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Personnel Survey of the Modern Language Association Membership

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. F. Wellemeyer Jr.
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Extract

THE American Council of Learned Societies and the Modern Language Association of America conducted a joint survey of personnel in the modern language field during the summer of 1950. The survey was an experimental effort to obtain quantitative information on the characteristics of specialists in the field, and was intended to disclose the practicability of the method as well as to furnish the needed information. Members' response to the inquiry was very good, and the tabulated returns accounted for 48 percent of the membership. Details of the questionnaire and processing procedure are appended. The following represents the results of our first effort to obtain information of this kind in one of the humanistic disciplines.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , February 1951 , pp. 80 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951

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References

1 U. S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment, Education and Earnings of American Men of Science. Thanks are tendered to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for making available selected data from this important study in advance of publication.

2 Science Press: Lancaster, Pa., 1950.

3 This is called the mode, statistically. In this case it also corresponds in each curve to the median class, which is the class containing the individual who stands at the mid-point of the distribution. The five-year difference in the four classes looks more precise than it is since the distribution is based on 5 year class intervals. Thus an actual difference of 6 years, which might have been found if a distribution by single years of age were available, is not disclosed by these data.

4 The average number of women in the labor force amounted to 30 percent of the average total labor force for the U. S. in 1949. See Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P-50, No. 19, Table 2, p. 14.

5 This comparison is inexact. According to information furnished by the Veterans Administration, 80.57 percent of all living veterans as of June 30, 1949, were in the age group 25-65. This amounts to 15,245,000. The relevant national labor force figure is 33,888,000, from Current Population Reports, Series P-50, No. 19, Table 3, p. 15. Participation of MLA members in the armed forces was probably relatively higher than the comparison indicates because members in the 25-65 years group average somewhat older than, the national group.

6 Percy W. Long, “The Modern Language Association of America in World War II”, PMLA, LxIv, Supplement (March 1949), 45-78.

7 See M. H. Trytten, The Baccalaureate Origins of the Science Doctorates Awarded in the United States 1936-45 (National Research Council: Washington, D.C., June 1948), especially the ranking of institutions beginning on p. 69. So far as the writer knows, this is the first report which calls attention quantitatively to the undergraduate institutions which are important sources of individuals capable of benefiting from advanced training.