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

596 Pierre de Bie
analysis involves the very definition of the field of research. For not only do
individuals cling to different values, but they challenge other values, whence
ensue problems.
It is here also that lies the cause of the main challenge to the objectivity of
such research. Values do not always command the same degree of respect;
they may carry more or less weight and give rise to controversy. However it
happens too often that there is no controversy and critical examination of
judgements. Thus it is unusual for a specialist engaged in family-focused research
to question the basic judgements which commonly determine observations and
classifications, and even the criteria applied; unusual that he ask himself, for
example, the question: ‘What is a healthy family?’Z5 This problem of critical
judgement is encountered again and again. It is particularly acute in the case
of problem-focused research undertaken by developing countries on the basis
of criteria of economic growth and technical and social progress - criteria simply
borrowed from the country of origin of the investigator and alien to the country
where the studies, whose goal is to serve as a basis for action, are carried out.
11. THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY DIMENSION
The concept
The concept of problem-focused research seems to call forth spontaneously that
of multidisciplinary or pluridisciplinary research. Thus, at the very outset of
the preparatory discussions concerriing the present study on the main trends of
research in the social and human sciences, the link between problem-focused
and multidisciplinary research was acknowledged. Meeting in April, 1965 the
members of the Panel of Consultants already envisaged a chapter devoted to the
most important problems of problem-focused research, which seemed almost
bound to be multidisciplinary.26 The term ‘multidisciplinary problem-focused
research’ emerged as a matter of course.
As soon as any attempt is made by means of scientific research to shed light
on practical - and therefore necessarily complex - social problems, reference
to several scientific disciplines seems the obvious solution. In France, the
Dklkgation gknkrale A la recherche scientifique et technique considers that
concerted action in the cause of economic and social development means
mobilizing the findings of various scientific disciplines: ‘The field of studies
should not, therefore, be defined once and for all, but every effort should be
made to call upon disciplines which converge in their analyses and make it
possible to cover, by numerous observations, all aspects of the development
phenomenon and to distinguish, if possible, its constants and its laws’.27
Basing the distinction between pure and problem-focused sciences on the
fact that the former have a traditional field whereas the latter form a new sector
of research determined by specific values (social control, justice, peace, etc.),
Johan Galtung brings out excellently the almost necessarily multidisciplinary
character of problem-focused research. He illustrates this by a diagram in
which the intersecting of the cells suggests that they are interdependent and
mutually aiding.