Jennifer Howard del Chronicle of Higher Education enuncia su comentario sobre el nuevo Indicador para las Humanidades producido por la American Academy of Arts and Sciences, de la siguiente forma:
When it comes to hard data about what they do, policy makers and educators in the humanities have been mostly left out in the cold, forced to rely on isolated sets of statistics that do not give an overview of what is happening across the field. That changes today, as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences unveils the prototype of its long-awaited Humanities Indicators project.
Alcance de las humanidades para efectos de estos indicadores
For the purposes of this set of Indicators, the authors have developed a standard usage of the term “humanities.” The following disciplines are included within that standard usage:
— English Language and Literature: English, American, and Anglophone literature; general literature programs; creative writing; speech and rhetoric (does not include technical and business writing programs).
— Foreign Languages and Literatures: Modern languages and literature; linguistics; classics and ancient languages; comparative literature.
— History: Includes history of science and medicine.
— Philosophy: Includes history of philosophy.
— Religion: Programs in the comparative, nonsectarian study of religion; studies of particular religions; history of religion; does not include programs in theology or ministry.
— Ethnic, Gender, and Cultural Studies: Programs studying from an interdisciplinary perspective race, ethnic, gender, or cultural groups, such as Black studies, Hispanic studies, women’s studies, gender studies.
— American Studies & Area Studies: Though some of these programs include strong social scientific components, their emphasis on history, language, and literature places them within the humanities.
— Archeology
— Jurisprudence: Includes philosophy of law.
— Selected Arts: Art history; the study of music, musicology, music theory and composition, and music history; the academic study of drama and cinema, but not programs primarily aimed at musical performance or music technologies.
— Selected Interdisciplinary Studies: General humanities programs; programs in the study of a particular historical period (e.g., medieval and Renaissance studies, classical and ancient studies, holocaust studies, etc.).
Naturaleza de los datos contenidos en los indicadores de Humanidades
The data presented here are “indicators,” which are quantitative descriptive statistics that chart trends over time in aspects of the humanities that are of interest to a wide audience. They are selected to provide summary information related to the scope and vitality of the humanities. Indicators describe; they do not explain anything. They are factual and policy neutral. At best, they provide a “reality check” against which arguments about changes can be tested. If done well, they can provide a common starting ground for arguments about the nature or rate of change in some phenomena of interest. They answer “what” questions, not “why” questions. They can be somewhat like the Delphic oracle. Their interpretation is not always straightforward. They may mean different things to different observers. The Humanities Indicators Prototype presents quantitative measures without attempting any qualitative assessment.
Sobre que versan los indicadores
The Humanities Indicators Prototype provides data on a diverse range of topics pertaining to the role of the humanities in the contemporary United States. These topics are organized into five major parts, to which additional indicators may be added as more data becomes available.
Part I. Primary and Secondary Education in the Humanities: These indicators cover national measures of achievement at the primary and secondary school levels; high school course-taking; and the characteristics of primary and secondary faculty.
Part II. Undergraduate and Graduate Education in the Humanities: The indicators here focus on the types of courses undergraduate and graduate students take and the degrees they receive, and consider both preparedness for graduate school and the conditions of graduate education.
Part III. The Humanities Workforce: These indicators describe employment in humanistic settings and occupations, with emphasis on post-secondary faculty, and also the career paths of those with undergraduate and graduate degrees in the humanities.
Part IV. Humanities Funding and Research: Included here are data on federal, state, and private funding for the humanities, as well as on support for academic research.
Part V. The Humanities in American Life: The topics currently treated here include humanistic skills and practices, such as reading and multilingualism; support for and utilization of various humanistic institutions, such as libraries and museums; and public attitudes toward the humanities.
Información adicional sobre los indicadores
(Disponibles bajo la entrada Ensayos en la página del nuevo Indicador de las Humanidades)
Part I: Public Education and the Humanities by William J. Reese
Part II: Taking the Pulse of the Humanities: Higher Education in the Humanities Indicators Project by Roger L. Geiger
Part III: In Progress: The Idea of a Humanities Workforce by David Laurence
Part IV: Landscape of Humanities Research and Funding by Alan Brinkley
Part V: This American Life: How Are the Humanities Public? by Julie Ellison
Recursos asociados
Informe sobre la carrera académica en las artes y humanidades, junio 2008

Comunicado de Prensa
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Launches Humanities Indicators Prototype – Benchmarking Humanities in America
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2009
CAMBRIDGE, MA – The American Academy of Arts and Sciences today unveiled the Humanities Indicators, a prototype set of statistical data about the humanities in the United States. The new on-line resource is available at www.HumanitiesIndicators.org.
