sociological methods for the study of immigrant adjustement

Prof. Jerzy ZUB R Z YCKI

1939-1945: active War Service; Member of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire; Polish Silver Cross of Merit with Swords for gallantry.

1949-50: Junior Assistant Lec- turer, Dept. of Economics and Commerce, Polish University Col- lege, London; Assistant Leclurer (1950-51): Lecturer (195152).

1952: Master of Science (Eco- nomics), University of London (Thesis: sociological aspects of international migrations).

1954: Doctor of Philosophy, Free- Polish University Abroad.

October 1952-December 1955: Research Officer, later Senior Research Officer at H.M. Foreign Office, London.

1954-55: University Extension Lec- turer in Sociology, University of London.

Jan. 1956-58: Research Fellow in Demography at the Australian National University: Fellow in Demography: December 1958 lo date: Member, International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.

1961: Senior Fellow in Sociology at the Australian National Uni- versity.

SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS FOR THE

STUDY OF IMMIGRANT ADJUSTEMENT

by Prof. Jerzy ZUBRZYCKI

I. INTRODUCTION : THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE

" GROUP AFFILIATION " APPROACH

THE origin, or better still, the raison 8Ctre of this paper lies in a sense of frustration and disappointment which the writer has experienced in connection with a major empirical study of immigrant adjustment. More specifically it dates to that stage in the processing of the data collected during the survey of immigrants in the Latrobe Valley of Victo- rial (January-March 1959) when the elation and excitement of fieldwork was over and the writer was faced with a hard and unenviable task of quantitative analysis of the data collected during the Survey. I suppose this stage is common enough an experience among social scientists, but in my case the frustation was heightened by a feeling of bitter disappointment. I asked myself what exactly, in sociological terms, is the meaning of the purely quantitative relationships

The term '' Latrobe Valley " is usually meant to include that part of South Gippsland (in the State of Victoria) which begins at its western end and Moe and extends eastwards along the Latrobe River through Yallourn and Morwell to Traralgon. The survey, conducted by the writer in 1959, did not include all these towns but was rather centred on Yallourn and the brown coal industry there, radiating out from Yalfourn, to include the neighbouring towns of Yallourn North, Newborough and Moe.

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Prof. Jerzy ZUB R Z YCKI

1939-1945: active War Service; Member of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire; Polish Silver Cross of Merit with Swords for gallantry.

1949-50: Janior Assistan? Lec- turer, Dept. of Economics and Commerce, Polish University Col- lege, London; Assistant Lecturer (1950-51) : Lecturer (195152).

1952: Master of Science (Eco- nomics), University of London (Thesis: sociological aspects of international migrations).

1954: Doctor of Philosophy, Free- Polish University Abroad.

October 1952-December 1955: Research Oficer, later Senior Research Oficer at H.M. Foreign Ofice, London.

1954-55: University Extension Lec- turer in Sociology, University of London.

Jan. 1956-58: Research Fellow in Demography at fhe Australian National University; Fellow in Demography: December 1958 to date: Member, International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.

1961: Senior Fellow in Sociology at the Australian National Uni- versity.

SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS FOR THE

STUDY OF IMMIGRANT ADJUSTEMENT

by Prof. Jerzy ZUBRZYCKI

I. INTRODUCTION : THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE

" GROUP AFFILIATION " APPROACH

THE origin, or better still, the raison 8Ctre of this paper lies in a sense of frustration and disappointment which the writer has experienced in connection with a major empirical study of immigrant adjustment. More specifically it dates to that stage in the processing of the data collected during the survey of immigrants in the Latrobe Valley of Victo- rial (January-March 1959) when the elation and excitement of fieldwork was over and the writer was faced with a hard and unenviable task of quantitative analysis of the data collected during the Survey. I suppose this stage is common enough an experience among social scientists, but in my case the frustation was heightened by a feeling of bitter disappointment. I asked myself what exactly, in sociological terms, is the meaning of the purely quantitative relationships

The term '' Latrobe Valley " is usually meant to include that part of South Gippsland (in the State of Victoria) which begins at its western end and Moe and extends eastwards along the Latrobe River through Yallourn and Morwell to Traralgon. The survey, conducted by the writer in 1959, did not include all these towns but was rather centred on Yallourn and the brown coal industry there, radiating out from Yallourn, to include the neighbouring towns of Yallourn North, Newborough and Moe.

