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

Problem-focused research 601
to pave the way for the drawing up of development plans includes the following:
economics, demography, education, sociology, political science, law, adminis-
trative science, psychology and anthropology.
This is clearly not to suggest that all physical development plans should,
de jure, call for collaboration between all such disciplines, nor even that, de
facto, they may all be found within the framework of the major undertakings.
In point of fact physical development plans reveal an astonishing variety of
objectives, ranging from those that are extremely limited in time and space and
appear at first sight to be purely technical operations, to those of much vaster
spatio-temporal dimensions having considerable social repercussions. To illus-
trate this, one has simply to contrast on the one hand the plans for installing a
long-distance gas pipeline network in a restricted area and, on the other, the
plans for the creation of satellite towns around a capital intended to relieve
congestion. It at once becomes apparent that in the first instance there appears
to be no call for much interdisciplinary collaboration, whereas in the second
case there does.
Actually, however, multidisciplinary groupings may vary considerably,
depending on the type of operation, the contractor and the country.
The examples chosen so far, to illustrate the multidisciplinary character of
problem-focused research, have been taken from sectors in which planning is
vital at the communal, regional or national levels. Let us take a few further
examples, this time from quite different fields of problem-focused research,
namely, crime, old age and the family.
In so far as criminology is concerned with organizing knowledge tending to
combat crime, to contribute to the reintegration of offenders into society and
their treatment, it must call upon a number of disciplines.
The discussions that have taken place amongst criminologists on the general
orientation of their research bring out clearly the choices open to them between
general and problem-focused research and, stemming from the latter, the
diversity of methods and the multidisciplinary character of such research.
‘Must priority be given to research focused on the problents or on the
methods?’ This dilemma was well analysed by Hermann Mannheim in his
recent treatise (Comparative Criminology, London, 1965, vol. I, p. 88-89). The
ideal would be, of course, to study the crucial problems by the most rigorous
methods, but this ideal often proves to be unattainable; should we then perse-
vere with methods that leave much to be desired, or confine our study to second-
ary problems, using excellent methods ? The advocates of scientific criminology
tend to favour the latter alternative. However, in criminology as in medicine,
the urgent need for practical solutions may override the desiderata of scientific
theory. This, moreover, is why the followers of Beccaria did not wait, before
beginning their reforms, till criminology had brought its solutions to the
problems they were facing. The prevailing trend in modern criminology appears
to be problem-focusing, with special emphasis on finding new avenues in
order to improve methodology.