Rockefeller Philanthropy and Modern Social Science

Seim, David L.

doi:10.4324/9781315654713

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Although a pioneering institution, the ICWR has often been overlooked by historians of science. Some studies on the history of child development and childcare have stated that the Spelman Memorial financed programmes at stations ‘at Iowa, Yale, Minnesota, Denver and Berkeley’ (Lomax, 1978: 153), or that notable child development programmes were established at Toronto, Cornell, Minnesota, and Iowa (Seim, 2013), failing to even mention Columbia. What little scholarship there is that includes the ICWR has been limited to perfunctory acknowledgement, failing to account for its creation, development, or eventual demise (Grant, 1999; Sears, 1975; Senn, 1975; Smuts, 1985).…”

Section: Social Reconstruction Philanthropy and Child Development Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

An ‘ingenious system of practical contacts’: Historical origins and development of the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia University's Teachers College (1922–36)

Fierro

2021

History of the Human Sciences

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During the first two decades of the 20th century, the expansion of private foundations and philanthropic initiatives in the United States converged with a comprehensive, nationwide agenda of progressive education and post-war social reconstruction that situated childhood at its core. From 1924 to 1928, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial was the main foundation behind the aggressive, systematic funding of the child development movement in North America. A pioneering institution, the Institute of Child Welfare Research, established in 1924 at Columbia's Teachers College, was the first Rockefeller-funded programme of its kind at an American university. The Institute was influential in helping set up a nationwide network of child welfare institutes at other universities. Twelve years later, it would also be the first of those institutes to close. Nonetheless, the Institute's context, emergence, and development have been overlooked or misrepresented by previous scholarship, which calls for a new, critical historical analysis. By drawing on a number of archival sources and unpublished materials, this paper offers a critical reconstruction of the Institute's internal, often unstable history, emphasizing its origins, members, and administrative changes. I argue that the demise of the Institute should be understood in the context of both the revision of philanthropic policies in the late 1920s and the Institute's singular emphasis on teaching and training over research. The resulting narrative allows for a deeper, more informed understanding of both the Institute's origins and its eventual folding.

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Section: Social Reconstruction Philanthropy and Child Development Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

An ‘ingenious system of practical contacts’: Historical origins and development of the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia University's Teachers College (1922–36)

Fierro

2021

History of the Human Sciences

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“…The American capitalists then came together to discuss the means of solving these problems. Capitalist companies, philanthropic institutions and foundations such as the Rockefeller foundation (which includes Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and Spelman Fund), Carnegie Institution, Russel Sage Foundation, Ford Motor Company, Julius Rosenwald Fund and many others, released millions of dollars to finance the project of Americanisation (Bulmer, 1982;Solovey & Cravens, 2012;Seim, 2016). Fisher (1983) describe this as a deliberate movement of the powerful class in the world to influence, control and dominate others thorough ideology.…”

Section: The Social Of Distorting Marxismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main objectives of this project were, how to scientifically justify the dominance of capitalism (Fisher, 1983(Fisher, , 1984, to redefine and reform social science theories so as to fit the desires and values of Liberal American (Seim, 2016), to use knowledge as a weapon against the triumph of communism in the world (Solovey & Cravens, 2012), to enforce capitalist values to the Americans and the rest of the world without using force (Mueller, 2013). To create a rational desired social order by discouraging industrial workers and the unemployed mass from collective bargaining and class struggle so as to be more productive (Solovey & Cravens, 2012;Mueller, 2013), to produce counter theories towards the so-called "socialist lies" concerning the then trembling capitalist economy (Fisher, 1983).…”

Section: The Social Of Distorting Marxismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing Common Misconceptions in Marxian Sociology

Matogwa

2021

Tanzania Journal of Sociology

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Sociology is one of the social sciences disciplines which analyses various social issues for the benefit of the society. However, for this assumption to materialize, sociologists must consume and disseminate undistorted knowledge. This paper provides a reflection of Marxian sociology by showing how contemporary scholars have tried to produce a misleading version of the same, and therefore, distorts the central argument of Marxian sociology. To reveal these misconceptions, this paper focuses on three common concepts namely conflict, structure and economy. For contemporary scholars, these concepts are said to characterize Marxian Sociology. So, they claim, Marxism is a conflict theory, a structural theory and also a theory of economic determinism. To what extent are these claims true? This paper provides answers by reviewing the original premises of Marxism together with these claims. It then provides the root causes of the misconceptions and advises contemporary sociologists to work on original premises of Marx rather than consumee these distorted versions. The author has used qualitative–interpretive methodology and documentary review method of data generation to analyze this complex phenomenon.

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“…Whereas here we concentrate on the NSF and its relationship with the social sciences, we should note that, even before the federal government entered as a patron, private philanthropical foundations, such as the Carnegie Foundation, founded in 1905, the Russell Sage Foundation, established in 1907, and the Ford Foundation, set up in 1936, supported the social sciences, as well as research universities in general (Geiger, , ). A prominent role among these philanthropies was played by the Rockefeller Foundation (in particular, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, founded in 1918), which has drawn a great deal of scholarly attention (Ahmad, ; Bulmer, , a; Bulmer & Bulmer, ; Fisher, , ; Kohler, ; Seim, ), with somewhat controversial conclusions. On the one side, the Rockefeller philanthropies were seen as representing an extension of the interests of the American capitalist class into the social sciences (Fisher, ), whereas other researchers emphasized that the sponsored social scientists maintained a high degree of autonomy (Bulmer, ; Platt, , 1996b).…”

Section: Institutional and Financial Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social science and Sozialwissenschaft: Categorical and institutional boundaries of knowledge

Sonnert

2018

J History Behavioral Science

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This article explores how linguistic categories affect boundary work in scholarly knowledge production. Whereas the German language knows the unified concept of Wissenschaft for all branches of scholarship represented at universities, the English language separates science from the arts or humanities and does not commonly engage an overarching concept. This has had consequences for American social science, which are traced both in the discourse shaping its development and in the deployment and distribution of institutional resources.

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Rockefeller Philanthropy and Modern Social Science

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

An ‘ingenious system of practical contacts’: Historical origins and development of the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia University's Teachers College (1922–36)

An ‘ingenious system of practical contacts’: Historical origins and development of the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia University's Teachers College (1922–36)

Revealing Common Misconceptions in Marxian Sociology

Social science and Sozialwissenschaft: Categorical and institutional boundaries of knowledge

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