fertility, marriage rates, mortality, migration. Struc­tures of the population and the economically active population. Population pro­grammes.

HEALTH

World health statistics report. Vol. 23, no. 8, 1970. 135 p. $6.75, 20 Swiss francs. Vol. 23, no. 9, 1970. 63 p. $4 , 12 Swiss francs. ( W H O . )

[St.] Parts of a continuing digest of statistics on the incidence of various diseases. Covers the whole world. In addition to the basic tables which appear regularly,

1. A s a general rule, no mention is m a d e of publications and documents which are issued m o r e or less automatically—regular administrative reports, minutes of meetings, etc. W h e n the content of a text is self-evident no description has been provided. Free translations have been given of the titles of s o m e publications and documents which w e were unable to obtain in time in English. In this case the title is preceded by an asterisk. T h e following conven­tional abbreviations have been used: Bl. = Contains a particularly interesting bibliography. St. = Specially important or rare statistics.

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each part contains special studies. Noteworthy a m o n g these are, in N o . 8, statistics on the long-term development of illness and death related to tuberculosis (1947-68), and in N o . 9, conclusions as regards infantile mortality.

Post-graduate education for medical personnel in the U.S.S.R. 1970. 52 p. $1.25, 4 Swiss francs. (Public health papers, no. 39.) ( W H O . )

Report prepared by specialists w h o took part in a study trip organized by W H O . The organization of continuing medical education in the U . S . S . R .

Education and training of health workers. WHO chronicle. Vol. 24, no. 10, October 1970. 47 p. $0.60, 2 Swiss francs. ( W H O . )

This special issue, published for International Education Year, is a compilation of articles dealing with the various activities of W H O to promote medical education. Modern methods in Europe. African experiments. W H O fellowships. Modern teaching methods. The social sciences in medical education.

Biological research in schizophrenia. 1970. 35 p. $1, 3 Swiss francs. (Technical reports series, no. 450.) ( W H O . )

Problems in community wastes management. 1970. 89 p. $2, 6 Swiss francs. (Public health papers, no. 38.)

The evacuation of sewage in modern communities. Future developments. Present trends as regards waste water. Social aspects of these problems from the point of view of public health.

Towards a philosophy of the health work in the African region. 1970. 38 p. ( A F R O technical papers, no. 1.) ( W H O . )

Interactions between the state of health and economic growth. Priorities and planning of national health programmes.

An integrated concept of the public health services in the African region. 1970. 108 p. ( A F R O technical papers, no. 2.) ( W H O . )

Historical background of the development of health services in Africa. Present situa­tion. Problems to be solved.

FOOD

Report of the Second World Food Congress (The Hague, 16-30 June 1970). Vol. 1. 1970. 141 p. $2.50. ( F A O . )

[Bl. St.] Preparation of a suggested world plan to meet the urgent necessity of ensur­ing a better equilibrium between population and food resources. The various aspects of the problem. Population forecasts, probable economic growth, development of food production and forms of consumption.

318

Documents and publications

Economics

STATISTICS, PARTICULARLY ECONOMIC STATISTICS, STATISTICAL METHODS

Production year book, 1969. Vol. 23. 1970. 825 p. «10. ( F A O . ) [Bl. St.] Annual statistical data on all important aspects of food and agriculture (population, agricultural and food production, food stocks, prices, freight rates and wages).

Yearbook of fishery statistics, 1969. Catches and landings. Vol. 28. 1970. 296 p. $7. ( F A O . )

[Bl. St.]

Statistics of the distributive and service trades. April 1970. 171 p. ( U N / E / C N . 3/407.) [Bl.] Recommendations in force. Methods and problems.

External trade statistics. Draft classification by broad economic categories. April 1970. 43 p. ( U N / E / C N . 3 / 4 0 8 . )

Central registers of economic units. M a y 1970. 32 p. ( U N / E / C N . 3 / 4 1 4 . ) [BL] Plans and accomplishments of countries which are working to establish central registers listing units of activity and other economic units. Sources of the data. Methods used in establishing central registers and keeping them up to date.

Report of the first session. Expert Group on Statistics of the Distribution of Income, Consumption and Wealth. April 1970. 56 p., including annexes, ( U N / E / C N . 3 / 4 1 5 . )

[Bl. St.] International guiding principles. The system proposed. Its relationship to national accounts and balance-sheets. Several annexes.

Bulletin of statistics on world trade in engineering products—1968. 1970. 251 p. $3, 13 Swiss francs. (In English, French and Russian.) ( U N / S T / E C E / E N O / 9 . )

[St.] Exports of thirty countries classified in eighty groups of products and according to 120 destinations. Regional sub-totals. Covers most of world trade in these pro­ducts.

Customs areas of the world. January 1970. 34 p. $0.75, 3.25 Swiss francs, ( U N / S T / STAT/SER.M/30/ReV. 1.)

[St.] Description and statistical data.

Sub-regional surveys in Africa. March 1970. 15 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 4 / C A P . 3 / 1 3 . ) Present-day sub-regions in Africa. Available statistical documents, particularly on East Africa.

ECONOMIC PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT, INDUSTRIALIZATION

The feasibility of creating an international corps of volunteers for development. April 1970. 26 p., including annexes, ( U N / E / 4 7 9 0 . )

The experience acquired by United Nations bodies in employing associate

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experts. The motives of the volunteers. The nature of their work. Present and future staff. Training. Utilizations. Financing of the programmes.

The activities of the United Nations Development Programme in 1969. April 1970. 88 p . ( U N / D P / L . 1 3 0 . )

Implementation of the programme in 1969.

Transport modes and technologies for development. M a y 1970. 147 p . $2.50, 10.80 Swiss francs, ( U N / S T / E C A / 1 2 7 . )

[Bl. St.] The influence of various transport modes—rail, water, air, road, pipe­line, etc.—on the use of labour and capital. Effects from the point of view of econ­omic development.

Towards accelerated development. 1970. 46 p. $0.75, 3.25 Swiss francs, ( U N / S T / E C A / 128.)

Proposals for the Second United Nations Development Decade. Basic objectives. Steps to be taken at national and international levels.

Industrialization of developing countries: problems and prospects. Each fascicle: $0.50, 2.15 Swiss francs. (A series of monographs of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.) ( U N / I D / 4 0 / 1 , etc.)

