Social Analysis and Social Action

MY INTEREST OVER the last ten years has moved from the study of smaller social units to that of larger ones, from greater concern with conceptualization to an emphasis on the social relevance of social science, and from a fair segregation of the role of the sociologist and the active citizen to a greater effort to articulate the two. In so doing, I believe my work reflects trends which affect social sciences in general, sociology in particular. I shall focus first on these trends, then briefly discuss a contribution I might have made to their extension. Many a sociological article opens with a definition of a new concept (or relationship) and a discussion of methods to be employed to measure it. This is then frequently followed by presentation of some data relevant to the new concept and relating to it familiar sociological variables (e.g., "the distribution of elephantiasis by age and sex in cities with a population of over one hundred thousand"). Most sociologists, the author included, feel that such combination of theory and methods is the very foundation on which sociology as a science ought to be built and is in fact being constructed. But many of us also feel that something is lacking. What is lacking most is social analysis, the systematic exploration of social issues; that is, concern with the methodological questions of sociological analysis of the great issues of our age, which tend to involve the study of macroscopic units. The subject of social analysis, though, is the issues, not the sociological building stones; the focus is on the instruments to be utilized to elevate the analysis of societal issues, to improve on amateur, intuitive, or