'

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which I have been able to establish as statistically significant? Looking at my voluminous tables and experimenting with tests of significance and all the conventional statistical measures, I began to wonder whether they (the tables) gave us any insight into the process of migrant adjustment. And it was not long before I realised that one has to look beyond the quantitative relationships revealed by the survey. For example the fact that the Dutch people in the area under study and, in particular, in the town of Moe, have the lowest proportion of persons belonging to migrant organizations of all foreign-born subjects in my sample, reveals nothing at all about the membership of informal groups in the Dutch community. As I have been able to discover in the follow-up survey in the area earlier this year, some sections of the Dutch community have evolved a highly complex network of more or less informal groupings and committees, the membership of which seems to be a significant factor in an individual’s adjustment. From this finding it follows that each individual immigrant is unique in the sense that his pattern of group affiliations is never exactly the same as that of any other individual. He may belong to a different set of groups as compared with another perron, or even if he belonged to the same groups he would “ define his situation ” (in the terms of W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki) with reference to groups or social categories which distinguish him from the 0ther.l And because the same individual belongs to many groups his group affiliations are a sociological determinant of his behaviour. Georg Simmel describes this pattern of overlapping group affiliation when he con- siders the position of an individual ‘‘ standing at the intersection of social circles ”.2

In other words a person’s behaviour is determined sociologically in the sense that the groups of which he is a member “ intersect ” in his person by virtue of his affiliation with them.

The significance of the differing combination of group affiliations has not of course escaped the attention of sociologists and psychologists since the days of Simmel and Cooley; but it has only recently been subjected to empirical testing in the work which was inspired by Mayo’s researches in the field of industrial organization and in the investigations into primary group problems by Lewin and his followers. This approach, however, has so far been only applied in a limited sort of way in the studies of immigrant adjustment.a

The point I want to argue in this paper is that what, for want of a better term, can be called the group affiliation approach should become the focus of future

This has recently been elaborated by Robert K. Merton and others under the heading ‘‘ reference group theory ”.

The German title of Simmel’s work is Die Kreuzung Sozialer Kreise which in Bendix’ transla- tion reads The Web of Group Afiliations, The Free Press Glencoe, Ill., 1955.

8 The pioneering work of a Chicago sociologist, E. 0. Hughes, can be cited as an example. See his paper “ The Knitting of Ethnic Groups in Industry ”, American Sociological Review, XI (1946), pp. 512-519.

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studies of immigrant adjustment. Before I develop my argument, however, I wish to comment briefly on the more conventional methods of studying the adjustment of immigrants that have been evolved since the early years of the century.

11. REVIEW OF PAST STUDIES

The study of immigration has had a long association with Sociology. E. A. Shils, in his review of the achievements and trends in American Sociology, says : '' The study of the life of immigrants was indeed one of the original justifications for the existence of American sociology; it was in part because no other social scientists dealt with the problem created by immigration that sociologists were able to legiti- mate their emergence as a separate academic department ".l

For obvious reasons I cannot trace the development of the branch of sociology which deals with the adjustment of immigrants. That would be a major project in itself involving critical analysis of hundreds of studies which have been undertaken not only in the United States but, also, in a number of other countries of immigration, including France, Belgium, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Israel and many others. All I can do within the space of time allotted to me is to highlight the work of a group of men whose contribution in the field of concepts and methodology has guided the students of ethnic relations all over the world.

Chronologically, the first major work in this field is The Polish Peasant in Europe and America by W. I. Thomas and Florian ZnanieckL2 This work is a monumental instance of the revolt against " armchair " sociology which began about 1900 and has progressed to such an extent that sociologists increasingly regard themselves as natural scientists.

