ABSTRACT
The pattern of references in social science literature on the various aspects of moral codes is both extensive and extremely diversified. The Sociological Abstracts journal was chosen because, as the only publication of its kind in sociology, it seemed to offer the most complete and representative selection of the sources of sociological information available to the social scientist, at least within the Western world. In terms of major categories, the most represented fields of inquiry were, in order, those of ‘sociology: history and theory’; ‘culture and social structure’; ‘the family and socialization’; and ‘social differentiation’. To gain a more detailed view of the empirical studies carried out in this field, the authors selected the years 1954, 1957, 1960, 1963, and 1966 for closer examination. The empirical research was lastly examined according to the type and extent of comparative approaches employed. The researcher might plausibly defend the above strategy by pointing to the limitations or unavailability of existing theory.
