Abstract
A most important contemporary task of family sociology lies in studying dynamic aspects of the family. Accordingly, family change and family development are the two major fields of research, while the methods worthy of special note for research along these lines are historical study making use of documents and panel interviewing. In addition to studies of dynamic aspects from the dimension of time, contemporary family sociology requires cross-national comparative studies in the space dimension and also cumulative studies on organizational lines.
These tasks will be valid by and large for other branches of contemporary sociological enquiries. How these emerge and what characteristics they demonstrate in such a field as family sociology where one may boast of rich accumulation of significant contributions is the problem which the present article attempts to discuss.
The author acknowledges other tasks facing contemporary family sociology than those to be treated here. They will be handled in the articles that follow in this special issue. In this sense, one can say that the subject of the present paper will hopefully be treated throughout the whole issue.