In citing some of the more important contributions which account for the profound influence which The Polish Peasant has had on sociology and psychology, I will have to be very brief. The first of these contributions is a demonstration of the need of studying the subjective factor in social life. This the authors did by introducing the concept of wishes which later became the basis for the concept of attitudes as developed by W. I. Thomas in his study of delinquent girls.3 The " Four Wishes " elaborated by Thomas and Znaniecki (the desires for new experience, recognition, mastery and security), have an objective counterpart in a system of social values. The inter-relationship of values and attitudes constitutes the essence of any social system and by studying behaviour (the connecting link between attitudes

The Present State of American Sociology, Glencoe Ill., 1948, p. 25. 2 The fmt edition of this work was published in five volumes between 1918 and 1920 by R. 0.

Badger, Boston. The Unadjusted Girl, Boston, 1923.

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and values) we can obtain valuable insights into the operation of a social system. Furthermore, to understand a person’s behaviour in any situation, it is necessary to know how he defines that situation, that is : what attitudes does it arouse in him, what values, if any, function in it for him, in short what meanings does it have for him?

If we apply this framework to the study of immigrant behaviour, then the obvious variables for analysis are the three elements that define the immigrant’s situation before and after migration, i.e. the person’s behaviour patterns together with social values and attitudes in the country of origin and country of immigration.

The second major contribution made by the authors of The Polish Peasant follows from the first : it is the concept of disorganization of social attitudes. This disorganization is due to a breakdown of group attitudes and thus involves ( a ) the decay of group opinion, (b) the decay of community solidarity and (c) the causal explanation of these decaying tendencies.

The concept of social disorganization which the authors use quite extensively in tracing the breakdown of the traditional peasant society is of course reminiscent of Durkheim’s anomie. While the concept of the definition of situation is distinctly psychological, the notion of social disorganization belongs par excellence to the field of sociology. Most sociologists, I think, will agree that the central problem of the science of Sociology is the study of the conditions under which human groups come into being, maintain their integration and/or disintegrate. Thus the notions of solidarity and anomie, or social consensus and dissensus, are crucial in any dynamic social investigation. It is the lasting contribution of Thomas and Znaniecki that they have oriented studies of immigration away from purely descriptive accounts of migration to sociologically meaningful categories.

Finally, the third contribution of Thomas and Znaniecki lies in the field of methodology, particularly in connection with documentary materials that reveal the sources and nature of social attitudes. I will not go into any detail at this stage beyond stating that five kinds of human documents were used by the authors of The Polish Peasant. These were : letters, life histories, intimate newspaper accounts, court records and records of social agencies. I think that all participants in this conference have, at one time or another, seen or used records of the kind that we find scattered in the five volumes of The Polish Peasant. There is no need, therefore, to explain precisely how the empirical data were fitted into the conceptual framework. The point to remember, however, is that the use of human documents and, in particular, the use of what is now known as the life history technique stimulated and re-inforced the interest in making Sociology a scientific discipline.

While in the work of Thomas and Znaniecki the emphasis in the matter of theoretical conceptualization was given to social psychology, the contribution of

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Robert E. Park is in the field of Sociology proper. Park’s conceptual system began with the social process of interaction. He developed a set of concepts for the analysis of social interaction. These are : conflict, accommodation, assimilation. He regarded these concepts as sufficient to describe the process of interaction : “ Social control and the mutual subordination of individual members to the community have their origin in conflict, assume definite organized forms in the process of accommodation and are consolidated and fixed in assimilation. ”

Considering assimilation, Park pointed out that this type of interaction is natural and easy in primary groups. If an outsider is actually accepted as a member of a primary group, assimilation automatically .operates. Unconsciously he adopts the ways of the group that accepts him freely. In secondary groups, on the other hand, assimilation is slow. As long as an immigrant is a member of a secondary group he lacks the stimuli to “ become like the others ”.

