Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Sociology 63
development. The very wide diffusion of surveys has generated a countermove:
renewed attention to the large, complex social units with which sociology start-
ed. Whereas the refinement of empirical methods certainly directed the profes-
sion toward specific problems which could be approached with great precision,
in recent years, ‘macrosociology’ has again become a dominant concern for
sociologists. Why this is so and to what work this trend leads are discussed in
Section 11.
A clear difference exists between Section 11 and the preceding one. The
technique of survey analysis is well established; what is new is the awareness of
its broader implications. But macrosociologists are just forging their tools. They
take up old problems at a time when sensitivity to methodological competence
has grown and when factual information has multiplied and diversified. Section
II is an effort to describe and clarify this trend.
One might have expected our presentation to start conventionally, with the
state of social theory and the empirical work done to test it. But this would have
meant following the aspirations and not the realities of contemporary sociology.
Section III is purposefully entitled ‘Quest for Theory’. There is of course no
general agreement as to what a theory is. Philosophers of science have derived
their principles from a scrutiny of the activities of natural scientists; the very
notion of theory depends upon the particular part of the natural sciences they
know well. In any case, none of this applies to what goes under the name of
social theory. Should one talk of a first approximation to a future theory in a
classical sense? I am not willing to predict whether the notion of theory wil
take on a new meaning in the social sciences. In any case the trends I can observe
are best described as efforts rather than achievements. 1 am sure that my un-
easiness is shared by all those colleagues who have so eagerly accepted the
notion of a ‘theory of the middle range’. I begin Section n~ by exemplifying
this trend, and then move to the two systems which have come nearest to a
traditional notion of theory: Marxism and Functionalism. In both cases, I
aroid textbook exposition in favour of a description of those developments
which I consider worthy of special attention. In Marxist sociology, it is the
gradual reception of empirical social research. For functionalism, I have tried
from ongoing discussions, to extract a few major topics likely to become a per-
manent part of sociological analysis. Since Marxism and functionalism preoc-
cupy Soviets and Americans respectively, I tried to pinpoint a third theoretical
quest of general relevance rooted in another country. I chose theissue of ‘critical
sociology’ which so strongly agitates our German colleagues. It has some faint
echoes in France, but most of all, whether we recognize it or not, the revolu-
tionary students all over the world are influenced by it.
The discussion of social theory has brought up national differences. Section
IV follows them up in greater detail. This section is written in collaboration with
Thomas Shepard, a member of the UNESCO Secretariat.
Every country has expressed some misgivings about the expansion of empiri-
cal work based on what are considered American research techniques. As a
matter of fact, these techniques were developed in Europe, where they never at-
tained major academic respectability.’ They found fertile ground in the United