Researching ourselves and changing society: social surveys in twentieth-century Australia

In the twentieth century, a series of social surveys distinguished by their first-person interviews and evidence-based recommendations offered Australians a new form of knowledge about themselves. This project's innovative reading of the raw data of these surveys, which includes interview transcripts, observations and questionnaires, will examine anew the reception of these social scientific methods among ordinary Australians who acted as research participants and subjects. In doing so, this project advances knowledge of social research's transformation of expertise, social class and the state exploring how research unfolded on the ground, and placing Australian research practices in the context of the global development of social science.