Venster op het Institute of Community Studies

Samenvatting

A report on the work of the Institute of Community Studies, a small group of English social investigators (including M. Young, P. Willmott, P. Marris, and P. Townsend) who began in 1954 to study the family kinship and local community problems of the East End of London. They have published 3 books and a number of articles. 2 of their books are analyzed. A general criticism is that the sociological theory behind these studies is on an elementary level; this is admitted by the authors, who call their work 'an apprenticeship in sociology.' They are in the B. S. Rowntree tradition of surveys and concentrate on 'the poorest and most handicapped members of society,' hoping to discover their needs as a first step to meeting them. Family and kinship in East London, by M. Young and P. Willmott, is a comparative study of a community in East London and a 'new town' settled by people transferred from London, which concentrates on the kinship system. The wider family persists in London; in East London it is matrilocal. One of its main features is its 'self-help nature.' In the 'new town,' an impersonal atmosphere replaces the crowded humanity of East London. The family life of old people: an inquiry in East London by P. Townsend condemns a housing policy which makes contact between fam members more difficult in the housing estates. This condemnation is criticized as the expression of a perhaps unconscious desire, also present in Young and Willmott's book, to have the old kinship patterns preserved. I. Langnas.