Background Paper: Current Topics of Social Science Research in Japan

The research topics tackled by contemporary Japanese sociologists can be roughly divided into two major groups. On the one hand, research has been carried out on questions internal to Japanese society; on the other, Japanese sociology has long been integrated in international debates and, as such, has opened itself up to external questions and references. As will be shown, the difference between “internal” and “external” topics must be put into perspective for the divide is often blurred. In this paper it will nonetheless be used heuristically in order to introduce the general patterns of the sociological field.