Japanese Sociological Review
Online ISSN : 1884-2755
Print ISSN : 0021-5414
ISSN-L : 0021-5414
Volume 6, Issue 1
Displaying 1-13 of 13 articles from this issue
  • “Laboratory-Experiment” vs. “Experimental Social-Reformation”
    Juichi Oyabu
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 2-28,146
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    (1) The stage of speculative experiment : From R. Bacon's “Opus Majus” to the influential thesis of Marx and Engels, there are many ideas and practical movements which have been imbued with the spirit of amelioration and reform. These speculative experiments are the spiritual-historical characher of experiment.
    (2) The stage of scientific experiment : Lewin (field theory) and the others was prepared to make ability to experiment a condition of science. But there are many practical and fundamental obstacles and two serious phases of these are : (a) experiment in artificial group is too limited to bring validity of social significance in the findings, (b) experiment in natural group has no bearing on scientific accuracy and real-life condition would effectively restrain irresponsible social experimentation. Therefore, in “laboratory-experiment”, one extreme merit to be avoid rests in the accuracy with which it can be used to test hy-pothesis. The other extreme merit of “experimental social-reformation” lies in the direct benefit that the experimentalist derives from 'doing something with' his subject-matter; in this case, their ability to help will be partly determined by their own identification with their adopted community and with its aims.
    (3) Two directions of the experiment and the problem of its integration : Thus, the experiment have two directions in posse, one is “laboratory-experiment”, The other. “experimental social-reformation”. But the former has not the validity of real significance, the later lacks accuracy for responsible reform. To supplement these weak points mutually, it is necessary to integrate these two directions. And the first step to it, is to pull together some relevant findings in laboratory and in field. The most hopeful approach to it, is, on the one hand, to immerse oneself first in the length and breadth of the particular problem of concern, and then to bring real significance into laboratory, on the other hand, to bring tly accuracy for responsible reform, with its trial-prepense “laboratory-experiment” Thus, it seems to me, the concept of “reference group” and the idea of “inter-disciplinary approach” (Sherif, M.) would be very useful. When these weak points are supplemented mutually in this way, social science can gain the strange power, like the atomic bomb.
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  • Kazuo Aoi
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 29-50,146
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    1. Although the 'Experimental Method' has played a central role in natural scientific investigation, in the field of the social sciences it has remained in a primitive stage. There are many approaches to the problem of experimental methods in sociological research, and marked differences in this respect between German, French and American methodology.
    (1) German methodology (as, especially, in M. Weber's Verstehende Soziologie or H. Freyer's Soziologie als Wirklichkeitswissenschaft) has emphasized the specific character of sociology and asserted that the essential purpose of sociology can be attained only if the experimental method is excluded from the methods of sociological research. This stand-point may be called the 'essential (ist) ' approach to experimental methods.
    (2) By contrast, French methodology (as, for example, in E. Durkheim's Les Regles de la Methode Sociologique) has directed attention to the process of logical inference and consequently, following J. S. Mill's system of logic, has claimed that sociological experiment is impossible. (Essentially, Durkheim's 'concomitant method' or 'comparative method' is not experimental.) This standpoint may be called the 'formal logical' approach.
    (3) Lastly, in American methodology (see, for example, G. Lundberg's Social Research) 'the methods of social research' means 'the techniques of gathering data' and methodology begins and ends with the consideration of methods of research and has thus been largely concerned with the technical difficulties of sociological experiment. This may be called the 'technical' approach.
    2. The origin of these different standpoints may be traced back to the traditional character of sociology in these countries and to the peculiar nature of their social structures, but, at all events, these have been the main barriers to experimental sociology.
    What, then, is experiment ? An experiment consists of two elements : the 'verification of hypotheses' and the 'creation of experimental conditions'. The former is the theoretical aspect and the latter the practical aspect. If we neglect either one we shall fail not only to grasp the essential nature of experiment (as, for example, did E. Greenwood, who neglected the practical aspect and included what he calls 'ex-post-facto experiment' in the category of experiment) but also to understand the nature of inference from individual instances to generalisations, the advance from correlation to causation, or the practical significance of experiment. From these points of view, we must, I think, include only Goode and Hatt's 'quasi-experiment', French's 'field experiment', Greenwood's 'projective experiment' and 'stochastical experiment', in the category of experiment proper, and must exclude from it 'natural experiments' ex-post-facto experiment', 'trial and error experiment' and 'controlled observation study. (These are preliminary stages to experiment itself.)
    3. The aim of experimental procedure is the determination of geno-typical phenomena or relationships ; the discovery of 'laws'. If such 'laws' can be discovered they will not only influence sociological concepts and theories, they will bring sociology itself out of the stage of verstehen or 'interpretation' to that of 'application'. For the 'futility' of sociological studies depends not only on their purpose, but also on the character of traditional sociological theories and the type of 'laws' they have been concerned to establish.