[Bl. St.] The United Nations Industrial Development Organization has embarked on the publication of a series of leaflets analysing the problems raised by industrial ization in those countries where it has not yet reached an advanced stage. A m o n g the more recent ones w e m a y mention : Construction industry. 98 p . (ID/40/2. ) The place of construction in the national

economy. Pattern of the construction industry in relation to degrees of develop­ment. Analysis of its prospects in the light of a policy of growth. Labour market, tooling, financing. Rationalization of construction. Activity of U N I D O in this field.

Building materials industry. 77 p. (ID/40/3.) Same principles. Food-processing industry. 77 p . (ID/40/9.) Food situation trends in the developing

countries. Nature and role of the food-stuffs industry. Steps to encourage it. Services offered by U N I D O .

Domestic and external financing. 48 p. (ID/40/16.) Present-day problems in connexion with national and foreign investments. Conclusions reached by a recent sympo­sium. Investments and growth. Assistance given by U N I D O .

Regional co-operation in industry. 49 p. (ID/40/18.) Relations between economic co-operation on a regional scale and industrial growth. The setting-up of indus­tries on a regional basis. Role of U N I D O .

Industrial development survey. Vol. II. 1970. 133 p . $1.50, 6.45 Swiss francs, ( U N / ID/41 . )

[Bl. St.] Industrial trends in the developing countries from 1960 to 1969. Conse­quences of those trends from the point of view of employment and productivity. Sources of investments. Role of foreign trade in the industrial development of the countries in question.

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Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East: Seminar on Development Prospects and Planning for the Coming Decade (with Special Reference to Asia). March 1970. 36 p . ( U N / E / C N . H / L . 2 6 4 . )

[Bl. St.] Discussions on the results of planning in this region. Industrialization stra­tegy. The use of aid. Growth prospects.

PUBLIC FINANCE

Report of the United Nations Interregional Seminar on Government Accounting and Financial Management, Beirut, Lebanon, 8-19 December 1969. M a y 1970. 31 p. ( U N / S T / T A O / S E R . C / 1 17.)

Essential characteristics of government accounting. Establishment of the budget. Management and analysis. Book-keeping classification of income and expenditures. Publication of the accounts of public institutions. Planning and accounting of public services. Investment projects. Mechanization of government accounting.

Economic Commission for Africa: Report of the Training Course in Budget-plan Harmonization for English-speaking Countries, Addis Ababa, 16 February to 18 March 1970. April 1970. 26 p. , including annexes, tables, ( U N / E / C N . 14/476.)

The training course comprised discussions and exercises. Economic and functional reclassification of budgets. Establishment, study and approval of projects. Principles and techniques for forecasting income. Projection of resources. The budget-plan technique.

ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION

Economic Commission for Africa: Report of an EC A economic co-operation mission to West Africa. M a y 1970. 37 p. , including annex, ( U N / E / C N . 14/478.)

Present situation as regards economic co-operation between the countries of this region. Reactions to the proposals m a d e by the commission. N e w opportunities.

T R A D E , FOREIGN E X C H A N G E

Export credits and export promotion in developing countries. Practical considerations relating to the establishment and operation of multinational export credit insurance schemes. M a y 1970. 91 p. ( U N / E / 4 8 3 4 . )

Problems arising from the possible establishment of multinational export credit insurance schemes. Co-operation with the Berne Union and other appropriate international organizations. Likely effects of such schemes.

Utilization of excess capacity for export. 1969. 42 p. ( U N / I D / 3 8 . ) Report of the expert group which met in Rio de Janeiro, 3-12 March 1969. Remote and immediate causes of excess capacity. Present utilization of production capacity in the developing countries. Problems of definition and measurement. Practical solutions to be considered.

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Innovations in the practice of trade and economic co-operation between the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the developing countries. 1970. 39 p. $0.75, 3.25 Swiss francs. ( U N / T D / B / 2 3 8 / R C V . I . )

Survey of recent experiments. Problems and prospects.

W O R L D SITUATION

Economic situation in Asia. April 1970. 18 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 1 / L . 2 6 2 . ) Evaluations of recent economic trends observed in Asia.

Economic survey of Asia and the Far East, 1969. Part 1 A : Strategies for agricultural development. Part IB: Intra-regional trade as a growth strategy. March 1970. 173 p. (UN/E/CN.11/L.268/A.)

UBI. St.] Trends and causes of economic growth.

Economic survey of Asia and the Far East, 1969. Part II: Current economic develop­ments. March 1970. 284 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 1 / L . 2 6 8 / B . )

[Bl. St.]

General discussion of international economic and social policy. Economic survey of Europe in 1968. (Summary.) April 1970. 10 p. ( U N / E / 4 8 3 3 . )

S u m m a r y of European economic trends and prospects.

AGRICULTURE

The state of food and agriculture. 1970. 274 p. $7.50. ( F A O . ) [Bl. St.] World agricultural production. International trade. Development aid. Medium-term prospects for cereals. Then, studies by region: Western Europe, Eastern Europe and U . S . S . R . , North America, Latin America, Oceania, Asia, Japan, Mainland China, Near East, Africa. A section is devoted to agriculture as it enters the Second Development Decade.

FAO commodity review and outlook, 1969-1970. 1970. 173 p. $4.50. Development of the de facto situation. Detailed description of recent international measures in respect of commodity problems and of new developments which have arisen with regard to regional economic integration on all continents up to the end of M a y 1970. A special chapter on the results obtained by the developing coun­tries in the field of agricultural imports over the period 1965-68.

Bases for an agricultural development strategy in Africa (south of the Sahara) for the Second Development Decade. April 1970. 22 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 4 / C A P . 3 / I N F . 4 . )

Paper presented by F A O . Considers successively the three main elements in devel­opment policy: manpower, capital, structures. The inclusions of agriculture in development plans from the point of view of geography (area planning) and econ­omics (sectorial interconnexions).

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Documents and publications

BUILDING, HOUSING

The German saving-for-building system to encourage private housing finance. M a y 1970. 20 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 4 / H O U / 6 7 . )

Report by the Economic Commission for Africa. Saving-for-building funds. Guarantees required for a loan. The saving-for-building contract. Possible applica­tions in the developing countries.

Non-profit housing enterprises in the Federal Republic of Germany. M a y 1970. 15 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 4 / H O U / 6 9 . )

Report by the Economic Commission for Africa. Origin and organization of such enterprises. Possible applications of this system in the developing countries.

