ence people, and so on. The outside reviews on which the panel and the program draw come from the full spectrum of scholarly knowledge.

The rigors of funding are so severe currently that there is just no chance of funding a project that is too narrowly conceived. You see, our problem is this. We are so desperate to avoid an error in funding that we err in letting really good projects go by the board. But, the reward, at least the countervailing consideration, is that you are not going to get very many bad ones through.

I have never seen a project funded in the years I was on the linguistics panel that I had any serious doubts about. It takes one well-reasoned, serious doubt to deflect a project because the funding is so tight.

Mr. BROWN. I'm informed that the funding proposed for the next fiscal year is $2.8 million for the linguistics. I would presume that you feel that that could be increased substantially to fund a larger percentage of the proposals.

Dr. LANE. How important is it to us to understand the nature of the human mind?

Mr. BROWN. All right.

I'd like to go on, then, to Dr. Farley, if we may.

Dr. FARLEY. Thank you, Congressman Brown. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the funding of social science research.

When thinking about research, particularly the research supported by the National Science Foundation, three points need to be stressed. First, the social sciences have made advances in recent years and as a nation, we have become more dependent upon the findings of social scientists than ever before.

Nevertheless, our understanding of the organization of society and how change occurs is not very complete. Now is not the time, it seems to me, to curtail social science research. Rather, we should build upon the base which has already been established.

Second, social science investigations are costly. This is ordinarily not the type of research which can be done by a scholar working alone in a library. We often wish to study the characteristics, behaviors, or attitudes of specific groups of the population. This requires a sample and, once the data are gathered, computing facilities will be necessary

also.

Third, the National Science Foundation plays a unique role in supporting research which is simultaneously basic and addressed to current social issues; that is, the Foundation's social science programs have consistently sponsored investigations which were both oriented to national needs and which made lasting contributions at the forefront of social science.

I wish to describe three of four examples of social science research which indicate, I believe, both past accomplishments and continuing needs. First, let me speak very briefly about political alienation. Professor Simon this morning spoke about worker alienation. The trend with regard to political alienation seems to be quite different.

Throughout the last decade, there have been a number of reports indicating that there is increasing political alienation in the United States. Some of those claims are made time and time again, but there are relatively few thorough investigations of the nature of alienation or trends over time.

Two sociologists, James House and William Mason at the University of Michigan have been investigating alienation. They find a sharp rise in most indicators of alienation. In 1960, about one-quarter of the national sample of the population agreed with the statement that "public officials don't care much what people like me think."

By 1978, that had doubled and more than one-half of the sample of the population agreed with that statement. There have also been changes in the political participation. These are less dramatic but they suggest some increase in alienation.

The proportion of people who vote in elections has gone down a bit. The percentage identifying with a political party has decreased and there has apparently been a modest rise in the proportion of incumbents who are voted out of office by their constituents.

The reasons for political alienation are not clearly understood. However, the increase is not restricted to one group of the population. It seems to be common among all demographic groups and at all socioeconomic levels.

The preliminary findings of these investigators suggests that governmental actions in some specific sphere alienate an individual. Once that person is alienated, they seem to stay alienated, even if the Government adopts policies in other areas which are consistent with their own preference.

Let me turn to a second area where I think there are important contributions made by the social science investigations supported by the Foundation. This regards the People's Republic of China.

We are frequently told that rapid social change has taken place in the People's Republic of China. Supposedly a traditional rural society which was modernized very rapidly. The reports of travelers make dramatic claims which, if they are true, distinguish China from other developing nations.

Assertions are made that the fertility rate in China has been cut to a level much lower than that observed in some of the Western nations or in Japan. This implies that the Chinese have been uniquely successful in coping with demographic problems.

The complexity of urban difficulties associated with squatter settlements and extreme poverty which typifies many cities in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America is said to be absent in China.

Are those claims true? If so, how did China effect so many social changes so very quickly? Unfortunately, neither the reports of travelers nor the few Chinese governmental documents which are available provide convincing answers.

At this point, it is impossible for many Western social scientists to live in China and gather data there. However, two sociologists, William Parrish of the University of Chicago and Martin Whyte of the University of Michigan have done the best thing that can be done in this circumstance.

That is, they interviewed some of the participants in the social changes which have occurred in China. To be certain, these were mainland Chinese who moved into Hong Kong and thus, their sample hardly represents the entirety of mainland China.

Nevertheless, their findings tell us much about what has happened in the People's Republic of China. Apparently, the government of

China built upon existing bureaucratic structures. Individuals are involved with tightly structured groups in their places of work and in their neighborhoods. Higher level bureaucrats announce governmental policies to these groups and instruct their leaders to influence the members of these groups. The groups then bring pressure upon their members to do such things as to maintain production in the factory, to prevent housing deterioration and to keep the size of families small, partially by delaying marriage.

The extent of such social control is apparently much less in rural China. However, the Government in China does have a thorough system for controlling the flow of migrants away from outlying provinces and this prevents a buildup of a surplus of rural population in the Chinese cities.

Let me turn to a third area involving the 1940 and 1950 censuses. Demographic processes in the United States have a great impact upon the future of the Nation and numerous governmental programs are oriented toward solving problems which have a demographic component.

Will the shift of population to the South and to the West have an adverse effect upon the North and the Midwest? Will the decline in the birth rate lead to changes in family organization or threaten the social security system? What are the consequences of unemployment upon families and what are the most effective strategies for mitigating unemployment? What are the social and political consequences of the substantial migration flow to this country of people from Mexico and the Latin American nations?

Many social science projects investigated these topics using data from the recent census and more will do so after this years' census is released.

