The Development of a Theory of Social Structure and Personality by Melvin L. Kohn

Author:Melvin L. Kohn [Kohn, Melvin L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Social Theory, Social Classes & Economic Disparity
ISBN: 9781785270673
Google: qdWTDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Anthem Press
Published: 2019-04-30T04:15:38+00:00

Chapter 11

Japan

For much of the time that we were working on the US–Polish comparative study, my collaborators and I were also working on a comparative study of Japan and the United States. It came about this way. A noted Japanese sociologist, Ken’ichi Tominaga, had decided that he would develop such a comparative study of Japan and the United States. He secured the funds to do so from Japanese sources, drew up preliminary plans, and arranged to travel to the United States to meet potential US collaborators. I was one of the Americans to whom he wrote. I gladly responded that my collaborators and I would welcome him and his colleagues.

Tominaga brought along two colleagues, one of whom, Atsushi Naoi, was to be the actual investigator. Tominaga wanted only to be the advisor to the study. The survey was to be geographically limited, to the Kanto plane, a fairly large area that included Tokyo. We would have preferred a national study, but we were willing to settle for this more limited geographic area, which was all that they could afford. In any case, the idea of being able to add a democratic Asian society to our comparison of a capitalist society and a socialist one was immensely appealing. We could take into account not only the formal organization of society but also an East–West dimension to the cultural differences already under consideration.

A considerable potential problem, which we fully recognized from our early challenges in Torino, was that the Japanese had no National Opinion Research Center, like NORC in Chicago, nor any institution, such as the Polish Academy of Sciences, staffed with experienced survey researchers, to actually carry out the surveys. Naoi was to carry out the study himself. He already had experience conducting first-rate surveys, though, so with some misgivings, we decided that we would gamble on his competence. The study was to be owned by the Japanese, but so were the US and Polish studies formally owned by their own people; the crucial factor was that we would cooperate in the analyses.

Here I had to admit, that although I was certainly prepared to participate in the analyses, the amount of time that I could devote to the study was limited by my commitment to the Polish study, my administrative duties as a lab chief, and my growing involvement in political activities. But I had another collaborator whom I thought perfect for this job, Carmi Schooler. Carmi was not only eager, he was, in fact, a world-class collaborator, as Bill Caudill could attest on the basis of their joint studies of Japan, and Len Pearlin and I could attest, since our best studies had been done with him. Moreover, he had a talent rare among American scholars: He was fluent in Japanese.

As the conversations continued, Tominaga grew ever more excited. He liked the fact that we knew how to do linear structural equation analyses and were teaching the Poles how to do them. We could simply add the Japanese scholars to our lessons.

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