Anthropologists and linguists share the term “informant” to discribe the man from whom they learn. The “investigator” of some other social sciences may lead neglect the subject matter that inheres in ratturally occurring contexts, because his thought plays a major role throughout the investigations. An “informant” is regarded as a collaborator in the activity of providing structural description. Ethnographic and linguistic description, which does not present a material phenomenon, requires specialized techniques of processing observed phenomena such that they can construct a theory of how their “informant” has organized the same phenomena. It is the theory constructed by “investigator” and “informant”.
In this paper, I propose a thumbnail sketch of the theoretical and methodological background in the handling of data as model, not as phenomenon itself, with particular focus on the relationship between “investigator” and “informant”, by tracing from Levi-Strauss' general theory of kinship to W.H. Goodenough's monumental declaration stimulated a development which is called “The new ethnography”.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to look into Durkheim's contribution to the general theory of Symbolism by examining the symbolism in his theory of punishment and religion. Concerning this problem, we must begin by clarifying the difference between Sign and Symbol in the semiotical terms. According to S.K. Langer, Sign-function consists of three terms : Sign-Object-Subject ; Symbol-function consists of four terms : Symbol-Object-Conception-Subject, and it is the Conception, or “Thought” as Ogden= Richards call it, that Symbol directly “means”.
Now one must be aware that Durkheim's “Punishment”, “Totem (Sacred thing)” and “Ritual” are Symbol-vehicles as well as Sign-vehicles. Punishment, Sacred thing and Ritual as Signs indicate “society as chose or category”, and these vehicles as Symbols connote “society as ultimate value elements”. Besides, the Sign-aspects of Punishment and Ritual are related to the manifest social functions (the prevention of crime and the supply of food); and these Symbol-aspects are related to the latent social functions (the refortification of the solidarity of community).
This dualism of meaning-function is considered from the next diachronic point of view. There is an alternation of Sign and Symbol in the world of meaning, each process of which corresponds to the phase of profane life characterized by a factual order and that of sacred life characterized by a normative order. And it is a collective symbolic action called Ritual that causes this transformation of meaning.
Durkheim's theory of punishment and religion, as we have said above, could afford the analytical framework for Symbolism in general.

View full abstract

Prior to World War II the employment rate of woman workers in Japan was generally low due to the feudalistic social system ; after the war, however, female workers rapidly advanced into many fields.
But in actuality, because of prevailing economic conditions in Japan, there are problems of discribimatory treatment on account of sex in various work positions including cases of companies demanding resignation of married women.
Under present circumstances female instructorship in public primary schools is an enviable profession on account both of its long history and of the high social esteem bestowed to it, not to mention its favorable economic and work conditions. Thus, the number of female teachers has now reached over half of all Japanese public primary school teachers.
With this as background knowledge a survey was conducted, by mailing method, of 600 female instructors in public primary schools in the Tokyo Metropolitan area which was divided into four districts for the purposes of the survey : 150 each sampled from the central (Chuo-ku, Chiyoda-ku), downtown (Adachi-ku, Edogawa-ku), uptown (Suginami-ku), and suburbian (the three Tama counties and Machida city) districts respectively. The data were classified by 'age groups ' and ' schools graduated ' and the level of social awareness and social class identification were studied of each group. The results indicate that there are rooms for a reexamination of the teacher training programs now in effect in Japan.
Female workers are expected to further increase in Japan in the near future partly due to the widespread use of household durable goods as well as the reduction in average family size. Under these circumstances female instructorship, as a profession most advantageous of all female positions, is expected to absorb more and more female labor, and it is most urgent that more importance should be attached to its problems.

View full abstract

In the writer's view, the Science of Human Society is divided into four sub-categories :
the science of material property (roughly parallel to economics) the science of social power (roughly parallel to political science)
the science of human bonds (roughly parallel to sociology in the narrow sense of the word)
the science of social information (roughly parallel to culture sciences).
This paper is an attempt to frame a rudimentary formulation of the science of social information as a social science discipline. There is yet no such a trial as to unfold a systematic theory of social information, though, as we see, much research materials as well as theoretical contribution is accumulated in the field of the study of social information phenomena.
The integral theory of social information must include all the theoretical achievement in the study of mass communication, information system science such as MIS, NIS, as well as Marxian ideology theory, Weberian religious sociology, Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, logics, liguistics and structuralism.
The theoretical sub-division of the science of social information is into two :
' object' science type ; according to the kind of social information analyzed
, 'method' science type ; according to the kind of the process in which information is produced, exchanged, accumulated, transformed and consumed.
The fundamental difficulty in this 'underdeveloped' science, in the writer's view, are as follows :
(i) theory-building concerning the possibility and the form of the existence of social information (or human knowledge); the writer defines social information as the total information factual as well as imaginary about the environments in which social actor individual as well as collectivity acts. He thinks that the approach must be biological, neurological, psychological and sociological.
(ii) categorization of various social information ; the writer thinks it is productive to use the categorization, namely cognitive, cathectic, evaluative and directive.
(iii) communication and media are also the items demanding the integral theory.
Seeing the contemporary society, the important problems of social information phenomena, in the writer's opinion, are as follows :
(i) micro information phenomena v. macro information phenomena, concretely how the personal, individual information converts itself into the social, collective decision ?
(ii) elite or professional information v. mass or non-professional information, concretely how democracy is possible with specialization in treating social information ?
(iii) rational, cognitive information v. irrational, evaluative information
(iv) the technical aspect v. the semantic aspect of information
(v) the majority information v. the minority information
Though the points above mentioned do not exhaust all the important problems concerning social information phenomena, the paper being a introductory formulation of the science, further discussion is to be postphoned for the next opportunity.

View full abstract

A great number of analytical schemes have been developed in the history of the studies of cities. These are divided into two types : qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. In our own study we made an attempt to understand the characteristics of cities by means of the principal component analysis within the quantitative analysis. By this we think we were able to understand the relationships between many variables that characterize and differentiate the cities, thus minimizing the important stress of any preconceived order that the researcher might have, and maximizing the importance of the underlying order in the data. Thus we think we were able to find out the parsimonious set of variables that account for the complicated urban phenomena.
We planned to cover all the cities in the Kinki area except those of Mie prefecture. Three separate analyses were made ; one with 63 cities and 24 variables in 1955, the second with 74 cities and 28 variables in 1960, the third with 75 cities and 28 variables in 1965. Although an attempt was made to include as wide a range of variables as possible relating to demographic, social and economic characteristics, the coverage was not complete. The three separate analyses yielded almost the same set of factors. Six common factors were extracted at each period, but over 70 per cent of the variance was explained by the first three factors only. Then we used these three factors as a basis for our study. Further we proceeded to the analysis by using factor scores, namely, we dealt with the tolerance limit of the factor scores and the characteristics of the cities, the relationship between factor scores and city groupings, the ideal city and actual city, and Markov chain model.
Indeed, there may be several shortcomings and imperfections in this study, but these applications turned out to be useful for analyzing the characteristics of the cities. Furthermore, we will first of all classify the area to be studied into several classes by means of the latent profile analysis, and then carry out the principal component analysis in each class. Also, we intend to compare one class with another.

View full abstract