The Progress of Family Sociology in the Postwar Era and its Contemporary Phases

Abstract

The aim of this paper is mainly to throw light on the general outline of the development of Family Sociology over the past 20 years, which is the task of this anniversary theme session. In retrospect, from the late 1980s, the preliminary period of the Japan Society of Family Sociology, to the present, there was a grouping period seeking a new paradigm of Family Sociology, as the Nuclear Family Paradigm and Group Theory Paradigm, on which postwar Family Sociology had been relying, lost momentum and persuasiveness. For these 20 years, extrication from a dependence on Nuclear Family Paradigm and Group Theory Paradigm and seeking a new paradigm have been the overriding issues for Family Sociology. Both sides of the institution and research dyad before the 1980s had maintained their cohesive force but they were divided and became widely dispersed. This paper plans to give an overview by depicting the outline of the past 20 years on both sides, considering thereafter the present circumstances and future prospects of current Family Sociology.

Paradigm Shifts in Japanese Family Sociology

“…In the review article on the 20th anniversary of The Japan Society of Family Sociology I quoted from earlier, Ikeoka states that "if we assume that the period until then was one with a cohesive power in both organization and research aspects, then these last twenty years have been one where both of these leave their fixed paths to wander at will in many directions." "The Japan Society of Family Sociology has been like a ship out at sea searching for a safe port, unable to dock, so it continues to wander the oceans" (Ikeoka, 2010). Ten years ago, Morioka also commented that "what we did thirty years ago was a deliberate refinement of a paradigm that was beginning to appear.…”