Establishment and development of housing banks and their rôle in African countries. M a y 1970. 23 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 4 / H O U / 7 0 . )

Present situation in regard to housing credit in Africa.

Society, living and working conditions employment, social policy

R U R A L D E V E L O P M E N T , AGRARIAN POPULATIONS

* Agricultural organizations and development, by Xavier Flores. 1970. 608 p. $6.50, 26 Swiss francs. (ILO.)

[Bl.] The development of agricultural organizations in the historical context of rural development. Need for rural development in the developing countries. Role of agri­cultural organizations in that regard. The situation in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, Africa, North America and Australia.

Conclusions and recommendations of the African Regional Conference on the Inte­grated Approach to Rural Development, Moshi (Tanzania), 13-24 October 1969. M a y 1970. 28 p. ( U N / E / C N . 1 4 / S W C D / 5 5 . )

A i m s of rural development. Technological, economic, sociological and psycholo­gical factors. Sources of innovation. Agrarian reform. Education and training. Methods of administration.

Farm labour trends in the United States: 1910-1969, by T . Lynn Smith. 23 p. (Offprint from International labour review, vol. 102, no. 2, August 1970.) (ILO.)

Decrease in the number of agricultural workers, particularly since the early thirties. Changes in their geographical distribution. Concentration of agricultural under­takings. Modernization of methods and increase of productivity in agriculture.

SOCIAL POLICY, SOCIAL SERVICES

*The macro-economic impact of social security, by J. F . van Buggenhout. 1970.117 p. $1.50, 6 Swiss francs. (ILO.)

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[Bl. St.] The author analyses the questions arising from the need to adopt practical criteria in order to define i he concept of social security from the point of view of eco­nomic analysis. H e then devotes his attention to a study of possible concordance between the system used in I L O investigations to classify social-security payments and the corresponding definitions and classifications used in national accounting systems. The effect of social security payments in various countries.

Introduction to social security. 219 p . $2.25, 9 Swiss francs. [BL] The evolution of the idea of social protection against such contingencies as sickness, accidents, old-age and unemployment. Sectors of the population which should receive such protection. Different types of benefits. Problems raised by the financing and administration of social security systems.

L A B O U R CONDITIONS, E M P L O Y M E N T , PROFESSIONAL RELATIONS

Bibliography on women workers: 1861-1965.1970. 252 p. $1.50, 6 Swiss francs. (Biblio­graphical contributions, no. 26.) (ILO.)

The rural-urban income differential and minimum wage fixing criteria, by Peter H . Thormann. 22 p . (Offprint from International labour review, vol. 102, no. 2 , August 1970.) (ILO.)

M i n i m u m wage and economic efficiency. Normal balance in this regard between town and country. Fixing of the m i n i m u m wage for unskilled urban workers on the basis of the income of small subsistence farmers.

General review of conditions of employment of public servants. 1970. 79 p . $0.75, 3 Swiss francs. (ILO.)

This report is concerned with hours of work, holidays, salaries, social security and social services. The Introduction situates these aspects in the more general context of attitudes towards civil service expansion.

Freedom of association and procedures for staff participation in determining condi­tions of employment in the public service. 1970. 119 p. $1, 4 Swiss francs. (ILO.)

Relations between the State and the people it employs. Civil servants and the right of association in different countries. Methods which allow civil servants' organi­zations to take part in determining employment conditions. Procedure for solving disputes between government authorities and civil servants. International conven­tions and recommendations annexed.

Career problems in the public service. 1970. 63 p . $0.75, 3 Swiss francs. (ILO.) The career concept. Conditions of appointment, training and advancement. T e m p o ­rary personnel.

Coal Mines Committee (ninth session, Geneva 1970): general report. 201 p . $1 , 4 Swiss francs. (70.B.09/94.) (ILO.)

[Bl. St.] Measures taken in the different countries following conclusions adopted at the previous sessions of the committee. Arrangements m a d e by the International Labour Office to carry out the studies and surveys proposed by the committee. Recent events and progress in the coal-mining industry.

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Metal Trades Committee (ninth session, Geneva 1970): general report. 1970. 236 p . $1.50, 6 Swiss francs. (ILO.)

[Bl. St.] Measures taken in the different countries in the light of conclusions adopted at the previous sessions of the committee. Arrangements m a d e by the International Labour Office to carry out the studies and surveys proposed by the committee. Recent events and progress in the metal-trades industries.

The rôle of employers' and workers' organizations in programming and planning in the iron and steel industry. 1970. 114 p. $1, 4 Swiss francs. (70.B.09/319.) (ILO.)

The employment and conditions of domestic workers in private households: an ILO survey. 12 p. (Offprint from International labour review, vol. 102, no. 4, October 1970.) (ILO.)

General situation of employees of this type. Vocational training. Methods of recruit­ment. Nature and fulfilment of work contracts.

International Labour Conference (54th session. Geneva 1970) : Sixth special report of the Director-General on the application of the declaration concerning the policy of'apartheid' of the Republic of South Africa. 1970. 33 p . $0.50,2 Swiss francs. (ILO.)

Repercussions of the draft law of 1969 to alter legislation concerning the Bantus. N e w facts regarding trade unionism and wages.

Legal and political questions, h u m a n rights

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

Consideration of measures for the strengthening of international security. M a y 1970. 90 p. ( U N / A / 7 9 2 2 . )

Report of the Secretary-General on international armed conflicts in the present-day world. Proposals by thirty-one countries in this regard.

INTERNATIONAL L A W

Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1969. Vol. I. 1970. 269 p. $4, 17.30 Swiss francs. ( U N / A / C N . 4 / S E R . A / 1 9 6 9 . )

S u m m a r y records of the twenty-first session of the commission (2 June to 8 August 1969), dealing particularly with relations between States and international organ­izations, the succession of States and governments, and the most-favoured-nation clause. Future work programme of the commission.

United Nations Commission on International Trade Law: Report of the Working Group on the International Sale of Goods on its session held at New York from 5 to 16 January 1970. January 1970. 82 p. ( U N / A / C N . 9 / 3 5 . )

Legislation in force. Possible improvements.

325

Professional and documentary services

HUMAN RIGHTS, DISCRIMINATION

Islam and the race question, by 'Abd-al-'Aziz 'Abd-al-Qädir Kâmil. 1970. 65 p. $1, 4 F . (uNESco/sHC/70/rx.6.)

