ABSTRACT
American sociology has now widely adopted the cultural concept, but the distinction between 'primitive' and 'civilized' peoples has been progressively abandoned. As cultural anthropology is applied to modern social forms, so sociology itself turns to ethnic groups which have not so far been fully assimilated into the American way of life. Apart from the American Indians, these are, generally speaking, a number of very different immigrant groups whose cultural characteristics are still very clearly distinguishable from those of the indigenous population. The technique of the field study as applied by ethnologists, which was used early on in the social survey, was now taken over by sociology, which combined it with the 'case-study' method, which was also first used in the early social surveys. It is the result of 'institutions', or 'basic integrating systems'-whether through 'reality systems' governing the upbringing of children or 'projection systems' which include the religious sanctions for respect and obedience.
