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

Problem-focused research 603
An examination of the research themes on the agenda of the most recent
congresses of gerontology reveals how great an amount of problem-focused
and muitidisciplinary research is being carried on in this sector. An analysis
of the programmes of the International Association of Gerontology congresses
shows that these investigations are being undertaken in the fields of psychology,
experimental psychology, sociology, demography, economics and social medicine.
Paul Paillat, having established this classification, concludes :
lt is obvious at once that certain subjects can be dealt with only by a multidisciplinary
team, for the fact that they are associated with a particular theme does not conceal the
variety of problems raised and avenues of approach open to those tackling them ...
It is, in any case, significant that the problem of the link-up between research and the
application of its findings is represented in these programmes. This concern is not so
clearly apparent in meetings of scientists dealing with other disciplines. This is in fact
the mark of its urgency; societies do not know how to deal with this gift of progress,
the mass appearance of a new age in life, the age of retirement.39
One of the two main sections of the sixth International Congress of Gerontology
was devoted to the relationship between social science and welfare; the
thirty-two communications submitted derived from various branches of
psychology (differential, experimental, social and educational), sociology and
political economy. All contained statements of results suited to being turned
to account within the framework of an old age policy.40
Amongst research subjects the family attracted the moralists and social
workers before it did the scientists. The history of research in this field is in
part the history of the determination and practical concern of individuals to
act and render services. In their International Bibliography of Research on
Marriage and the Family, Joan Aldous and Reuben Hil point out that still
more recently numerous studies have been centred on aspects that are of
special relevance in marriage counselling and family therapy.41
Given the complexity of the family phenomenon and the need to throw
light on it from various angles in order to gain a fuller and more revealing picture
of it, many sciences have understandably found it to be a rich field of
research. All research work focused on the fostering of family life and the
relationships upon which it is based (parents - children, husband - wife), and
the harmonious accomplishment of endogenous or exogenous family functions,
involves the participation of various disciplines such as psycholoy, social
psychology, sociology, psychiatry or of such specialized branches as child
development or home economics.
Practical and -utilitarian concerns were for a long time uppermost; more
theoretical and multidisciplinary research made a tardy debut in this field. It
has been suggested that, when this did occur, it was to provide the conceptual
ground-work for empirical and scattered investigations, in order to give them
greater intellectual coherence and to boost the credit of a developed sector of
research in which there was a too exclusive concern to satisfy the needs for service
and action on behalf of the family. This evolution of theory has emerged
very sharply in the United States, where it was possible to present the elaboration
of conceptual frames of reference borrowed from various disciplines as the