O n e of a series of booklets on the position of the major religions and the main philosophical systems with regard to the problems of discrimination and racial prejudice.

Education, science

EDUCATION

International Conference on Education, 32nd session. Geneva, 1-9 July 1970: final report. October 1970. 49 p. (Unesco/International Bureau of Education doc. E D / M D / 1 3 . )

[Bl.] The representatives of eighty-nine governments took part in the conference. S u m m a r y of the discussions on the major trends which have emerged in education throughout the world and on the main items of the agenda of the thirty-second session: 'Improved effectiveness of educational systems, particularly through reduc­tion of wastage at all levels of instruction.' Text of the detailed recommendation adopted in this regard. Delegates and observers. List of conference documents.

Teaching of the purposes and principles, the structure and activities of the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies in schools and other educational institutions of Member States. April 1970. 317 p. ( U N / E / 4 7 6 2 . )

Broad study of the progress in education relating to the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies. S u m m a r y of the report submitted by each M e m b e r State. Programmes and services of the United Nations, Unesco and the other bodies concerned.

Education and advancement of women, by Jacqueline Chabaud. 1970. 157 p. $2.50, 8 F . (Unesco.)

W o r k published for International Education Year. Various aspects of the problem of the advancement of w o m e n through education. Unesco's action in this field.

Literacy and development, by H . M . Phillips. 1970. 55 p. (Unesco.) [Bl. St.] H o w ordinary people value literacy: motivations and attitudes concerning the role of education as a means of personal and collective development. S u m m a r y of what is k n o w n about the relations between literacy and economic grounds. Literacy and agricultural and industrial productivity.

Equality of access of women to literacy. Comparative study. August 1970. 39 p., plus annexes, ( U N E S C O / E D / M D / 1 4 . )

[Bl. St.] S u m m i n g up of the present situation based upon data furnished by governments in reply to a Unesco questionnaire. Extent of illiteracy a m o n g w o m e n . Factors impeding female literacy. Evolution of attitudes with regard to literacy programmes for w o m e n . Description of literacy campaigns: U . S . S . R . , Romania, Cuba.

326

Documents and publications

Methods and techniques of the ILO workers' education programme. 1970. 54 p. (ILO.) Working document prepared for the meeting of advisers on workers' education (Geneva, 28 September to 9 October 1970). Preliminary definitions. Analysis of activities carried out by the I L O , with examples.

SCIENCE POLICY

Conference of Ministers of the European Member States Responsible for Science Policy (Paris, 22-27 June 1970) .-finalreport. October 1970.43 p. ( U N E S C O / S C / M D / 2 1 .)

List of participants, summary of the work, conclusions on the four main themes of the conference: the selection, training and utilization of scientists and engineers; the choice of scientific research priorities arising from national development goals— economic, social and cultural; national aspects of fundamental research; and European co-operation in fundamental research. General recommendations.

POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

Ecological data in comparative research. Report on the first International Data Con­frontation Seminar. 1970. 37 p. $1, 4 F . (Reports and papers in the social sciences, no. 25.) (Unesco.)

This seminar was held in April 1969 at the University of Michigan, A n n Arbor. It was organized, with financial assistance from Unesco, by the Inter-university Consortium for Political Research. The purpose of the seminar was to explore problems involved in the preparation and use of machine-readable files of ecological data in comparative research.

327

Books received

History

C O L O D N Y , R . G . Spain: the glory and the tragedy. N e w York, Humanities Press, 1970. 96 p., maps. $5.

D E C O R L I E U , C . Carnets d'une chrétienne moderniste: de 1898 à nos jours. Toulouse, Privat, 1970. 168 p., index. 16 F .

D A U V I L L I E R , J. Les temps apostoliques: 1er siècle. Paris, Sirey, 1970. xviii + 744 p., maps, index. 125 F . (Histoire du droit et des institutions de l'Église en Occident, vol. IL)

K A R U N A K A R A U , K . P . New perspectives on Gandhi. Simla, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1969. 115 p., bibliog. 10 rupees; $3.60.

M A T E I , G . La Roumanie et les problèmes du désarmement 1919-1934. Bucarest, Éditions de l'Académie de la République Socialiste de Roumanie, 1970. 180 p., fig., pi. 8 lei. (Bibliotheca Histórica Romaniae, 32.)

P A M L É N Y I , E . (ed.). Social-economic researches on the history of east-central Europe. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1970. 231 p., fig., tabl. $7.20. (Studia histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 62.)

L a w , criminology

C O M I T É E U R O P É E N P O U R LES P R O B L È M E S C R I M I N E L S . Orientations actuelles 'de la

recherche criminologique. Strasbourg, Conseil de l'Europe, 1970. 532 p., tabl. (Études relatives à la recherche criminologique, vol. VI.)

C U A D R A , H . La projección internacional de los derechos humanos. Mexico, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, 1970. 308 p.

EUROPEAN COMMITTEE O N CRIME PROBLEMS/COMITÉ EUROPÉEN POUR LES PROBLÈMES

C R I M I N E L S . International exchange of information on current criminological research projects in Member States/Échange international d'informations sur les projets de recherches criminologiques dans les États Membres. Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1970. 159 p.

L E R N E R , N . The U.N. convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Leyden, Sijthoff, 1970. 132 p. 18 guilders.

Seventh Conference of Directors of Criminological Research Institutes, Strasbourg 1-4 December 1969. Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1970. 82 p.

328

Int. Soc. Sei. J., Vol. XXIII, N o . 2, 1971

Books received

Economics, demography

A L O U C H E , R . Évolution d'un centre de villégiature au Liban (Broummana). Beyrouth, Dar El-Machreq, 1970. 312 p. , fig., tabl., pi., m a p , bibliog. (Publications du centre culturel universitaire. H o m m e s et Sociétés au Proche-Orient, 2.)

A R R I A G A , E . E . The nature and effects of Latin America's non- Western trend in fertility. Berkeley, Calif., International Population and Urban Research Institute of International Studies, and Department of Demography, College of Letters and Science, University of California, 1970. 20 p. , fig., tabl. (Population reprint, no. 360.)

B E L L , C . Shaw. The economics of the ghetto. N e w York, Pegasus, 1970. xi + 266 p., fig., tabl., bibliog., index. $2.25.

B E R G E R , W . Lernprozesse in der Wirtshaftstheorie. Berlin, Berlin Verlag, 1970. 138 p., fig., index. (Dynamische Ökonomie, Band 4.)