This distinction between primary group membership and secondary group membership in immigrant adjustment, together with the notion of social interaction, are significant contributions of Park in the field of studies of immigrant behaviour. His third contribution concerns methodology of sociological research. Park, more than any of his contemporaries in America or Europe, was conscious of the significance of the ecological factor in the process of interaction, He developed his ecological approach particularly in urban studies. The urban communities were his laboratories and he was continually at work in them exploring for new ideas. He showed how census records and municipal statistics could be used to study the pattern of distribution of city populations related to such differentials as ethnic origin and occupation. Next he demonstrated how the shifts in the distribution of ethnic groups within a metropolis followed the pattern which he termed “ ecological succession ”. He singled out for special analytical treatment some institutions developed by the immigrants (e.g. the immigrant press) and showed the part they play in the process of adjustment2

In the years since Thomas, Znaniecki and Park directed the interest of a generation of students in the field, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of researchers and others interested in the field of ethnic and cultural relations. But the increase in the number of students in this field has been accompanied by a decrease in the breadth of the individual student’s interest; less curiosity about cultural contact as a general human phenomenon, more intense interest in the special kinds of minority problems which are on the minds and consciences of people in

R. E. Park and E. W. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Chicago 1921, p. 785. a Some of the titles in that intensely interesting set of research volumes known as the Sociological

Series of the University of Chicago and authored or edited by Park, may be cited for the sake of illustration of the empirical research that he sponsored : The Ghetto, The Immigrant Press and its Control, The Gang, The Gold Coast and the Slum.

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Northern America, Western Europe and other major immigrant-receiving parts of the world.

Dozens of studies of these national minorities and individual immigrant groups have been done in the USA. , Western Europe including Britain, Brazil and other Latin American countries, Australia, South Africa, the Far East and so on. The point I want to make now is that few of these studies represent any advance on the conceptual framework and methodology as developed in the writings of Thomas, Znaniecki and Park. It is true, of course, that some refinements have been introduced into the framework of the studies of immigrant behaviour as, for instance, in the distinction between several facets of assimilation (social, economic, political, etc.) and the analysis of the forces at work which favour or hinder the process of adjustment.‘ Again there has been some progress in the methodology of these studies following on the considerable advance in the survey methods used in social investigations. W. Lloyd Warner’s and Leo Srole’s volume in the Yankee City Series2 may be cited as an example of the considerable refinement in the use of personal documents, structured interviews and, above all, statistical analysis of the data illustrating differential rates of advance of selected ethnic groups in the status hierar- chies of the community. On the whole, however, the studies published since the early twenties follow on the tradition of the great Founders of the Sociology of immigrant adjustment. This is true of studies as diverse in their origin and scope as Reynolds’ study of British immigrants in Canada 3, Willems’ researches on the acculturation of the German settlers in Brazil *, Rubin’s book on an Italian community in the Clemens’ work on the cultural assimilation of immigrants in Belgium 6, Demangeon and Mauco’s collection of studies on the immigrant agricul- tural labourers in France ’, and, more recently, my own researches on the adjustment of Polish immigrants in Britains

For a discussion of these concepts and their applicability, see papers presented at a special assembly of International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Cultural Assimilation of .Immigrants, supplement to Population Studies, March 1950.

a The Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups, New Haven, 1945. Reynolds, Lloyd, G. : The British Immigrant: His Social and Economic Adjustment in Canada,

Willems, E. : A aculturapTo dos alemLies no Brasil, Sao Paulo, 1946. Rubin, Vera D. : Fifty Years in Rootville: A Study in the Dynamics of Acculturation of an

Clemens, R. and Others : L’Assimilation Culturelle des Immigrants en Belgique, Liege, 1954. Demangeon, L. and Mauco, G. : Documents pour servir d l’itude des &rangers dans I’agricul-

Zubrzycki, J. : Polish Immigrants in Britain. A Study of Adjustment, The Hague, 1956.

McGill Social Research Series, No. 2, O.U.P., Toronto, 1935.

Italian Immigrant Group in a Rurban Community, New York, 1954.

lure frangaise, Paris, 1939.

