We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2009
The authors suggest that the importance of the dissemination of research findings in social policy has been greatly underestimated. The nature of the different agencies involved and the relationship between those who sponsor and those who ‘receive’ research are examined. This shows that the problems of dissemination are of two classes – those of principle and those of practice. Having discussed the principles, the authors suggest changes needed to improve practice so that more effective use may be made of research findings. Most of the examples are chosen from the field of housing but, where relevant, other fields of social policy are compared and contrasted.
1 For example the Chief Scientist to the Department of Health and Social Security, Professor Sir Douglas Black, addressed the annual conference of the Social Administration Association held in Edinburgh in June 1974 on ‘The Role of the DHSS in Research’.
2 DHSS seminar held at the residential training centre, Sunningdale, Berkshire, 7–9 April 1976.Google Scholar
3 A useful summary is given by Keast, Horace in Local Government Chronicle, 3 January 1975.Google Scholar
4 Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in England 1966–1969 (Redcliffe-Maud Report), Vol. 1, Report, Cmnd 4040, HMSO, London, 1969, p. 84, para. 322.Google Scholar
5 London Government Act 1963, Part IX, Section 71.Google Scholar
6 Report of the Committee on the Management of Local Government (Maud Report), Ministry of Housing and Local Government, HMSO, London, 1967.Google Scholar The Maud Committee was set up at the request of four of the local authority associations.
7 Report of the Committee on the Staffing of Local Government (Mallaby Report), Ministry of Housing and Local Government, HMSO, London, 1967.Google Scholar Like the Maud Committee the Mallaby Committee was set up at the request of four of the local authority associations.
8 See Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in England 1966–1969.Google Scholar
9 Royal Commission on Local Government in England, Research Studies nos 1–10, HMSO, London, 1969.Google Scholar
10 See Report of the Committee on Local Authority and Allied Personal Social Services (Seebohm Report), Cmnd 3703, HMSO, London, 1968, p. 21Google Scholar, para. 43 – ‘We were, regret tably, unable to sound consumer reaction to the services in any systematic fashion. This was also related to the fact that we made no attempt to organise a research programme as this would have delayed publication perhaps for another year or two.’
11 A recent article by Keeling, Desmond and Peter, Self discusses their role – ‘Beyond Ministerial Departments: Mapping the Administrative Terrain’, Public Administration, 54 (1976), 161–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 A Framework for Government Research and Development (Rothschild Report), Cmnd 4814, HMSO, London, 1971.Google Scholar
13 This study is being undertaken under the direction of Professor John Greve, University of Leeds.
14 For example the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) produced one of the early research reports on the problems of children living in multistorey blocks of flats – Children in Flats, NSPCC, London, 1971.Google Scholar
15 For example the study on sheltered housing – Grouped Dwellings for the Elderly, Institute of Housing Managers (now the Institute of Housing), London, 1967.Google Scholar
16 For example by sponsoring a study on voluntary bodies and by disseminating findings about housing. See Clegg, Joan, Problems in Housing Policy, British Association of Social Workers, Birmingham, 1975.Google Scholar
17 For example, in the field of housing, Greer, Rupert, Building Societies?, Fabian Research Series 319, Fabian Society, London, 1974.Google Scholar
18 Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Newsletter no. 34, London, July 1977, p. 10.Google Scholar
19 For example the recent paper produced by a working party – ‘A Research Note by the LHRG on Race and Housing’, London Housing Research Group, May 1978.Google Scholar
20 Report of the Committee on the Rent Acts (Francis Report), Cmnd 4609, HMSO, London, 1971.Google Scholar
21 Report of the Committee on Housing in Greater London (Milner Holland Report), Cmnd 2605, HMSO, London, 1965.Google Scholar
22 For example Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M. S., Power and Poverty, Oxford University Press, London, 1970.Google Scholar
23 One of us found an example of this when the Royal Commission on Local Government published her study, Anthea Tinker, Royal Commission on Local Government, Research Studies 8, Inner London Education Authority, HMSO, 1968.Google Scholar Before publication the authority made comments about the facts but carefully explained that it would not comment on (or try to correct) matters of opinion.
24 The Economics Committee of the SSRC comments, ‘Thus, reports which frankly discuss problems of research can be of particular value’ – SSRC, Newsletter no. 34, p. 4.Google Scholar
25 Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, A Quality Chech on the Ten per cent Sample Census of England and Wales, HMSO, London, 1972.Google Scholar
26 ‘Research and Policy’, leading article in New Society, 28 August 1975.Google Scholar
27 Ibid.
28 Shipman, M. D. (ed.), The Organisation and Impact of Social Research, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1976.Google Scholar
29 David, Peter, book review in Municipal Review, 06 1976, p. 79.Google Scholar
30 Annual conference of the Social Administration Association, Edinburgh, June 1974.Google Scholar
31 Stewart, John, ‘Can Research be made more Relevant?’, Municipal Review, 05 1973, p. 148.Google Scholar
32 See Rudduck, Jean, ‘Dissemination in Practice’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 3:3 (1973). 143–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33 Herron, Marshall, ‘On Teacher Perception and Curriculum Innovation: Curriculum Theory Network’, Monograph Supplement, 1971, p. 47.Google Scholar
34 Rudduck, Jean, ‘Dissemination as the Encounter of Cultures’, Research Intelligence (Journal of the British Educational Research Association), 3:1 (1977), 3–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
35 Bennet, Roger, ‘Research into Training and Human Resources Development: Communicating with Researchers’, Industrial Training International, 11.3 (1976), 71–4.Google Scholar
36 The Education and Training for Housing Work Project, Housing Work, The City Univer sity, London, 1977.Google Scholar
37 Rudduck, , ‘Dissemination in Practice’.Google Scholar
38 Donnison, David, ‘Research for Policy’, Minerva, 10:4 (1972), 519–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39 Heclo, H. and Wildavsky, A., The Private Government of Public Money, Macmillan, London, 1974, pp. 1–36.Google Scholar
40 Argyle, M., The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1967, p. 30.Google Scholar
41 Bennet, op. cit. p. 35.
42 Marion Brion in The Education and Training for Housing Work Project, The City University, London, 1975–1977.Google Scholar
43 Festinger, L., A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1957, pp. 1–31.Google Scholar This work has subsequently been elaborated and criticized in a large number of studies, for example Bern, Daryl J., ‘Self-Perception: An Alternative Interpretation of Cognitive Dissonance Phenomena’, Psychological Review, 74 (1967), 188–200.Google Scholar
44 Stacey, Margaret, Methods of Social Research, Pergamon Press, London, 1967, p. 134Google Scholar – ‘Thus a research report addressed to fellow academics can assume a completely different kind of knowledge from a research report addressed to the lay steering committee of an applied research project.’
45 SSRC, Newsletter no. 34, p. 24.Google Scholar
46 Department of the Environment, Register of Research, Part 2, Environmental Planning, London, 1976.Google Scholar
47 National Corporation for the Care of Old People, A Register of Social Research, London, 1976.Google Scholar
48 For example Piper, Sue, Research into Research, Anchor Housing Association, Oxford, 1976.Google Scholar
49 See for example National Building Agency, Sheltered Housing and the Elderly, London, 1976.Google Scholar
