Small Program for the Advancement of the Discipline

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PI: Roberta Spalter-RothTitle: Small Grant Program for the Advancement of the DisciplineSES-0754243Project AbstractThe Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline (FAD) is a small grant program jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Sociological Association (ASA) and administered by the ASA. The intellectual purpose of this program is to advance sociology and nurture the development of scientific knowledge by supporting small, groundbreaking research initiatives and other activities such as holding conferences, developing new research agendas and networks, adding to the discipline's data and bibliographic infrastructure, and providing leverage for acquisition of additional research funds. The peer reviewed awards provide seed money for substantive and methodological breakthroughs that challenge the discipline and stimulate new lines of scientific inquiry. With a maximum of $7,000 per grant, these small grants represent a strong record of intellectual merit that advance sociological theory, methods, and infrastructure. New areas that have been explored in previous rounds include interactions between state regimes and immigrants; integration of structure, culture, and agency; market relations, actions, and meanings; and globalization and racial inequalities. New research agendas were launched in the areas of education policy, the collective constitution of memory, poverty and wealth, and the sociology of taxation. FAD projects also refined sociological methods and techniques, especially multi and qualitative methods. Indicators of the merit of these projects include an average of four outcomes per project (including presentations and publications). Scholarly outcomes included papers, edited volumes, monographs, and peer reviewed journal articles in sociology and interdisciplinary journals. Over the course of the 2004-2007 grant, for every $1.00 spent through ASA/NSF funding, the award-winning projects received an additional $12.39 in research funding from other organizations including the NSF. Given ASA's experience with the FAD program, the researchers expect continued cutting edge projects and the same level of scholarly outcomes from the 2008-2011 grant. As part of its broader impact, FAD provides guidance and mentoring to these scholars through a well-developed process, including evaluations by stellar scholars in the discipline, which we hope to continue to improve in the next round of the program. Additional broader impacts include substantial student training and learning; curriculum modification; building of scholarly networks; contribution to sociological infrastructure; policy impact and media attention. The scholarly and educational impacts of FAD projects far outweigh the cost of these small grants.