2017 Volume 14 Pages 5-24
The theme of this presidential address is to reconsider research on welfare
sociology in terms of sociological theory and social sciences. From the 1960’s
onward, welfare sociology made an appearance with the emergence of factors
of ascription, such as gender, generation, disability, ethnicity, in society which
achievements are valued. We place welfare sociology, which examines inner
human nature, in contrast with environmental sociology, which considers external
human nature.
We consider low birth rate and aged society, risk society, globalization to be
three modern social change. To analyze these phenomena, we provide several
sociological framework on the rise and fall of middle-range groups, the perspective
of the relation of economy and society, the resource allocation model（ selfhelp,
reciprocity, redistribution, market exchange）, the social placement of relationships
（intimacy, cooperativity, publicness, marketability）, and the problem
of the relation between norm and desire as the origin point of social science.
Finally, with regard to welfare sociology in the 21st century, we have to consider
the relation between individual life and global world, welfare society and inclusive
society as ideal models, and the nature of the field’s contact with public
sociology.
