Social Indicators and Social Reporting

Doubts about the easy equation of economic growth and social progress led, in the 1960s, to a renewed interest in social measurement and to the birth of the "social indicators movement." Social Indicators, 1976, a product of that interest, can be read as both a report on social conditions and trends in the United States and a progress report on social indicators research. The volume is best understood against the background of the social indicators movement and of the research it has stimulated. Several research traditions are joined together in the social indicators movement, but they share a concern for measurement, analysis, and the reporting to a general audience of aspects of social conditions. The tradition best reflected in Social Indicators, 1976 stresses the monitoring and reporting of social change. Research work in this tradition emphasizes conceptual and methodological development of measures, improvements in the available data base, the development of social indicator models, and social reporting. In its data selection, treatment of data, organization, and commentary, Social Indicators, 1976 is an improvement over its predecessor, Social Indicators, 1973, though the analysis it contains is notably insufficient. Most of the improvements which should be found in future editions depend upon continued progress in the development of social indicators.