D A V I S , K . The climax of population growth: past and future perspectives. Berkeley, Calif., International Population and Urban Research Institute of International Studies, and Department of Demography, College of Letters and Science, Uni­versity of California, 1970. 8 p. , tabl. (Population reprint, no. 361.)

F R I E D R I C H , K . A quantitative framework for the Euro-dollar system. Princeton, N.J . , International Finance Section, Department of Economics, Princeton University, 1970. 39 p. , fig., tabl. $1. (Princeton studies in international finance, no. 26.)

H E N D E R S O N , R . F . ; H A R C O U R T , A . ; H A R P E R , R . J. A . People in poverty: a Melbourne survey. Melbourne, University of Melbourne, 1970. xiv + 226 p. , tabl., index. $4.50 (hardback); $2.50 (paperback).

HERRERA, A . O . ; URQUTOI, V. L. ; LOPES, J. L. ; SABATO, J. ; B O T A N A , N . ; S C H A T A N , J. ;

SADOSKY, M . ; RATINOFF, L. ; RIBEIRO, D . ; K A P L A N , M . America Latina: ciencia

y tecnología en el desarrollo de la sociedad. Santiago de Chile, Editorial Universi­taria, 1970. 207 p., fig., tabl. (Tiempo Latinoamericano.)

HoROvrrcH, M . Modelul Economic Optim. Bucurest, Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste Romania, 1970. 317 p., fig., tabl. 9.50 lei. (Bibliotheca Oecon-omica.)

K E M E N E S , E . Agriculture as a possible source of accumulation in African developing countries: problems of implementation. Trans, by Yvonne Hajdu. Budapest, Centre for Afro-Asian Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1970. 33 + x p. (Studies on developing countries, no. 41.)

O L A N D E R , F . ; SEIPEL, C . - M . Psychological approaches to the study of saving. Urbana/ Champaign, 111., Bureau of Economic and Business Research, University of Illinois, 1970. viii + 114 p., fig. (Studies in consumer savings, no. 7.)

Q U R E S H I , A . I. Mr. MujiVs six points: an economic appraisal. Lahore Cantt., Haniyah, 1970. 71 p. , tabl. 4 rupees.

S A N D E S A R A , J. C . ; D E S H P A N D E , L . K . (eds.). Wage policy and wage determination in India. Bombay , University of Bombay, 1970. xviii + 313 p., fig., tabl., index. 28.50 rupees. (University of Bombay publications economics series, no. 20.)

Teorii si modele ale cresterii economice in socialism. Bucurest, Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste Romania, 1970. 337 p. , tabl., 10 lei. (Bibliotheca Oecon-omica.)

Year book of labour statistics 19701 Annuaire des statistiques du travail 1970. Geneva, International Labour Office, 1970. xxiii + 920 p. , tabl., index. £5.60; $14; 56 Swiss francs (hardback); £4.60; $11.50; 46 Swiss francs (paperback).

329

Professional and documentary services

Political science, administration, management

Aménagement du territoire et développement régional. Vol. IV. Grenoble, Institut d'Études Politiques, 1971. xxiii + 764 p., fig., tabl., maps , bibliog., index. 95 F . (Publié avec le concours du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.)

C A L V E Z , J.-V. Aspects politiques et sociaux des pays en voie de développement. Paris, Dalloz, 1971. 298 p. 32 F . (Études politiques, économiques et sociales, publiée sous le patronage de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques.)

G I L L E S P I E , J. V . ; N E S V O L D , B . A . (eds.). Macro-quantitative analysis: conflict, deve­lopment and democratization. Beverly Hills, Calif., Sage Publications, 1971. 576 p., fig., tabl., bibliog., index. $12.50 (hardback); $6 (paperback). (Sage readers in cross-national research, vol. I.)

H O N I G S B A U M , F. The struggle for the Ministry of Health 1914-1919. London, G . Bell, 1970. 80 p., fig. £1.50. (Occasional papers on social administration, no. 37.)

M U S H A K O J I , K . The strategies of negotiation: an American-Japanese comparison. Tokyo, Institute of International Relations, Sophia University, 1970. 42 p., fig., tabl. 250 yen.

P O W E L L , G . Bingham. Social fragmentation and political hostility: an Austrian case study. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1970. xiv + 207 p., tabl., bibliog., index. $7.50.

R U S S E L L , R . B . The General Assembly: patterns, problems, prospects. N e w York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1970. iv + 77 p.

Sociology, psychology

Anuario de sociología de los pueblos ibéricos. Vol. Ill: Estudios y documentación. Madrid, Instituto de estudios sindicales, sociales y cooperativas, 1967. 326 p.

A U B I N , H . Art et magie chez Venfant. Toulouse, Privat, 1971. 181 p., illus., bibliog. 18 F . (Études et recherches sur l'enfance.)

D E C A B E Z A S , M . G . Problemas de la minoridad. Mendoza, Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo , 1970. 44 p. , fig., tabl. (Cuadernos, no. 20.)

C O H E N , A . La déviance. (Traduit de l'anglais par J.-P. V a n Roy.) Gembloux, Duculot, 1971. 239 p., fig., tabl., bibliog., index. 9.90 F . (Sociologie nouvelle: théories.)

D E S T R A Y , J. La vie d'une famille ouvrière: autobiographies. Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1971. 174 p. (Esprit.)

J A C K S O N , J. A . (ed.). Professions and professionalization. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1970. vii + 226 p., tabl., index. £3. (Sociological studies, 3.)

P A G E S , M . L'orientation non-directive en psychothérapie et en psychologie sociale. Paris, Dunod , 1970. xx + 181 p., fig., tabl., bibliog. 23 F . (Organisation et sciences humaines.)

R U P P , M . - A . Le travail social individualisé. Toulouse, Privat, 1970. 128 p., bibliog. 9.75 F . (Mésopé.)

S E I L E R , D . ; R A E S , J. Idéologies et citoyens: analyse d'un échantillon de Vélectorat wallon. Bruxelles, Éditions Vie Ouvrière, 1970. 219 p., fig., tabl., bibliog., index. (Questions économiques, sociales et politiques.)

S T O R R , A . Human aggression. Harmondsworth, Middx. , Baltimore, M d . , Ringwood, Vict., Penguin, 1970. 171 p., bibliog., index. 25p (United Kingdom); $0.85 (Australia and N e w Zealand); 60 rand (S. Africa); $1.15 (Canada).

