Ethical Issues in Policy Research

An important trend in sociological seek is the augment in the number and size of projects that qualify as policy-oriented. By this we mean explore focused on a unique(predicate) problem and funded by a government agency, the results of which are to be combined with other knowledge to formulate or action legislation. Two of the major occurrenceors contributing to this trend are the change magnitude demand for sociological data (as in the Coleman study cited in text Chapter 2) and the attractiveness to sociologists of being involved in reservation policy. The glamour of policy research has been a powerful inducement for sociologists to identify areas for research, write proposals, and spend a great weigh of time and effort in the name of policy analysis.

An illustration of the size some research projects can reach is the research into the effects of guaranteed incomes on the work effort of the poor, the stability of their families, changes in consumption patterns, and so on. More than $60 million was spent in endureing this research (Watts, 1971).

As policy research in all sciences has become more common, concern about the action of such research has grown. Alarming revelations about questionable conduct in biomedical research has precipitated congressional concern for stricter regulation.



many examples include research on organ and tissue transplantation, the thalidomide soil in Germany, and research in New York where live crab louse cells were injected into patients without their knowledge or consent (Barber, 1973).

Two celebrated cases in sociological research created a debate that continues today. A research effort named Project Camelot, which was ostensibly a study of kindly change in developing nations, was revealed to be in fact a government-sponsored project for counterinsurgency (Horowitz, 1967; Bernard, 1966; Edmonson, et. al., 1966; Goode, 1966; Johnson, 1967; Van Den Berghe, 1967). An tumultuousness of...

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