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

86 P. F. Luzarsfeld
duce additional sociological ideas: the boundaries of systems which separate
them from surroundings and the important notion of unanticipated conse-
quences.
Diamond‘s study of the tranformation of Virginia from an organization into
a society provides a first example. Here, the dissatisfaction or disturbances
created after the organization had been set up after the model of the East India
Company resulted from a frustration of various expectations : difficulties in
recruitment due to the scarcity of indigenous labour and lack of mineral re-
sources which forced the company to engage in agricultural activities rather than
in an exploitation of mineral resources as originally planned. Additional in-
centives had to be provided for the labour force imported from England, nota-
bly the granting of land after a specified period of time. This solution in turn led
to a fundamental change in the character of the organization by rendering its
monopoly character obsolete and by engendering a ‘multiplicity of statuses’
which laid the foundations for a societal network. From the point of view of
those who had initiated what was thought to be the only feasible remedy to a
pressing problem, the result was quite unanticipated. The impact of the environ-
ment had shaped new problems and by excluding the feasibility of various alter-
native solutions, the solutions led to the structural change.
Greater preciseness in identifying structural referents brings with it greater
preciseness in timing the process which is described. This is also a characteristic
of Smelser’s analysis of the process which led to the differentiation of the family
during the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. At the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, the family was still in an undifferentiated stage with a
variety of functions and with traditionally deked relationships between adults
and children. Through various changes in the larger social context, particularly
the introduction of technological changes in the cotton industry, the traditional
structure of the family economy was threatened. Various disturbances erupted.
Solutions were sought in a new legislative regulation of working hours and
conditions in the factories. After two unsuccessful attempts, the legislation of
1847 completed the process of differentiation of the family by eliminating child
work altogether and by reducing working hours for women in order to free them
for socialization tasks of the children. Previous legislative attempts had been
unsuccessful and only led to further disturbance and agitation: the kst reduc-
tion of children’s working hours resulted in a relay system to maintain them un-
der the supervision of parents in the factory; the second accomplished the
abolition of child labour, but did not bring a reduction in adult working hours.
Both solutions were incomplete and unsuccessful, as they destroyed the tradi-
tional relationship between parents and children without providing a new level
of consolidation. The ha1 legislative act provided a new equilibrium point for
the family. The family was able to adjust to the industrial age, but only after a
new balance between family ideology and the demands of industrialization
had been achieved.
d. Closely related to the notion of explanation sketches is the tendency to pro-
pose sequences which are treated partly as ‘laws’ and partly as explanations of