330

Books received

T U M I N , M . La stratification sociale. (Traduit de l'anglais par J. Houard.) Gembloux, Duculot, 1971. 195 p. , tabl., bibliog., index.

U R I B E - V I L L E G A S , O . Sociolingüística concreta. Mexico, Uribe Villegas, 1970. Bibliog. (Colectanea sociolingüística.)

V E R C A U T E R E N , P. Les sous-prolétaires: essai sur une forme de paupérisme contem­porain. Bruxelles, Éditions Vie Ouvrière, 1970. 202 p. , tabl., bibliog. 212 F . (Ques­tions économiques, sociales et politiques.)

V R E E D E D E S T U E R S , C . Girl students in Jaipur: a study in attitudes towards family life, marriage and career. Assen, Royal Vangorcum, 1970. xii + 141 p. , tabl., pi., maps, bibliog. 25 guilders.

W I L S O N , B . R . Key concepts in the social sciences: rationality. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1970. xviii + 275 p., fig., bibliog., index. £2.75.

Anthropology

D O U G L A S , M . De la souillure: essais sur les notions de pollution et de tabou. (Avec préface de Luc de Heusch, et traduit de l'anglais par Anne Guérin.) Paris, François Maspero, 1971. 195 p., bibliog. (Bibliothèque d'anthropologie.)

F A L Q U E , E . Voyage et tradition. Approche sociologique d'un sous-groupe tsigane: les Manouches. Paris, Payot, 1971. 254 p., bibliog. 25.70 F . (Science de l 'homme.)

G O L D M A N , I. Ancient Polynesian society. London, University of Chicago Press, 1970. xxviii + 625 p. , tabl., illus., maps, bibliog., index.

H O N I G M A N N , J. J. ; H O N I G M A N N , I. Arctic townsmen. Ottawa, Canadian Research Centre for Anthropology, Saint Paul University, 1970. xx + 303 p., fig., tabl., pi., m a p , index. $7.

L E P E N Œ S , W . ; R I T T E R , H . H . (eds.). Theorie-Diskussion: Orte des wilden Denkens. Zur Anthropologie von Claude Lévi-Strauss. Frankfurt a m Main, Suhrkamp, 1970. 427 p. , bibliog.

N A D E L , S. F . Byzance noire: le royaume des Nupe du Nigeria. (Avec préface de Lord Lugard, et traduit de l'anglais par Marie-Edith Baudez.) Paris, François Maspero 1971. 615 p. , fig., tabl., maps, bibliog. (Bibliothèque d'Anthropologie.)

Philosophy

D A M I E N S , S. Amour et intellect chez Léon VHébreu. Toulouse, Privat, 1971. 192 p . , bibliog. 25 F . (Nouvelle recherche.)

D U P L E K , A . Le socialisme de Roger Garaudy et le problème religieux. Toulouse, Privat, 1971. 116 p., bibliog. 11.50 F . (Sentiers.)

Education

D E C O S T E R , S. ; H O T Y A T , F . La sociologie de l'éducation. Bruxelles, Institut de Socio­logie, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1970. 344 p. , flg., tabl.,1 bibliog. 465 Belgian francs. (Collection de sciences pédagogiques et de sociologie de l'éducation.)

S A N D E R S , I. T . ; W A R D , J. G . Bridges to understanding: international programs of American colleges and universities. N e w York, McGraw-Hill, 1970. xiii + 285 p. , tabl., index. $7.95. (Third of a series of profiles sponsored by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.)

331

Professional and documentary services

T E D E S C O , J. C . Educación y sociedad en la Argentina (1880-1900). Buenos Aires, Ediciones Pannedille, 1970. 226 p., tabl., bibliog. (Estudios históricos y sociales.)

Miscellaneous

M C H A L E , J. The ecological context. N e w York, George Braziller, 1970. v + 188 p. , flg., tabl., bibliog. $7.95.

N U T Z , W . Die Regenbogenpresse: eine Analyse der deutschen bunten Wochenblätter. Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 197. 110 p. D M . 9 . 8 0 . (WV-Sammlung Soziologie Westdeutscher Verlag.)

P O L A K , F . L . Prognostics. Amsterdam, London, N e w York, Elsevier, 1971. xxviii + 425 p., fig. 27.50 guilders.

S U Z U K I , P . French, German and Swiss university dissertations on twentieth century Turkey: a bibliography of 593 titles, with English translations. Wiesbaden, W d s -Schnelldruck, 1970. 138 p.

V I E U X , A . S. Étude de quelques espèces oléagineuses de la République Démocratique du Congo. Kinshasa, Office National de la Recherche et du Développement, 1970. 79 p., fig., tabl., bibliog.

V O N S T E D I N G K , Y . Die Organisation des Flüchtlingswesens in Österreich seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. (With a summary in English.) Wien, Wilhelm Braumüller, 1970. vii + 160 p., tabl. 196 Austrian schillings. (Abhandlungen zu Flüchtlings­fragen, Band VI.)

Z A K R Z E W S K I , J. ; M U T O M B O , A . ; L U M B I L A , D . Étude de l'extension du centre électro­énergétique de Mbandaka. Kinshasa, Office National de la Recherche et du Déve­loppement, 1969. 52 p., flg., tabl.

332

International review of administrative sciences

Contents of Vol. XXXVI (1970), No. 4

K . Ankomah

S. Berenyi and L . Szatmari

S. Petkovic

P. Breaud and G . Braibant

T . Modeen

R . L . Peterson

D . C . Rowat

T . van der Eyden

Reflections on administrative reform in Ghana

Housing policy and administration in Hun­gary*

The housing system in Yugoslavia

The rationalization of budgetary selection*

Submission and appeal: two means of State supervision of the communes in Finland and Sweden

European bureaucrats in european regional organizations

The government of federal capitals

Governing the Rhine estuary metropolis in the Dutch delta

Schools and institutes of public administration. Bibliography: a selection. Technical co-operation. News in Brief. Chronicle of the institute.

* Article written in French, with an extensive s u m m a r y in English.

