Research on racial relations

The present volume is the second in a series re printing articles drawn from the International Social Science Journal, or its predecessor, the International Social Science Bulletin. The articles here reproduced originally appeared in the International Social Science Bulletin, Volume X (1958), No. 3 and in the Inter national Social Science Journal, Volume XIII (1961), No. 2. To them has been added a specially commis sioned study covering the Pacific area, and a select up-to-date bibliography of major references on racial relations.

As was stated in the foreword to the 1958 issue, 'it is partly because racial tensions have taken on a symbolic significance that they are now a favourite subject for social scientists; but the abundance of the literature devoted to them is also due, in part, to their dynamic character and to the wide range of subjects they involve. The hope of discovering a remedy for racial conflicts helps to explain this large scale mobilization of scientific resources.... In this extensive domain of the social sciences, it would seem impossible to gain further knowledge without making an attempt at this stage to sum up and ana lyse the general trends to be observed in research methods and in the choice of problems to be studied.

... It is in the hope of offering a kind of bird's-eye view of the present state of scientific research in the field of racial relations that Unesco... has striven to gather and assemble a documentation on race relations, including trend reports on current re search in this field'.

The articles published in 1958 covered Britain, East Africa, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America. The other geograph ical areas except the Pacific-were covered by articles which first appeared in 1961 in Volume XIII, No. 2. In the foreword to this number a point is made which deserves to be repeated:

From a perusal of the various articles, it will be seen that some areas-Africa, for instance-are real laboratories, where the relations between groups can be studied from a great many angles. The va riety of situations and historical backgrounds, the multiplicity of recent developments, have produced a whole range of those "variables" which the social scientists envy their colleagues in the natural sciences.

This broad view of research undertaken, and results achieved, serves to show that the race prob lem can never be considered in isolation and that it is bound up with a number of other phenomena, of which none should be neglected. In particular, it cannot be dissociated from the development of in dustrialization and urbanization, which affects so many countries which have recently become inde pendent and others aspiring to independence."

Efforts, of course, continue, and additions to the already considerable body of scientific literature on racial relations are constantly being made. It is hoped, however, that the information collected together here will serve as a useful introduction to the subject for those who have not delved into it before, and as a convenient summing-up of a cer tain stage of intellectual maturity and achievement for those who have already had occasion to deal with it in some depth.

The facts stated in this volume, or the opinions expressed with regard to these facts, are the sole responsibility of the authors and are not necessarily an expression of the views of the Organization.