ABSTRACT
Cross-cultural studies confront researchers with particular problems with regard not only to the equivalence of symbols, meanings and institutions but also to data collection and interpretation. One of the greatest problems in this respect is ethnocentricity, which can influence the entire research process from the very first approach to the issue right up to the conclusions drawn from the findings. But apart from these problems, intercultural comparisons are based on the same research principles, the same theories and the same methods that are used in the social sciences generally (Allardt 1976; Ragin 1989; Øyen 1990).