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111. NEW PERSPECTIVES IN STUDES OF IMMIGRANT ADJUSTMENT

The resumption of large-scale international migratory movements after World War I1 has been followed by a spate of studies of immigrant adjustment in a number of receiving countries. Now the point I want to argue in this section is that although many of these studies follow in the Thomas-Znaniecki-Park tradition, they never- theless seem to break new ground and open up new perspectives both in their conceptual framework and in the field of methodology. For the sake of convenience T shall label the two approaches developed in these studies the demographic and the frame-of-reference approach.

The demographic approach in the study of immigrant adjustment is concerned with the examination of population as a social order rather than as an aggregate. It is not an exaggeration to say that some of the major conceptualizations which have emerged in Sociology hinge around demographic-ecological considerations. Durkheim’s differentiation of “ mechanical ” and “ organic ” solidarity is explicitly tied to such considerations. Tonnies’ distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesell- schuJt and Redfield’s and Wirth’s treatment of the folk and urban societies are also largely founded on population and ecological differences. Simmel, too, in his essay “ On the Significance of Numbers for Social Life ” discusses the effect of group size on its organization. He points out that smaller groups, on the whole, have qualities that are derived from certain types of interaction, which inevitably disappear when the groups grow larger. The significance of numbers is also implicit in the distinction made by Cooley between primary and secondary groups, for an important characteristic of primary group is the small numbers of members. The consequence of this smallness is “ face to face ” interaction, the absence of formally prescribed conduct and close control of behaviour.

Few studies of immigrant behaviour are explicitly concerned with what I have described as the demographic approach. But I am in full agreement with Frank E. Jones that this approach may lead to a deveIopment of a new sociological formulation of immigrant adjustment.l This can be done in two ways. First by orienting the research worker to the consequence of numbers and the pattern of distribution of immigrants on the type of group integration which is adopted by the immigrants. In other words this approach envisages study of conditions which make it possible to retain or to build anew the system of primary group relationships in the immigrant country. Secondly, the demographic approach emphasizes the consequence of numbers on the system of interaction between the incoming units and the receiving society. This model of analysis treats the receiving group as a social system and examines the interaction between old and new members of a group with respect

~~

‘‘ A Sociological Perspective on Immigrant Adjustment ”, Social Forces, Vol. 35, No. 1 (October 1956), pp. 39-47.

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to the significance of the new members to the achievement of group goals as well as to their significance to the stratification system, system of social control and so on.

As I have already stated, there are few studies explicitly concerned with the demographic approach and none, that I know of, that would examine the full range of theoretical problems involved in this approach and test them empirically. But some recent studies seem to be oriented in the direction which I have designated as the demographic approach. We will find this, for example, in Borrie's analysis of the pattern of settlement of the immigrants from Italy in North Queensland and in the studies undertaken by Price amongst the Italians and Greeks of New South Wales 2, and in McDonald's work on the Italians of Sydney and Northern Vi~tor ia .~ Petersen's study of the Dutch-Canadian movement can be cited as another example of this approach and, in particular, his analysis of the pattern of settlement of the Orthodox Calvinist group4

The second major innovation in the studies of immigrant behaviour is the frame of reference approach which places special emphasis on the psychological aspects of adjustment. It was first used by Eisenstadt in his study of the absorption of Jewish immigrants in Israel. Eisenstadt has shown how the successive waves of the AEiyah (or modern Jewish migration) have absorbed the values of the Yishuw (the Jewish community of Palestine). He is concerned with the degree of identification of the various waves of the Aliyah with the central values of the Yishuw. He examines the differential rates of absorption of the Jews coming from a number of countries and relates them to the immigrants' predisposition to adopt the values and ideologies of the Yishuw.

The frame of reference approach was fully developed (and also given this name) in the writings of Taft.5 The approach developed by Taft presents a new departure in sociological studies of immigrant adjustment. It enables us to study one element of immigrant behaviour-namely the sphere of norms of behaviour and the values underlying these norms which are designated by Taft as a frame of reference. By studying the extent to which the terms of reference of the majority are shared by

Borrie, W. D. : Italians and Germans in Australia: a Study of Assimilation, F. W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1954.