Annual subscription: $12 Single copy: $3.50

International Institute of Administrative Sciences 25 Rue de la Chanté, 1040 Brussels (Belgium)

Revue internationale de recherches et de synthèses sociologiques

L ' h o m m e et la société N ° 18, octobre, novembre, décembre 1970

SOMMAIRE

Sociologie, économie et impérialisme

Débats, études, synthèses

Christian Palloix

Arghiri Emmanuel Catherine Coquery-

Vidrovitch Riccardo Guastini Roberto Decio

de Las Casas Africa Research Group

Recherches

Albert Meister

Essais théoriques

Jean-Paul Charnay Orlando Fais Borda

Critiques

Christian Palloix Guy Dupuigrenet-

Desroussilles Serge Latouche

La question de l'échange inégal. U n e critique de l'éco­nomie politique La question de l'échange inégal D e l'impérialisme britannique à l'impérialisme contem­porain. L'avatar colonial Les classes et les nations à l'ère de l'impérialisme L'Etat autoritaire. Essai sur les formes actuelles de domination impérialiste Les dessous de la guerre civile nigérienne

Développement communautaire et animation rurale en Afrique

Vers une praxéologie sociale. Perspectives d'une recherche Quelques problèmes pratiques de la sociologie en crise

A propos de « l'accumulation » à l'échelle mondiale D e la détermination sociale des connaissances scienti­fiques en économie selon Oskar Lange La crise de l'économie politique et ses effets épistémo-logiques Lévi-Strauss et les structures inconscientes de l'esprit Formalisme et analyse du contenu

Raoul Makarius André Régnier

Colloques et congrès VIIe Congrès mondial de sociologie, Varna (Bulgarie), 14-19 septembre 1970

Joachim Israël Le principe de l'individualisme méthodologique et l'épis-témologie marxienne

Conférence des économistes socialistes, King's College, Palloix).

Comptes rendus

Revue des revues (Roland Meyer)

Le numéro : 18 F Abonnement : 1 an (4 numéros) : France, 60 F ; étranger, 70 F C C P Paris 8 721 23.

Cambridge, 17-18 octobre 1970 (Christian

Editions Anthropos Direction, rédaction : 95, boulevard Saint-Michel, 75 Paris-5e. Tél. Administration, abonnements : 15, rue Racine, 75 Paris-6«. Tél. : 326.99.99.

325.18.95.

Quality& E u r o p e a n Journal of Methodology-

R e v u e E u r o p é e n n e de Méthodologie

Editor: Vittorio Capecchi

Associate Editors: Raymond Boudon / Gerhart Bruckmann

Vol. IV, 1970, no. 2

SUMMARY

Essai sur la mobilité sociale en utopie Raymond Boudon

Theories of the middle range Karl-Dieter Opp

Qualitative, analysis, determination, and stability Giorgio Lunghini

O n the theory of social dependence Fantisek Charvat and Jaroslav Kucera

A study of Coleman's linear model for attributes Jacqueline Feldman

The use of taxonomic measures in target-setting based on international comparisons Zygmunt Gostowski

A method for measuring latent variables / . lu. Istoshin

Scenarios for political metamorphosis Manfred Schmutzer

Q & Q appears twice a year, and it publishes articles in English and French only. Business correspondence should be addressed to Società Editrice il Mulino, Via Santo Stefano 6, Bologna, Italy. Subscriptions: 5,000 lire ($8), 1 year.

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Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (KZfS)

Begründet durch Leopold von Wiese t

Hrsg. im Forschungsinstitut für Soziologie an der Universität zu Köln von René König

Jährlich erscheinen 4 Hefte und ein Sonderheft. Bezugspreis: Einzelheft D M . 2 2 . Jahresabonnement D M . 8 0 . Bei Vorauszahlung bis zum Beginn eines neuen Jahres D M . 7 2 , gegen Studienbescheiningung D M . 4 0 ; jeweils zuzüglich Sonderheft (mit 50 % Ermäßigung) und Versandspesen.

„Die Bedeutung eines so zentralen Organs wie dieser Zeitschrift kann m a n heute bei der Vielfalt der Aufgaben, der Verwirrung der Verwaltungsmethoden, denen die in der Öffentlichkeit arbeitenden Männer und Frauen ausgeliefert sind, gar nicht hoch genug veranschlagen...

W e n n eine Zeitschrift solche Sonderhefte herausgeben kann, hat sie hohen Stan­dard. Bedurfte es noch eine Beweises, daß die deutsche Soziologie bereit ist, sich ihres .Provinzialismus' zu entledigen — hier wird er von der z u m Teil noch ganz jungen Forschergeneration der Gegenwart erbracht."

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Sonderhefte Heft 1 Soziologie der Gemeinde. 3. Aufl., 229 Seiten, kart. D M . 1 7 Heft 2 Soziologie der Jugendkriminalität. 4. Aufl., 188 Seiten, kart. D M . 1 6 Heft 3 Probleme der Medizin-Soziologie. 4. Aufl., 336 Seiten, kart. D M . 23 Heft 4 Soziologie der Schule. 8. Aufl., 200 Seiten, kart. D M . 1 6 Heft 5 Soziale Schichtung und soziale Mobilität. 4. Aufl., 346 Seiten, kart. D M . 2 3 Heft 6 Probleme der Religions-Soziologie. 2. Aufl., 289 Seiten, kart. D M . 2 0 Heft 7 M a x Weber zum Gedächtnis. 488 Seiten, kart. D M . 3 2 Heft 8 Studien und Materialien zur Soziologie der D D R . 540 Seiten, kart. D M . 3 2 Heft 9 Zur Soziologie der Wahl . 2. Aufl., 359 Seiten, kart. D M . 2 7 Heft 10 Kleingruppenforschung und Gruppe im Sport. 280 Seiten, kart. D M . 2 8 Heft 11 Studien und Materialien zur Rechtssoziologie. 412 Seiten, kart. D M . 3 2 Heft 12 Beiträge zur Militärsoziologie. 360 Seiten, kart. D M . 3 6 Heft 13 Aspekte der Entwicklungssoziologie. 816 Seiten, Ln. D M . 6 9 . Heft 14 Familiensoziologie. In Vorbereitung

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Herausgegeben von Ernst Forsthoff, Klaus von der Groeben, Reinhart Koselleck, Franz Mayer, Franz Ronneberger, R o m a n Schnur

3. Band, 1970, Heft 3

Politische Entscheidung und räumliche Interessen

Die mehrjährige Finanzplanung. Ein notwendiges Instru­ment moderner Politik

Effizienzanalysen im Staatssektor

Z u m Verhältnis von Regierung, Verwaltung und Par­lament im demokratischen Staat

Verwaltungsprobleme in der Tschechoslowakischen So­zialistischen Föderation

Zur Situation des höheren Verwaltungsdienstes in Frank­reich. Anmerkungen z u m Bericht der ENA-Kommiss ion mission

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RASSE6NA ITALIANA DI SOCIOLOGÍA Volume XI Number 4 September-December 1970

Published four times a year by Società Editrice il Mulino, Via S. Stefano 6, Bologna (Italy) Annual subscription: Lit. 6.000 or the equivalent in other currencies.

