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Winter 2023

Social Sciences

Fall 2002

An expert on human evolution, a long-distance driver

Grover S. Krantz, world-renowned anthropologist and longtime Washington State University professor, died on February 14, 2002 in Port Angeles, Washington after an  eight-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Professor Krantz, or Grover, as everyone knew him, was born November 5, 1931, in Salt Lake City. He obtained a B.A. and M.A. in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.

After receiving his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1968, Grover came to the Department of Anthropology at WSU in 1968. When he came to Pullman, Grover planned to spend a “couple of years at WSU.” Those couple of years turned into 30, until he … » More …

Fall 2002

The survey expert

Don Dillman may be the most influential social scientist in developing the scientific basis for research methodology over the last 25 years. His Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method is a classic of its genre, the first work to provide detailed procedures for conducting surveys by these methods. In the early 1990s, he was senior survey methodologist for the U.S. Bureau of the Census. He also led development of new questionnaire designs and procedures for the 2000 Decennial Census and other government surveys.

Dillman has worked at Washington State University for 33 years. He directed the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at … » More …

All Abraham's Children: Changing Conceptions of Race and Lineage

This thoroughly documented study of race and identity within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints unravels various ways Mormons have constructed and negotiated their identity throughout history. Armand Mauss, professor emeritus of sociology at Washington State University, makes the intriguing argument that Mormonism provides a unique case in which religious prejudice or particularism actually undermines secular prejudice. While Mormon relations with other races have not been without difficulty, documentation provided here demonstrates that in specific cases, Mormons hold less prejudicial attitudes than other white Americans.

This is due, according to Mauss, to a theology linking Mormon lineage with other ethnic groups. Believing Native … » More …