* Price, C. A. (Australian National University), forthcoming publication on Southern European Settlers in Australia.

McDonald, J. : Migration from Italy to Australia, Ph. D. thesis for the Australian National University, 1958.

Petersen, W. : Planned Migration: the Social Determinants of the Dutch- Canadian Movement, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955.

Taft, R. A. : " The Shared Frame of Reference Concept Applied to the Assimilation of Immigrants ". Human Relations, Vol. 6, 1957, pp. 45-55; '' A Psychological Model for the Study of Social Assimilation ", ibid., Vol. 10, 1957, pp. 141-156; " Is the Tolerant Personality Type the Opposite of the Intolerants?" The Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 41, 1958, pp. 397-405; " Ethnic Stereotypes, Attitudes and Familiarity : Australia ", ibid., Vol. 49, 1959, pp. 177-186.

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the minority, we are investigating the degree of assimilation of the minority group and the degree of social integration in the society as a whole. This approach is, of course, in itself sociologically meaningful and also almost valuable as a heuristic device. The “ shared-frame-of-reference ” model can be applied in a number of ways. As his studies and those of Richardson have shown, Taft’s model can be applied to determine the relationship between the degree of assimilation (measured by the extent to which the majority’s frame of reference is shared by the minority) and such differentials as ethnic origin, demographic characteristics (age, sex, con- jugal condition), occupation, period of residence in the country and a host of other psycho-social characteristics. An added advantage in using this approach is that it enables us to measure the extent to which assimilation is a two-way process, i.e. to what extent the terms of reference of the majority and the minority begin to converge.

Iv. PRIMARY GROUPS AND THE GROUP AFFILIATION APPROACH

1 began this paper by arguing why, what I called the group affiliation approach, offered a new departure in the studies of immigrant adjustment. Now, in the light of what I have said in my critical appraisal of the past trends in the studies of immigrant behaviour, I am still prepared to uphold my view. This does not mean that I reject the other approaches that I have examined in this paper. Far from it. I maintain that all of these approaches are essential in the study of immigrant adjustment. The methodological and conceptual foundations of The Polish Peasant are as valuable now as they were 40 or 50 years ago and so is the scheme of interaction and the ecological basis derived from the studies by R. E. Park. The demographic approach offers illuminating insight into the pattern of adjustment while the frame-of-reference model seefis an indispensable refinement of the analyses provided by the first three approaches. Each of these approaches offers a progressive- ly better understanding of the social system within which the adjustment of immigrants takes place and of the pattern of social relationships to which immigration has given rise.

For, in examining the process of adjustment, we very rarely descend to what I think is the true unit of ethnic relations, namely the membership of primary groups. I would argue that clear insight into the functioning of primary groups, of which individual

The understanding so obtained, however, is to my mind incomplete.

Richardson, A. : “ The Assimilation of British Immigrants in Australia ”, Human Relations, Vol. 10, 1957, pp. 157-166; “ Some Psycho-social Characteristics of Satisfied and Disatisfied British Immigrant Skilled Manual Workers in Western Australia ”, ibid., Vol. 10, 1957, pp. 235-248.

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immigrants are members, is crucial for understanding the integration to the larger social structures. It is obvious that the immigrants who become members of large social structures like factories or territorial communities make their decisions and concert their actions within those structures, not by the direct focus of attention on the central authority but, rather, by identification with some individual or individuals with whom they have primary group relationships and who serve to transmit to them ideas from and concerning the larger structure.

