The Way of Life in Social Change: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This research project, 'Way of Life in Social Change', is connected with two recently completed Finnish research projects: Erik Allardt's, 'Comparative Scandinavian Welfare Study' and Juha Partanen et al.'s, 'Study of Equality and Democracy in Finland', the so-called TANDEM project. Allardt's study has provided us with many conceptual starting points both positive and negative whereas in TANDEM, the necessary background to the problems on welfare and way of life has been presented. In a sense our project can be considered a continuation of the TANDEM project. The concept of way of life presents a new approach to welfare studies. The traditional approaches to welfare are either unidimensional or are based on resources and/or needs of the people. Activity as a central aspect of welfare has been almost completely neglected in more recent studies. The way of life concept, which we introduce in this research plan, focuses on the activity aspect, and thus presents to us the best theoretical starting point in welfare analysis. Way of life is defined as the totality of essential forms and characteristics of people's life activities together with way of life's specific conditions and needs typical of a certain social and economic system. These activities divide into different life spheres in which they are concretized. Way of life is a complex whole related to material and non-material conditions, social relations, and the needs and activities of men. Thus to study way of life we have to study the relations between these categories and how they express themselves in the different life spheres. Thefundamental research objectives of the research project are to study: (a) the differences in way of life between the socialist and capitalist countries, and (b) the real life situation and influence of social change on people's way of life. These