Numbers and Questions: The Contribution of Social Science to Understanding the Family, Marriage and Divorce

Abstract

In the Introduction to this volume we are advised that just opening a newspaper serves as a reminder of the problems, big and small, with which society is beset: ‘Public issues and private troubles are as interlaced as ever’, and while a response is required, ‘solutions need to be based on accurate and suitable information’. This volume demonstrates what social science can offer towards identifying social issues, and offers solutions for those problems which are visible in public discourse. We would like to suggest that contemporary work in the social sciences has an additional, perhaps even more important, role to play — namely in the search not only for answers to known problems, but in going on to develop the next set of questions. As Martin Rein said in the introduction to his classic text on Social Policy: Issues of Choice and Change, ‘what is needed in social policy is not so much good tools but good questions’ for developing the forthcoming policy agenda (Rein, 1970). So we begin by looking critically at the way social science is used to identify current problems, and then go on to consider how social scientists can also contribute to formulating the next set of policy questions. We hope to demonstrate both the present and potential contribution of social science to a better understanding of society, and to the more effective development of policies for the family.