K metodologii výzkumu malých skupin

The crisis of present-day bourgeois microsociology finds its reflection also in the field of sociological methodology, whose development was decidedly aided by the systematic study of small groups. In recent times Marxist sociologists, too, have devoted rather considerable attention to research on small groups, but their interest – in view of topical social needs (for instance, the development of social planning) – is centred primarily on those types of small groups that play the most significant role in the basic and determining social processes and structures. Although there exists a basic unity among Marxist sociologist as far as the starting point of theoretical premises of study on small groups is concerned, certain misunderstandings occur in the field of concrete methods, notably in assessing those research techniques that were elaborated in the framework of non-Marxist sociology (from outright rejection to a noncritical acceptance). The purpose of this article is, on the basis of a description of the selected typical research techniques, to carry out their concrete assessment and to show the penetration of theoretical premises into concrete methods. The article analyzes observation techniques, the sociometric technique and dramatic techniques that are typical for the field of microsociology. The author notes the advantages and limitations of participant observation and analysis of the interaction process, the formulates several remarks on sociometric testing, typologizes and evaluates psychodrama, sociodrama and role playing. He comes to the conclusion that all these approaches can be used in the frame of Marxist sociology as long as they are devoid of connections to certain speculative assumptions of non-Marxist sociology (for instance sociometric approaches) and as far as they are consistently linked to the development of more general Marxist theories of groups.