75 Years of Social Science for Social Action

Alexandra Rutherford is Associate Professor in the History and Theory of Psychology Graduate Program at York University in Toronto. She currently serves as SPSSI historian. She publishes on historical and contemporary issues in feminist psychology and is the co-author, with Wade Pickren of A History of Modern Psychology in Context (2010). She is a fellow of the Society for the History of Psychology and SPSSI. Frances Cherry is Professor of Psychology and Director of The Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University. She is the author of The "Stubborn Particulars" of Social Psychology: Essays on the Research Process (1995). Her work focuses on the history of social psychology at mid-20th century, with a particular focus on the ways in which social psychologists bring research and activism together.Rhoda Unger is a Resident Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and a Professor Emerita of Psychology at Montclair State University. She was a co-editor of the JSI issue "50 years of psychology and social issues" published in 1986. She has written several articles on the history of women in psychology and her presidential address to SPSSI (published in JSI in 2000) was on positive marginality and social change.

• INTRODUCTION. “Society Very Definitely Needs Our Aid”: Reflecting on SPSSI in History (Alexandra Rutherford, Frances Cherry, and Rhoda Unger).Looking Again at SPSSI: History, Activism, and Advocacy (Martha T. Mednick).SECTION I: GETTING STARTED: WORLD WAR II AND BEYOND.“Education for Democracy”: SPSSI and the Study of Morale in World War II (Cathy Faye).Psychologists, Race, and Housing in Postwar America (Wade E. Pickren).Reclaiming SPSSI’s Sociological Past: Marie Jahoda and the Immersion Tradition in Social Psychology (Alexandra Rutherford, Rhoda Unger, and Frances Cherry).SECTION II: SCHOLAR-ACTIVIST DEBATES.Value Neutrality and SPSSI: The Quest for Policy, Purity, and Legitimacy (Andrew S. Winston).SPSSI Leaders: Collective Biography and the Dilemma of Value-Laden Action and Value-Neutral Research (Rhoda Unger).The SPSSI Task Force on Sexual Orientation, the Nature of Sex, and the Contours of Activist Science (Michael Pettit).A Wrinkle in Time: Tracing a Legacy of Public Science through Community Self-Surveys and Participatory Action Research (Mar´ia Elena Torre and Michelle Fine).SECTION III: SPSSI’S ONGOING COMMITMENTS: THE THREE P’S.SPSSI and Peace-Building: A Participant’s Perspective (Paul R. Kimmel).SPSSI and Racial Research (Thomas F. Pettigrew).SPSSI and Poverty: Reflections at Seventy-Five (Heather E. Bullock, Bernice Lott, and Shirley V. Truong).SECTION IV: FROM SPSSI’S PAST INTO ITS FUTURE: WORLD COMMUNITIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT.“Cautious Courage”: SPSSI’s Connections and Reconnections at the United Nations (Frances Cherry, Holly Ellingwood, and Gisell Castillo).Foreground and Background: Environment as Site and Social Issue (Susan Opotow and Jen Gieseking).SPSSI’s Living Past (James H. Capshew).SECTION V: 2009 SPSSI PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.Introduction to Susan Opotow’s SPSSI Presidential Address (Daniel Perlman).How This Was Possible: Interpreting the Holocaust (Susan Opotow).