Bernard R. Berelson

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Bernard Reuben Berelson (born June 2, 1912 in Spokane , Washington , † September 25, 1979 in North Tarrytown , New York ) was an American pollster , library , communication and social scientist . He taught u. a. at the University of Chicago and Columbia University in New York City. From 1968 to 1974 he was President of the Population Council .

Life

Berelson attended Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane and was responsible for the school newspaper. He studied English at Whitman College (AB 1934) in Walla Walla, Washington and became a member of the Phi Beta Kappa . He later studied at the University of Washington (BS 1936 in Library Science , MA 1937 in English) in Seattle. From 1936 to 1938 he worked in the university library. He earned a Ph.D. from Douglas Waples at the University of Chicago , Illinois. (1941) in library science. There he was significantly influenced by the Chicago School of Sociology . In 1941 he was a Rockefeller Fellow .

After the USA entered the Second World War , he was a special analyst at the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS) from 1941 to 1944 , where he a. a. worked with Harold Lasswell . From 1944 to 1946 he was the research director of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University in New York City. From 1946 he taught at the University of Chicago, where he became professor of library and social sciences in 1947/49 . From 1947 to 1951 he was Dean of the Graduate Library School . In the meantime, from 1951 to 1957 he headed the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences of the Ford Foundation at Stanford University. Most recently, he was Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Director of the University of Chicago Graduate Program.

In 1960/61 he worked again at Columbia University, this time as a professor of sociology until he came to the Population Council in 1962 . There he was Director of Communication Research and Vice President from 1963 to 1968 and President from 1968 to 1974 and then Senior Fellow. In 1976/77 he was visiting scholar and lecturer for public and international affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey. 1951/52 he was president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research . In 1963 he founded the journal Studies in Family Planning . In the 1970s he became a member of the United States President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future under John D. Rockefeller III . He is the author of numerous books and specialist articles.

Berelson was married three times and the father of four children.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

literature

  • Lester Asheim : Bernard Berelson (1912-1979) . In: The Library Quarterly 50 (1980) 4, pp. 407-409.
  • Lester Asheim: Berelson, Bernard Reuben (1912–1979) . In: Wayne A. Wiegand (Ed.): Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography . Libraries Unlimited, Englewood 1990, ISBN 0-87287-586-5 , pp. 12-15.
  • W. Parker Mauldin: Bernard Berelson: June 2, 1912 - September 25, 1979 . In: Studies in Family Planning 10 (1979) 10, pp. 259-262.
  • Patrick A. Pierce: Berelson, Bernard R . In: Glenn H. Utter, Charles Lockhart (Eds.): American Political Scientists: A Dictionary . 2nd edition, Greenwood Publishing, Westport 2002, ISBN 0-313-31957-X , pp. 32-34.
  • John A. Ross, W. Parker Mauldin (Eds.): Berelson on Population . Springer, New York a. a. 1988, ISBN 0-387-96716-8 .
  • David L. Sills : In Memoriam: Bernard Berelson, 1912–1979 . In: The Public Opinion Quarterly 44 (1980) 2, pp. 274-275.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Berelson, Bernard R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berelson, Bernard Reuben (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pollster, library, communications, and social scientist
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Spokane , Washington
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1979
Place of death North Tarrytown , New York