Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Dynamics of State and Scientific Classification

这个项目考察了一段时间以来美国官方贫困指标的构建、使用和影响。50年前，联邦制定了贫困衡量标准，对贫困人口进行分类，使州政府、社会科学家和社会能够计算美国的贫困率，并分析一段时间内的贫困状况。在它的发展和正式通过之前，没有标准的方法存在。今天，这项措施不仅是社会政策和贫困研究的基础，也是国家对贫困问题的讨论的基础。本研究有两个实证贡献。首先，这项研究确定了贫困衡量标准在反贫困战争时期首次开发和使用的过程。第二，该研究审查了作为官方分类和统计标准的贫困衡量标准如何促进和制约了日益增长的贫困知识体系和做法的基础设施，特别是在政府和社会科学领域。项目结果将与那些处于理解和减轻贫困第一线的人相关，特别是决策者、联邦机构、研究人员和反贫困组织。这个项目利用了档案材料、公共记录、技术档案、官方报告、现有的口述历史和原始采访，从20世纪50年代到今天。研究的重点是在制定、使用、证明和评估官方贫困衡量标准方面发挥最核心作用的国家和社会科学组织和行为者。该课程注重语篇、策略、逻辑和决策过程。总体而言，该项目和由此产生的发现有助于在国家科学机构的分类、制度变革和持久性以及知识生产过程方面的学术研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines the construction, use, and effects of the official U.S. poverty measure over time. Federally instituted fifty years ago, the poverty measure classifies who is poor and enables the state, social scientists, and society to calculate U.S. poverty rates and analyze poverty over time. Prior to its development and official adoption, no standard methodology existed. Today, the measure underlies not only social policy and poverty research, but also national discourse on poverty. This study makes two empirical contributions. First, the study identifies the processes through which the poverty measure was first developed and used during the War on Poverty era. Second, the study examines how the poverty measure, as an official classification and a statistical standard, has both facilitated and constrained a growing infrastructure of poverty knowledge systems and practices, particularly in government and social science. Project findings will be relevant to those on the forefront of understanding and alleviating poverty, especially decision makers, federal agencies, researchers, and antipoverty organizations. This project draws on archival materials, public records, technical files, official reports, existing oral histories, and original interviews, addressing the 1950s through today. Research focuses on the state and social science organizations and actors that have been most central in creating, using, justifying, and evaluating the official poverty measure. Attention is paid to discourses, strategies, logics, and decision-making processes. Overall, this project and resultant findings contribute to scholarship on classification, institutional change and durability, and processes of knowledge production at the state-science nexus.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.