C.P., Sintropia e programma. Louis Schneider, M a x Weber: saggezza e scienza in sociología. Günther Roth, La prospettiva storico-comparata in M a x Weber. Ales-sandro Cavalli, I limiti della posizione weberiana in tema di causalità. R. Stephen Warner, M a x Weber: gli usi molteplici degli studi comparati.

NOTE E DIBATTITI:

Gianfranco Pasquino, Potere, militari e imperialismo in alcuni recenti studi sullo sviluppo politico. Sonia Giusti Dondoli, L'antropologia cultúrale come strumento di conoscenza storica.

SEGNALAZIONI E NOTIZIE:

Segnalazioni bibliografiche.

nternationa Organization

The quarterly journal of the World Peace Foundation providing a lively forum for scholarship on international organizations and for analysis of current literature and research methods in the field.

Spring 1971 Vol. 25, N o . 2

Articles

Mice that do not roar: some aspects of international politics in the world's peripheries

The principle of nonintervention, the United Nations, and the international system

Theory and method in the study of international inte­gration

Review essays by Dennis Livingston and Jonathan Knight

Note on theory and method by Peter J. Katzenstein

Comments by Samuel A . Bleicher and A m o s Perlmutter

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Vol. XI , n.° 4 abril-junio 1971

Artículos Ricardo Robledo Limón El Partido Comunista de Venezuela. Sus tácticas polí­

ticas de 1964 a 1969. Jorge Arieh Gerstein El conflicto entre Honduras y El Salvador. Análisis de

sus causas. Joel E . Verner El Congreso Nacional Guatemalteco de 1966-1970. Aná­

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QUADERNI DI SOCIOLOGÍA

SOMMARIO

N . 1 - 1970

Sommario N . 1, 1970

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Documentazioni e ricerche

Potere e parentela nella Sicilia nuova

U n filone di ricerca della sociología rurale americana: la diffusione delle innovazioni in agricoltura

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Schede

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« Teoría de la dependencia »: un análisis concreto de situa­ciones de dependencia?

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Clases sociales y desarrollo en México

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The State in Capitalist Society (Oscar Cuéllar)

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revue tiers-monde Tome XII, n° 45 (janvier-mars 1971)

La ville et l'organisation de l'espace dans les pays en voie de développement, étude dirigée far MILTON SANTOS

Articles

M . Santos et B . Kayser

John Friedmann

J.-C. Perrin

Llyod Rodwin

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Espaces et villes du tiers m o n d e

Urbanisation et développement national : une étude comparative

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Revuef rançaise de sociologie Vol. XI, n° 4, octobre-décembre 1970

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Alain Gras

Doris Bensimon

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N O T E D E R E C H E R C H E

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S U D A N : Al Bashir Bookshop, P . O . Box 1118. K H A R ­T O U M .

S W E D E N : All publications: A / B C . E . Fritzes Rung!. Hovbokhandel, Fredsgatan 2, Box 16356, 103 27 S T O C K H O L M 16. For 'The Courier' only: Svenska FN-Forbundet, Vasagatan 15, IV, 101 23 S T O C K H O L M 1. Postgiro 18 46 92.

S W I T Z E R L A N D : Europa Verlag, Rämistrasse 5, Z Ü R I C H ; Librairie Payot, 6, rue Grenus, 1211, G E N È V E 11.

S Y R I A : Librairie Sayegh, Immeuble Diab, rue du Parlement, B .P . 704, D A M A S .

T A N Z A N I A : Dar es Salaam Bookshop, P . O . Box 9030, D A R ES S A L A A M .

T H A I L A N D : Suksapan Panit, Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Avenue, B A N G K O K .

TUNISIA: Société tunisienne de diffusion, 5, avenue de Carthage, T U N I S .

T U R K E Y : Librairie Hachette, 469 Istiklal Caddesi, Beyoglu, I S T A N B U L .

U G A N D A : Uganda Bookshop, P . O . Box 145, K A M P A L A . U N I T E D A R A B R E P U B L I C : Librairie Kasr El Nil,

38, rue Kasr El Bil, C A I R O . Sub-depot: La Renais­sance d'Egypte, 9 Sh. Adly Pasha, C A I R O (Egypt).

U N I T E D K I N G D O M : H . M . Stationery Office, P . O . Box 569, L O N D O N S.E.I; Government bookshops: London, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardin", Edinburgh, Manchester.

U N I T E D S T A T E S O F A M E R I C A : Unesco Publi­cations Center P . O . Box 433, N E W Y O R K , N . Y . 10016.

U R U G U A Y : Editorial Losada Uruguaya, S.A. Librería Losada, Mal donado 1902/Colonia 1340, M O N T E V I D E O .

U .S .S .R. : Mezhdunarodnaja Kniga, M O S K W A G-200. V E N E Z U E L A : Librería Historia, Monjas a Padre

Sierra, Edificio Oeste 2, n.° 6 (frente al Capitolio), apartado de correos 7320, C A R A C A S .

V I E T - N A M (REPUBLIC O F ) : Librairie-papeterie Xuân-Thu, 185-193, rue T u - D o , B .P . 283, S A I G O N .

Y U G O S L A V I A : Jugoslovenska Knjiga, Terazije 27, B E O G R A D ; Drzavna Zaluzba Slovenije, Mestni Trg 26,. L J U B L J A N A .

UNESCO B O O K COUPONS

Unesco Book Coupons can be used to purchase all books and periodicals of an educational, scientific or cultural character. For full information please write to: Unesco Coupon Office, Place de Fontenoy, 75 Paris-7", France. [31]

V

Price and subscription rates [A] Single issue: $ 2 ; 60p; 8 F Yearly subscription: $ 7 ; £2.10; 28 F

A n y of the distributors listed will be pleased to accept subscriptions; rates in currencies other than the above will be supplied on application to the distributor in the country concerned. W h e n notifying change of address please enclose last wrapper or envelope.