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

Sociology I 29
training exists to prepare sociologists for research w0rk.I7~ Though sociology
is indeed taught in Australian universities, development of sociological research
is hindered by the few training opportunities available at the university itself.I7I
The cause of the present deficiency in training facilities for the increasing
number of sociologists is of course the late development of university teaching
in this discipline. A good example of this ‘vicious circle’ is New Zealand where
about fifty per cent of the teaching posts in sociology are unfilled, because train-
ing in this field is so recent that there are no sociology graduates in the com-
munity who can be drawn on for part-time teaching.172 Although the first chair
of sociology in Denmark was established at the University of Aarhus in 1967,
the first Danish graduate in sociology was not produced until rg37.173
A concrete example of the long interval required between the introduction of
sociology and the setting up of a completely new training facility is the Uni-
versity of Dacca. In 1952 the government of Pakistan established a department
of sociology at the University with the aid of UNESCO experts in sociology, and
by the time the last of these consultants departed in 1964 there were three or
four young professors in the department. It has been estimated that from IO to
15 years usually elapse between the time a country receives the first outside ex-
pert to teach sociology and the time when the department can be staffed with a
native faculty.I74
3. Research. Examples of the most common difficulties encountered in carrying
out research in developing areas were suggested above under Cultural Variations:
problems posed by illiteracy and of communicating conceptualizations, absence
of accounting, inappropriateness of sociological conceptual tools in rapidly
changing societies, etc. Others might be mentioned which are of a more material
nature. Thus, shortage of research personnel in East Pakistan results in part
from the fact that there are few or no institutions which conduct research con-
tinuously :
For every project investigators have to be trained de novo. The result is that the ex-
perience gathered is not accumulated. It is necessary to build up a panel of field workers
whose experience and services could be used without 10ss.l~~
In many countries, for example in Ecuador,IT6 no statistical data is available.
In fact this makes meaningful research impossible in several fields ; consequently,
the use of mathematics as a sociological tool is not known.‘77
One of the major impediments to the development of sociological research,
even in countries where the material conditions are ample, is rooted in the fail-
ure of a society to recognize the necessity of applying such research results to
problems of policy. This deprives sociology of financial support and other
encouragement from governmental as well as private sources. Mol suggests
that this is the case in Australia and New Zealand which, he claims ‘are . . still
far away from any large scale use of sociologists in the research branches of
government and industry such as exists in the United States and the Netherlands’.178
It has been noted in Finland too, that ‘lack of opportunities for
sociologists in government and in private enterprises may create obstacles for
the development of at least applied sociological research.I79