SOCIAL-CHANGE AS A METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEM - EXEMPLIFIED BY ANALYSES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM IN ADOLESCENTS FROM EAST AND FROM WEST-BERLIN BETWEEN 1990 AND 1992

The problem of researching social change in sociological and pedagogic al studies is, from a methodological point of view, expecially critica l when it is to be expected that the phenomenon of this change is depe ndent on both socio-historical and intra-individual aspects. This is t he case in the field of value change: here, theses on age-correlated v alue change ('the older a person, the more conservative he/she is') as well as socio-historicaI theses ('economic crises lead, in wealthy so cieties, to a retreat to conservative safety values') can be substanti ated plausibly. All studies aimed at researching both aspects have nec essarily to be organized as longitudinal studies. If both aspects are to be distinguished systematically, several longitudinal studies of ag e-heterogeneous samples begun at different points in time are required . On the basis of data taken from a study on adolescents from East and West Berlin, the authors discuss problems resulting from the fact tha t, in general, only changes in mean values are considered and these ar e often to some extent artefacts because content-related changes in th e meaning of constructs are not taken into account.