Sociological sketches : Malta 1972

Abstract

The following pages contain eight articles, or rather sketches, written for the Maltese public by a Swedish sociologist. The first sketch presents the science of sociology as well as its position and possible future in Malta. The second deals with the way "The Times of Malta" and "The Malta News" cover what happens in the field of trade and industrial relations. Then mobility in a Valletta slum is dealt with, followed by a pilot study regarding the permanent residents and a study about foreign experts. The sixth, about the contents in Maltese broadcasting, was first published in the May 1972 issue of "The Cobweb". The next sketch appeared in the October 1971 number of "The Bureaucrat" and reports on a Swedish expenditure survey, apropos a planned similar Maltese project. Finally a letter to the Editor of "The Malta News" of August 25, 1971, gives some of the characteristics of the penal system in Sweden as comments to an article in the same paper about the prisons in Malta. The sketches with Swedish connections are included here because the first one gives an example of the use of sociological research methods and the second exemplifies that a certain word - in this case penal reform - has a different meaning in different contexts, in that the Swedish reality is far away from the Maltese debate.