Organized in collaboration with a consortium of national humanities organizations, the Humanities Indicators are the first effort to provide scholars, policymakers and the public with a comprehensive picture of the state of the humanities, from primary to higher education to public humanities activities. The collection of empirical data is modeled after the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators and creates reliable benchmarks to guide future analysis of the state of the humanities. Without data, it is impossible to assess the effectiveness, impact, and needs of the humanities.
The Academy project collected and analyzed data from existing sources to compile a prototype set of 74 indicators and more than 200 tables and charts, accompanied by interpretive essays covering five broad subject areas. The Indicators will be updated as new information becomes available, including data from a survey administered last year to approximately 1,500 college and university humanities departments. The Academy views the Indicators as a prototype for a much-needed national system of humanities data collection.
“Until now the nation has lacked a broad-based, quantitative analysis of the status of the humanities in the United States,” said Leslie Berlowitz, chief executive officer of the American Academy and project co-director. “We need more reliable empirical data about what is being taught in the humanities, how they are funded, the size of the workforce, and public attitudes toward the field. The Humanities Indicators are an important step in closing that fundamental knowledge gap. They will help researchers and policymakers, universities, foundations, museums, libraries, humanities councils and others answer basic questions about the humanities, track trends, diagnose problems, and formulate appropriate interventions.”
Among the organizations collaborating with the Academy on the effort are the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Academy of Religion, the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, Association of American Universities, the College Art Association, the Federation of State Humanities Councils, the Linguistic Society of America, the Modern Language Association and the National Humanities Alliance.
Almost a decade ago, Academy Fellows Steven Marcus, Jonathan Cole, Robert Solow, and Francis Oakley joined Berlowitz in recognizing the need for improved data on the humanities and spearheaded the Academy’s efforts to establish a data collection system. Other leading humanists, including Patricia Meyer Spacks, Denis Donoghue, Norman Bradburn, Pauline Yu, Arnita Jones, and Rosemary Feal helped guide the project.
The need for and potential value of the Humanities Indicators was described in the Academy’s 2002 report, Making the Humanities Count: The Importance of Data (available at http://www.amacad.org/projects/humanities.aspx).
“The humanities community has suffered from a protracted case of data deprivation, especially in comparison with science and engineering,” said Oakley, co-chair of the Academy’s Initiative for the Humanities and Culture and President Emeritus of both Williams College and the American Council of Learned Societies. “We know that public support of the humanities depends on accurate data. The Indicators prototype is the start of an infrastructure that will broadly support policy research in the humanities.”
The Academy’s Initiative for the Humanities and Culture provides a framework for examining the significance of the humanities in our national culture. It is a necessary backbone for developing adequate resources and informed policies to ensure the continued growth and health of the humanities. The Academy’s work in this area has received support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Teagle Foundation, and the Sara Lee Foundation. For more information on the Initiative, see http://www.amacad.org/projects/humanities.aspx.
Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. Current Academy research focuses on science and global security; social policy; the humanities and culture; and education. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Academy’s work is advanced by its 4,600 elected members, who are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business and public affairs from around the world. (www.amacad.org)
What Do the Humanities Indicators Tell Us?
n The picture of adult literacy in the U.S. is one of polarization. Among Western industrialized nations, we rank near the top in the percentage of highly literate adults (21%) but also near the top in the proportion who are functionally illiterate (also 21%).
n Public debate about teacher qualifications has focused mainly on math and science, but data reveal that the humanities fields suffer an even more glaring dearth of well-prepared teachers. In 2000, the percentage of middle (29%) and high school (37.5%) students taught by a highly qualified history teacher was lower than for any other major subject area. The definition of “highly qualified” is a teacher who has certification and a post-secondary degree in the subject they teach.
n Humanities faculty are the most poorly paid. They also have a higher proportion of part-time, non-tenured positions compared to their counterparts in the sciences and engineering. But almost half of humanities faculty indicate that they are “very satisfied” with their jobs overall.
n Since the early 1970s, the number of Americans who support the banning of books from the public library because they espouse atheism, extreme militarism, communism, or homosexuality decreased by at least 11 percentage points, although still from 26% to 34% of the public would support banning some type of book. In the case of books advocating homosexuality, the decline was a particularly significant 20 percentage points.
n Recent federal legislation identifies certain languages as “critical need languages” (Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, and Uzbek, among others), but the data show these languages are rarely studied in colleges and universities. At the same time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of students studying Chinese.
n Charitable giving to arts and cultural organizations grew between the mid-1990s and early 2000s before leveling off. But little of public or private sector funding for the humanities goes to academic research. This trend undermines both academia and the public since public institutions rely on humanities scholars to provide much of the knowledge on which these activities are based.
n The number of American adults who read at least one book in the previous 12 months decreased from 61% to 57% in the decade between the early 1990s and the early 2000s. The greatest rate of decline (approximately 15%) occurred among 18-to-24-year-olds.