NCJ Number
80050
Journal
Justitiele verkenningen Issue: 6 Dated: (1979) Pages: 18-29
Date Published
1979
Length
12 pages
Annotation
The growing role of social policy studies as a means of creating an information basis for social action is explicated.
Abstract
As governments have begun to place increasing emphasis on the influence of policy in their decisions, the need has grown for development of a built-in feed-back mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of various approaches to social action. Research on policy is designed to provide guidelines for action rather than to develop a theory, and is conclusion-oriented rather than decision-oriented. Policy studies connect theory and practice, are time-specific, use a particular type of language, and frequently must contend with a variety of special interests. Basic precepts of policy research hold that information for decisions must be current rather than complete, that study results must provide practical guidelines rather than a good theory. Many methods and data sources are used, and, in contrast to theoretical research, policy analyses are divided into three parts (results, policy variables, and situation variables). Study users are usually not social scientists, and policy studies are usually based on practice rather than preexisting theory. Time factors in policy studies are different from those in theoretical studies so that self-correcting procedures no longer apply. Values in policy studies are primarily practice-oriented, and application of study results may favor one particular group or another. Finally, policy researchers themselves are under the influence of practical values and interests. The study plan for policy research projects should identify interest groups for whom the research is relevant, determine the interests of the groups and the information relevant to them, and establish how the information can best be obtained and how the study results can best be applied. Most policy research is conducted at universities, at university connected research centers, and by special research organizations; university studies in particular tend to be of high quality. Such policy studies represent a practical application of the social sciences.