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  • Toichiro Koseki
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 51-67,145
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The object of this article is to clarify the changing meaning of 'social factor' in Emile Durkheim's sociological theory. The social factor was originally prescribed in the definition of collective conscience in his Social Division of Labor. Here, Durkheim's definition was to see in it the common elements of beliefs and sentiments of the same society. However, by this definition he could not explain the social factor behind the orgainzed society based on division of labor. Thus he introduced much ambiguous concept of 'cult of inbividual' and this individualistic element could become a kind of collective conscience. But by lack of precision, his concept of collective conscience has implied something superior over the individuality. His study of suicide presented this aspect clearly in his explanation of anomic suicide. From this point, his social factor has gradually changed its meaning and it was developed into some normative factor. This identification of social factor with normative factor became clear and of great importance in his progress of study in the field of moral and education. In his last work on religious life, his social factor has come to involve religious meaning. Here his 'collective conscience' has lost its original meaning as a analytical instrument arriving at a superior being over individual or the best which man has in himself. This transformation of the social factor was due to his methodological difficulty of separating the subjective element from the function element-action-which are the two components of the consensus in society.
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  • Several Cases in Toshin District
    Shuhei Yamamuro, Harunori Hattori
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 68-96,144
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    We think it as a great step forward progress in the study of the family that in positivistic stukies on the structure of the family, measurement of family size, ratios of relationships and number of generations were brought under the same criteria, and this made possible the comparative studies of the results in accordance with differences of age, districts, races and so on. We think, however, it is necessary to grasp not merely the structure but the vital processes from the points of view of functions so as to make differences clear, for we have made these facts clear as such studies progress, for example, modern family has often the same composition as that of in primitive society. But many of former discourses on functions of the family are not based upon concrete data and naturally they are abstruct. In addition, their discourses are conflicting because they had no single point of view.
    On the other hand, it is true that the positivistic studies on particular functions of the family have been made for a long time, but few of them have been grasped as a whole and placed particular functions in it. In this sense, Murdock put the minimum number of functions of neuclear family, therefore, family in general, as four. Against his study, M. E. Spiro has raised a question basing on Greel's concrete data of agricultural collective. (cf. American Anthoropologist, Oct. 1954) We are interested in these recent movement, however, we are afraid that the problem of function of the family might involve the danger of becoming meaningless unless we devise general and objective criteria and base our study upon them. We are, therefore, eager that such criteria will be determined by international cooperation, but temporally we made a table of 392 kinds of function on the basis of occupational classification table in order to measure rural family with it, first of all. We utilized occupational classification table, because we believed such method would be quite effective as the method of measuring functions of the family, in other words, to measure how many occupations are involved in family.
    Now, in a rural village in which rice culture and sericulture are main progessions in central part of Japan proper (at 138, 19' east longitude, 36, 173' latitude, 613 metres above sea level), we could get the following table which shows the results of measurment on two families of three generations (Case I & II, Family Number 10 & 6) and two neuclear family (Case III & IV, Family Number 5 & 6)
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  • In Relation to Their Reference Group
    Kenji Tamura, Kohji Kashikuma
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 97-109,143
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Special efforts have been made to unravel the crime and delinquency. Among them, sociological researches have been focused on the differences between the environment of delinquents and that of non-delinquents. And these studies have placed the emphasis on the multitude of environmental factors which work together in causing delinquency.
    But there are some questions, very important from the view-point of prevention, prediction and therapy, which sociology has so far proved unable to solve. An important reason for this is, probably, that these studies has sought the interrelations of objective environments -broken homes, ecnomic conditions, etc.-with delinquency. This is confirmed by our case studies presented in this report. Namely, in our 56 delinquents' cases studies, 34 cases have revealed that one of siblings growing up in the same environment has fallen into delinquency, while others have not. These materials suggests that a subjective environment always interposed between the objective environments and the individual, and that it is much more significant for his personality formation and behavior. In other words, personality is not determined by objective environments or conditions, but mainly by his subjective environments.
    That is to say, it seems to be the integration of his experiences. Therefore, even if the objectiveenvironment is the same for a number of people, different individuals will obtain different experiences and will develope accordingly different personalities.
    From this point of view we intended to analyze the subjective envirnment of delinquents in terms of their reference group. The emotion as a clue of the subjective environment and personality. -We use term emotion as “passive reaction of subject, which is integrated into personality”. (Its active reaction is revealed as a behavior.)
    Thus, by the case studies, we tried primarily to elucidate how human relations of delinquents on their emotions. Secondly, we examined the dynamic and functional interrelations, of the needs, value and subjective environment inside of personality.
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  • [in Japanese]
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 110-116
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 116-122
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 123-125
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 126-129
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 129-132
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 132-133
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 134-137
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 1955 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 138-141
    Published: July 30, 1955
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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