Radcliffe College's Murray Research Center has added four new scholars to join six returning scholars to conduct research on current social issues. Children and nurturing, adolescent development, and the new American family are among the topics for new research in 1997.

"We are very fortunate to have such distinguished and productive researchers affiliated with the Center," said Anne Colby, director of the Murray Center, one of the nation's leading archives of social science data. "A central goal for the Center is to understand how people develop character and competence over the course of their lives. Many of our scholars are using data from the Center's archive this year to study successful development in different phases of life."

Laura Pappano, noted social commentator and journalist, will use Murray Center data to investigate how changing social conditions, technology, narcissism, and consumerism are driving Americans to live lonelier lives. Gail Melson, professor of psychology at Purdue University, will research the role of animals in the emotional development of children. Elizabeth Cole, assistant professor of psychology and African-American studies at Northeastern University, will examine the impact of political movements on black and white women at midlife; and George Vaillant, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, will compare the mortality

rates of delinquent and non-delinquent boys. Vaillant, who is noted for his lifelong studies of adult development, is the author of several books, including Adaptation to Life; The Natural History of Alcoholism; and The Wisdom of the Ego.

The returning scholars include three long-term affiliates of the Center. They are psychologist Rosalind C. Barnett, whose latest book She Works/He Works: How Two-Income Families are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off, has received national attention and critical acclaim; John Laub, professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University, and the author of Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life, which has been called a "tour de force" and "a book without parallel in criminological research;" and Eileen McDonagh, whose new book, Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent, is revolutionizing the abortion debate by providing new legal grounds for abortion rights and abortion funding.

Three scholars returning to the Murray Research Center for a second year are Catherine H. Nye, assistant professor of social work at Smith College, who is looking at how society's changing ideas about gender have affected women's lives; Lorrie Sippola, who is studying adolescent friendship; and Anne Marie Cammisa, assistant professor of government at Suffolk University, who is studying women in political office. Cammisa's new book on welfare reform, Welfare Policy in American Politics, will be published by Westview Press in August 1997.

Radcliffe College's Murray Research Center is a multidisciplinary social science data archive holding over 200 studies, including many of the most important long-term studies in the world. These studies are available for new research on current social issues. The archive is part of an active research center offering conferences, workshops, research grants, a visiting scholars program, and a weekly lunch hour series. In keeping with the Center's focus on life course research, the spring series will offer presentations on social and developmental issues in diverse populations.

 

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Copyright 1998 President and Fellows of Harvard College