9421729 Norberg This is an historical investigation of the research and advocacy of the group of social scientists active in the NAACP litigation campaign to desegregate public schools during the late 1940s and early 1950s. No study has yet been made of these social scientists and their work. The proposal requests funds for travel to examine unpublished manuscript sources of Kenneth B. Clark, and the NAACP, deposited at the Library of Congress, and of Stuart Cook and other psychologists active in the litigation, all of which are deposited at the Archives of History of American Psychology in Akron, Ohio. %%% Thirty-one prominent social scientists, primarily social psychologists, were involved with the NAACP litigation campaign to desegregate public schools during the late 1940s and early 1950s. These social scientists served as expert witnesses testifying to the psychological harm of school segregation. Based on their research, they wrote and signed an appendix to the NAACP brief to the United States Supreme Court. In BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION the Court cited their works as proof of the harm of school segregation to minority school children. This study will investigate the following historical questions: How did these scientists choose to study school desegregation as a scientific problem and what were their methods and results? How did the social scientists define for themselves roles as experts in their society? How did the scientists maintain their persona as scientific experts in the highly adversarial campaign to desegregate public schools? In answering these questions, the study will lead to a better understanding of (1) how social scientists were able to use scientific expertise to create what they viewed as a more just society, (2) the role of the ongoing professionalization of psychology that set the context for their work, and (3) how society influences science. ***
