In most of Marx' important works, the concept Assoziation apperes as the core concept of his theory of socialism, which he viewed as overcoming capitalism. This theory, one of the constituent parts of Marxism, has not been investigated enough, and therefore his conception of Assoziation, as well as those of Kontrolle and Verkehr, has not been analysed as such.
His heritage from French utopian sociolism can be found in this theory, but this was reconstructed in his historico-materialistic setting, Marx' Assoziation is relevant to Saint-Simon's conception rather than to Fourier's but Marx treated Assoziation as the socialist relation of production. By the socialist revolution Assoziation would arrive at its full realization.
But Marx did not consider it as possible only after revolution. The cooperation and labor movements in the capitalist world are its prototypes and the struggle for the workingmen's control of production will lead to the essential realization of it. I relate this development of Assoziation to the concept Verkehr, which had vanished midway and was thereafter revived in the organization theory of the International.
This is an attemt to establish group theory in Marxist sociology.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical reformulation of the structural functional analysis.
One of the most tragic of this representative analysis in sociology lies in its imcompleteness in logical construction. From this imcompleteness come many confusion of thinking. So I do a trial for reformulation as follws :
I. I give working definitions to the fundamental terms of this analysis after examing some of the usages.
II. I discuss the fundamental theoretical issues of this analysis. This analysis contains many methodological problems that should be solved before it can claim the credit for a scientific method. These polemic issues are, in my opinion, as follows ;
(1) Is it a tautology? (Tautological Trap)
(2) How to operationalize this analysis? (Operational Trap)
(3) How to find to a criterion to measure the extent and the level of a function? (Criterion Trap)
(4) Is it a teleology? (Teleological Trap)
(5) Can this analysis be used for the analysis of conflict in society? (Conflict Trap)
(6) Can this analysis be used for the analysis of dynamical change of society? (Dynamical Trap)
III. After examining these polemic issues, I give a theoretical model of my own to make this analysis a specified tool for social research. I postulate three working axioms and construct upon them main principles of this analysis, among which the duality plinciples and the mechanism of double adjustment play the major part.

View full abstract

The study of “traditional” young men's groups (Wakamono-gumi) in Japan has been focussed mainly on the customary institution of young men's lodging house and on the function of marital control, both from the viewpoint of Japanese folklore, and has not analyzed its transformation in relation to village structure. This report considers the traditional groups as the original pattern for new young men's associations (Seinen-dan) since late Meiji, and involves consideration of how the former was recognized, using the example of Izu fishing village. It considers first the traditional group in village structure, and then pursues how it was transformed in relation to inner factors in the village as well as nationwide conditions. The results of the research are as follows :
(1) The traditional group was first organized as a substructure of the fisherman's boss group in the fishing village under the feudal system. The Community structure that was organized by the boss group and its fishing workers (the former having special fishing rights and latter not) had reflected its dual character on the traditional young men's group, and there its exclusive character had produced two groups : the one consisting of young fishermen and the other of young merchants and handicraftsmen.
(2) Since the middle of Meiji the establishment of public social systems, the reformation of fisheries laws and the development of fishing tecniques relaxed gradually the solidarity of the boss group based on inshore fishing grounds. Next, united body of traditional groups was organized by governmental guidance to new young men's associations on the level of local autonomous entities that generally included several national villages. Therefore the association had dual character : that of the united body to be used for military forces, and that of each traditional group as a branch of body adhering closely to each village system. The coexistence of the two different groups was ensured by the homogeneous gemeinschaftlich character proper to their structure. This coexistence continued essentially to the end of the World War II.
(3) After the War (1945) with the dissolution of the united body, the young men's associations started. But since 1955 socio-economical changes have not allowed all young men in the village to be organized as a unit. So there are many different small young men's groups now.
The organization principles of young men's groups have experienced the following changes : (a) gemeinschaftlich (b) “gemeinschaftlich-nationalistic”, (c) individualistic. The change of these principles is founded on the structural character of the fishing village in each time.

View full abstract

The aim of this paper is to clarify the educational function of the nuclear family in terms of educational sociology.
Some sociologists regard the educational function of the family as important, but there are two types of considerations : one is keeping up the family group and the other is building up the personality of individuals in a family.
Murdock, Shimizu and Koyama support the former, Parsons is representative of the latter. We think that the former is the usage in Sociology of family, and the latter is the usage in sociology of education.
But then we can maintain both meanings as research methods for personality and family in sociology of education.
The first implies that, as the central focus of the process of child development lies in the psychological or biological viewpoints, the family has influenced the child as one of many emvironments.
The other implies that if many patterns of family lives in the ethnic group or the community are classified by cross cultural analysis, it will be established that the personality of the individual is built by the influence of the family.
Finally, the former will contribute to the psychology of development, and the latter will contribute to ethnology.
We propose a third viewpoint as a research method in sociology of education. It seems to us that both personality and family are subsystems in the same social system, and they imply the process of differentiation for changing independently, but at certain points of contact they interact with each other.
Accordingly, when the personality of the child internalizes the institutional values (culture) in a given society, he needs his parents' aid as socialization agents.
We assume that from this point of view a research method in sociology of education may be established.

View full abstract

A theoretical framework to explore the urban social structure is required to answer the question “what is the basic structure of city”. Such a framework may comprise five perspectives : “area”, “social action”, “social group”, “social class and social stratum”, and “institutional complexes”.
The urban structure as analysed from the perspective of “area”, called areal structure or community structure, has been so far the exclusive subject matter of the human ecologist, but it has to be studied not ecologically but sociologically.
The perspective of “social action” has not been given due consideration, notwithstanding its basic methodological importance. Analysis from this perspective may be made in terms of three conceptually distinctive “systems of action” -economic, cultural and political.
The perspective of “group” directs our attention to the analysis of the group structure in the city. Groups to be taken up in this respect are : industrial groups, family groups, labor groups, locality groups, political, groups, cultural groups, study or recreation groups, and aggregative groups. Group structure in the urban society may be made clearer by exploration into the interrelationships among these categories of groups than by the study of each category.
Regarding the perspective of “social class and social stratum, ” the most important point is the conceptual distinction between “class” and “stratum”, and empirical analysis of the structure has greatly complicated these two concepts. The focus of such analysis may be on the middle class.
The perspective of “institutional complexes” is to relate the social structure of the city to the total society. The former indeed constitutes a part of the latter, but it is a pivotal part. Thus it may be a dependent variable on one hand, but an independent variable on the other in this perspective.
Studies in urban sociology that have been madethus far from each of these five perspectives indicate that the level of progress and the degree of elaboration varies with different perspectives, and that the difference of the basic viewpoint, derived from the difference of schools one follows, still remains unsettled. Hence, what we need now is the fundamental reexamination of urban studies, even if it may seem a mundane reexamination.

View full abstract