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

XLW Samy Friedman
rightly considers that it will have a great future with regard to town and country
planning, education and demography, not to mention youth and the status of
women, where a great revolution is taking place, and where, paradoxically, there
has still been no consistent development of interdisciplinary problem-focused
research. This great future is to be discerned even in such unexpected, but very
appropriate, fields as oecumenism - to which the author draws special attention.
Oecumenism, considered sociologically in relation to the rapprochement between
the nations and their mutually interdependent development, entails a whole
series of investigations on the contacts between religious groups, the organiza-
tion of the church, the meaning of worship, the presentation and nature of the
religious message and its inclusion in a modern system of values whose impor-
tance cannot be disregarded - all these investigations being directed towards
an attempt to achieve a deliberate change in structures and behaviour.
It has already been remarked that any social science is in principle a compara-
tive science. But when comparative study is combined with internationaliza-
tion, and an attempt is made to coordinate the collection and analysis of data
beyond the bounds of individual cultures, societies and political entities, it
becomes possible to identify with a very high degree of refinement the variables
and constants that condition the operation and development of human societies.
This is an ideal experimental field in which Stein Rokkan, by his personal
research and activities, has made a major contribution. His chapter on cross-cul-
tural, cross-sociefal and cross-national research provides a perfect illustration of
this new dimension of research, which also marks a particularly fruitful trend in
the social sciences.
Stein Rokkan’s discussion of the development of cross-cultural studies and
the institutional and organizational efforts which have favoured their spread is
most interesting. Particularly striking is his very thorough analysis of the history
of comparative research and thevarious traditions which have grown up since the
last century. Rokkan emphasizes the considerable effort which has been made
to improve the basic data for use in this research and to define the various
scientific strategies used for dealing with the ever-increasing mass of information
available. In this field, progress has been due both to the development of tech-
nology and to the establishment of various research bodies - academic, com-
mercial and international - which have made it possible to establish efficient
contacts. The author clearly shows how much is owed, in this respect, to centres
of the Roper, Gallup or International Research Associates type, or again to
the work of the o.E.c.D., the International Bank, the United Nations and its
Specialized Agencies. Mention may also be made, in this context, of the re-
search sponsored by the Hamburg Institute of Education and the spectacular
success of the study undertaken by the European Co-ordination Centre for
Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (Vienna), which was set up as
the result of action by UNESCO, as well as of umsco’s efforts in conjunction with
the International Social Science Council to develop an infrastructure for com-
parative cross-cultural research by promoting better international facilities
with regard to methods and sources of information and access to data for
analysis.