However, as a Nation, we have faced many of these demographic issues once or twice before. Very low fertility rates, but extraordinarily high rates of unemployment were common in the 1930's. A rapid shift of population away from the South occurred between the two World Wars, and there was an influx of foreign immigrants during the first three decades of this century.

We can certainly better understand the nature of today's problems and we can evaluate alternative solutions if we know what happened in the past.

One of the most ambitious National Science Foundation social science projects will make the censuses of 1940 and 1950 available to policymakers and scholars. There has been a technological revolution in the social sciences and the computer permits us to analyze social phenomena in extensive detail. We are able to test many more hypotheses and find out the implication of more strategies than we ever could in the past.

The censuses from 1960 and 1970 are available in a fashion suited for such studies. However, an investigator who wants to determine whether unemployment patterns in the 1930's are similar to present unemployment patterns, or someone who wants to know if the cityto suburb migration changes in the 1950's was about the same as it is at present cannot do so. The National Science Foundation's 1940's1950's census project will unlock the data of those earlier censuses.

Let me turn to racial issues, which were also mentioned by Professor Simon this morning. These have generated more controversy and governmental action than have any other domestic concerns.

On the one hand, there is evidence of great racial change. Within the last 40 years, the sterotypes of blacks which were once popular in the white community have been pretty much eliminated. As a result, attitudes of whites about blacks have changed and many more whites are now willing to accept blacks as equals. Between the mid-1940's and the mid-1960's, the proportion of whites who thought that blacks were as intelligent as whites rose from 40 percent to 80 percent. The proportion of whites who said they would not be disturbed if a black with an income and education similar to their own moved onto their blocks rose from 35 percent to 84 percent between 1942 and 1972. During the same span, the proportion of whites who claimed that white and black children should attend the same, not separate, public schools, increased from 30 to 84 percent.

Since the attitudes of whites about blacks have changed, we might expect that racial differences in the United States would decline. There are numerous indications of improvements in the status of blacks. Many blacks now complete college and pursue careers which were closed to them a score of years ago.

Almost 60 percent of the black population was living in poverty in 1959. That has decreased to about 32 percent at present. Blacks are elected to office and serve as judges or on juries in the very States where they could not vote until the Civil Rights Act of 1965 became effective.

On the other hand, the unemployment rates of blacks persist at a level twice that of whites and after three decades of improvement, the typical black family in the United States has an income very much smaller than that of the typical white family.

Although whites endorse the principle of integrated schools and equal opportunities in housing, we know that the schools of many large cities now enroll few whites and we frequently read that the first black family to move into a white neighborhood finds garbage dumped on their stoop or paint slashed on their siding.

How do we put together the picture of racial progress with that of persistent racial difficulties? It appears that whites are increasingly willing to accept blacks in situations where the interracial contact is temporary or tangential. Thus, there is almost no white opposition now to integrated transportation and very little opposition on the part of whites to working with or for blacks or to voting for a black if he or she is the more qualified candidate.

However, in other circumstances where the interracial contact is more intimate or where the contact with blacks may be seen by whites as threatening things which they highly value, such as the quality of their neighborhood schools or the value of their homes, there is considerably greater resistance to accepting blacks.

The governmental programs developed in the last two decades to provide equal opportunities for blacks have been, I think, quite successful but they certainly have not closed the racial gap on most indicators of status. When these programs were initiated, we failed to

realize the tremendous scope of racial differences in the United States or the steps which would be necessary to insure equal opportunities. Thus, even after a decade of effective programs, blacks are still poorer, less extensively educated, and typically they work at lower paying jobs than do whites. The numerous studies of racial relations sponsored by the National Science Foundation give us some answers, but we are very far from understanding the nature of racial change in the United States or assessing exactly which governmental policies mitigate or exacerbate racial differences in opportunities.

In conclusion, let me return to the three points I mentioned at the beginning. Social science research has made gains and thus a variety of decisionmakers in the public and private sector depend upon social science findings

However, there are very many unanswered questions and unresolved issues, so the need for further research is great. These investigations will be costly. I hope that the budget of the National Science Foundation will permit a continuation of the research.

Thank you very much.

Mr. BROWN. Thank you very much, Dr. Farley.

Dr. Farley, you made some comments about research concerning political alienation. There are other types of alienation also, but those of us in politics are particularly concerned about political alienation. Dr. FARLEY. I can appreciate that.

Mr. BROWN. Does the sociological community have a theoretical framework within which it can make an analysis of the reasons for political alienation?

Dr. FARLEY. I believe it's a poorly developed theoretical framework. I think most of the sociological work in this area is addressed to testing more specific propositions. It is felt that either governmental changes or certain characteristics of individuals will lead them to be alienated from political processes.

I think there is not a well-developed theoretical structure which would allow people to either test propositions or make determinations of why there are these trends in alienation.

Mr. BROWN. I'm trying to get at a point here with regard to the individual and political alienation. You have based your statement on the results of studies of large populations, but when you get down to alienation and understanding it, it involves understanding the individual.

Dr. FARLEY. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. This would seem to indicate an area in which sociology and social psychology and some other fields ought to be trying to develop a common framework of analysis, at least. Would you be willing or able to comment as to whether you perceive that kind of cooperative activity developing in any of the areas where there may be some overlap in the fields of the social sciences?

Dr. FARLEY. I am most familiar with the types of research that are conducted at the University of Michigan. The Institute for Social Research there conducts a substantial fraction of the research on topics such as political alienation.

There is, indeed, a tradition within social psychology involving psychologists and sociologists looking at these issues, looking at the macro trends perhaps as a sociologist would, using a national sample,