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

Problem-focused research 621
field of functional architecture taking into account the need for exchance of
information and a disciplinary integration of which the criteria change over time.
c. Composition of a team
Although there is a lack of data concerning the effect of sex, age, experience, and
cultural and professional level of various research workers, ‘these variables
have definite effects on the conduct of research (e.g. too great a discrepancy in
age between a director of research and his collaborators), not only on the size
of the team and on its hierarchical organization. It appears, as far as the first
point is concerned, that the team must not be too large, otherwise it risks
reducing the frequency of direct communication between the various research
workers, and it also forces the director of research to devote much of his time
to administrative questions, to the detriment of the work of co-operation.
Bureaucratization still remains in fact the greatest obstacle to organized
researcP.67
d. The structures of authority
Here we have a point which more clearly concerns multidisciplinary research :
the important thing is to avoid ‘too rigid a hierarchy, which may hamper each
specialist in the expression of his opinions’. Referring to American experiments
on small groups, Bastide points out the advantages which a democratic climate
brings with it for carrying out a task. An atmosphere of anarchy is more un-
favourable, because it hinders a coherent integration of data: ‘it is therefore
necessary, as a preliminary, that the rules for the division of labour shall be
well known and that leadership should be established, not for a particular
research worker, but for one of the complementary disciplines ; thus everyone
knows that he is reponsible for a sector of the research but can at all times count
on the co-operation of all the others, the leader intervening only to ensure co-
operation in the direction desired for the research (in accordance with what has
been determined for the agreed aim in view, whether it be therapeutic, preventive,
educational or theoretical)’. 69
e. Statrrses and roles
Bastide draws attention not only to statuses and the roles such as may derive
from shared work, but also such as may be imposed from outside, either by the
institution in which the researchers are working or by society as a whole:
... It is a fact that the various sciences of man do not enjoy the same prestige (given the
general opinion that there is a hierarchy of values sometimes sanctioned by law), and
that every scientist (insofar as he is not devoted to the search for truth, which postulates
that there is no master discipline and no assistant disciplines, but allows himself to be
dominated by the determinism of society as a whole or that of his professional group)
tends to fight to maintain his dominant position; but if progress is to be made in re-
search, it is necessary that the various statuses should be adjusted one to another as
harmoniously as possible. It may even happen that, in our publicity-ridden society, con-
cern for a career or the desire to be noticed may lead some researchers either to publish
their own contributions before the overall results of the co-operative work, or even to
take credit themselves for what is the common property of all. It wil be observed that in