NORC

NORC is an independent, not-for-profit research center that has been affiliated with the University for more than fifty years. NORC's international reputation as a technically innovative and high quality survey research organization is based upon an extensive program of research into human behavior and attitudes, including policy studies and evaluations of social experiments. NORC has pioneered methodological investigations which advance the science of survey research. As an active presence in the research and teaching life of the Division of the Social Sciences, NORC houses several research centers in which many of the University's faculty and advanced graduate students engage in empirical research. NORC also conducts nationwide surveys that are used as data resources for social scientists and social policy analysts throughout the world. NORC's Survey Operations Center maintains a national field staff of over 1,000 trained interviewers and conducts more than 30 surveys each year on such topics as the costs and practices of health care, environmental studies, substance abuse, education, labor, family, and the social fabric. NORC conducts the General Social Survey (GSS), which is used in college and university teaching programs across the nation.

NORC houses four research centers. The Ogburn-Stouffer Center for the Study of Education and Social Organization undertakes sociological research on topics in population, education, and social structure. The Population Research Center, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, works in the area of population and demography. Its research associates represent a broad set of disciplines and are faculty members of the University of Chicago. The Population Research Center, in association with the Committee of Demographic Training of the University of Chicago, administers a post-doctoral training program for four to six fellows each year, along with predoctoral fellows from the Division of the Social Sciences and the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. The Center on Demography and Economics of Aging is funded by the National Institute on Aging. Like the Population Research Center, its faculty Research Associates come from across the University community, with members housed in the Division of Social Sciences, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Graduate School of Business and the Pritzker Medical School, as well as other University units. In the fall of 1997, the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Contemporary Families and Experiences of Work began studying the dynamics of middle-class, dual-career families and their effects on the socialization of children. This center, too, will take an interdisciplinary approach and train graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.

University students participate in NORC's activities in several ways. NORC offers a summer intern program open to graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, some students are hired by faculty members as research assistants; some are provided support through NORC for their own research in the writing of dissertations; many attend conferences and weekly workshops that are sponsored by and held at NORC. NORC employs many University graduates at professional career levels.

This text was last revised on 6/18/2001.