What is the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF)?

HRAF is Human Relations Area Files Inc. situated in New Haven (Connecticut) represents a nonprofit nongovernmental organization uniting 300 institutions located in the United States and nearly 25 other countries. This organization was found under the auspices of Yale University to foster the development of comparative research related to human behavior, cultural studies, and society. This task is pursued through producing and distributing several databases on the Internet such as the HRAF Collection pf Ethnography and Collection of Archaeology. HRAF issues and edits quarterly journal – Cross-Cultural Research: The Journal of comparative social science and also develops various thematic encyclopedias. The HRAF collections are used for didactic purposes to teach various aspects of social and cultural life. They are organized by various geographical regions, by archeological traditions and culture which is necessary for all researchers and practitioners who want to have access to useful information for cross-cultural analysis. While various passages and information blocks can be found through a well-developed system of subject-indexing research have the possibility to develop various supplementary tools such as ordinal, nominal, and interval scales to commensurate certain modes of variations he/she is interested in evaluating.