Abstract
The field of community studies is one that has undergone much change and redefinition in recent years. In the 1950s it was subjected to criticism on both methodological and theoretical grounds (see Reiss, 1954). Methodologically, its essentially qualitative approach was considered to lack the rigour of more quantitative counterparts, whilst theoretically its static, structural-functional theoretical underpinnings were held to lack the relevance of more dynamic theoretical frameworks. As a result, its holistic approach fell out of favour as sociologists became more specialised in their research foci. Another factor to be considered here was the disillusionment with the field that followed in the wake of a long but largely unproductive debate on the meaning of community (see Hillery, 1955 and 1959, Parsons, 1959, Sutton and Kolaja, 1960, Martindale, 1964, Simpson, 1965). These criticisms were then added to through the 1960s and into the early 1970s. In this period, community studies were seen as being ahistorical, non-cumulative, overly descriptive, idiosyncratic and non-comparative (see Glass, 1966, Stacey, 1969, and Bell and Newby, 1971).
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© 1990 The British Sociological Association
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Hall, B. (1990). The Historical Reconstruction of Rural Localities: A New Zealand Case Study. In: Kendrick, S., Straw, P., McCrone, D. (eds) Interpreting the Past, Understanding the Present. Explorations in Sociology. British Sociological Association Conference Volume Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20786-2_7
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