This is how George Homans describes the functions of primary group membership in a celebrated quotation from Human Groups:-

''. . Membership in a (primary) group sustains a man, enables him to maintain his equilibrium under the ordinary shocks of life and helps him to bring up children who will in turn be happy and resilient. If his group is shattered around him, if he leaves a group in which he was a valued member, and if, above all, he finds no new group to which he can relate himself, he will, under stress, develop disorders of thought, feeling and behaviour. His thinking will be obsessive, elaborated without sufficient reference to reality; he will be anxious or angry, destructive to himself or to others; his behaviour will be compulsive, not controlled; and if the process of education that makes a man easily able to relate himself to others is itself social, he will, as a lonely man, bring up children who have a lowered social capacity. The cycle is vicious; loss of group membership in one generation may make men less capable of group membership in the next. The civilization that, by its very process of growth, shatters small group life will leave men and women lonely and unhappy ''.I

By focussing his attention on the smallest unit of social interaction-a primary group-a sociologist can obtain a better understanding of the whole universe of discourse. He can do this by isolating for study certain aspects of social life, namely those aspects of face to face relationships (i.e. primary group relationships) through which the social system might operate. This was done, though not in the context of immigration research, by J. A. Barnes in his study of the social organization of Bremnes, a fishing community in West Norway.2 Barnes set out to describe the mechanisms by which leadership and social consensus are obtained in the social life of Bremnes. He did that by examining the network of social ties based on kinship, friendship and neighbourhood. As I seeit, he was trying to determine the pattern of group affiliation of all adult members of his community as a guide towards membership of these primary groups I have just mentioned.

G. C. Homans : The Human Group, London 1951, p. 457. J. A. Barnes : " Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish ", Human Relations

Vol. 7, No. 1 (February 1954), pp. 39-58.

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The re-orientation of the studies of immigrant adjustment towards primary groups and the group affiliation approach will involve a good deal of careful planning, not only in the methodology of fieldwork but, also, in the design of the conceptual framework. The latter aspect, in particular, needs some emphasis if some of the major errors of the American primary group approach are to be avoided. These errors have involved a disregard of the wider structural conditions of primary group formation, maintenance or disintegration and a concentration on those variables which are to be found within the primary group situation itself or in its immediate environment.

On a more practical as well as empirical level, the group affiliation approach resolves itself in the following requirements of the strategy of social research.

Firstly, the approach involves a recognition of the existence of numerous face- to-face or primary groups in the larger groups or communities amongst the immigrants and in the receiving society. Once we accept this important sociological datum we cannot proceed to generalize about the immigrants and talk in terms of modal behaviour in a group of people of the same ethnic origin. Thus, to refer back to my original example, I cannot talk about the Dutch community of Moe in Victoria as if it were a homogeneous group in terms other than common ethnic origin. The Dutch community in Moe is simply a collection of individuals of common ethnic origin who happen to live within the boundaries of a local government unit. In the absence of organized corporate life of the Moe Dutch there are few common ties in that collectivity. It is only when the research worker descends, as it were, to a lower level of social organization that he begins to discover nuclei of primary groups and committees that play a crucial part in the process of adjustment.

This involves the use of a frame-of-reference model in which the system is assumed to have a set of values governing the patterns of behaviour of its members including their attitudes to immigrants.

Next, the research worker should concern himself with a notion of equilibrium in the new social system created as a result of immigration. This phase of research will involve a further application of the frame-of-reference approach to measure the extent of social integration, an assessment of the emerging leadership pattern (including an examination of the position of leaders of immigrant origin) and description of the part played by immigrants in solving problems common to all social systems such as division of labour, distribution of awards and social control.

Secondly, the receiving society should be treated as a social system.

This failure to perceive the relevance of variables which are involved in the economic-ecological system is due, perhaps to the recruitment of the investigators in the field of " small group " research in the U.S. from laboratory and clinical psychology. See the assessment of this type of research in a paper by E. A. Shils : " The Primary Group in Current Research " in The Policy Sciences, by Daniel Lerner and Harold D. Lasswell (Eds), Stanford University Press, 1951.

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The three requirements of research strategy I have just outlined represent, to my mind, three chronological stages of enquiry. Taken together they provide an orderly means of analysing the process of adjustment in which we move from the particular to the general, from the level of primary group relationships to the emerging social system. It is out of the cumulative findings of such simple, particular, often highly abstracted, empirical researches that the material for valid general sociological theories must come.

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