Family and Kinship in East London

Family and Kinship in East London was a 1957 sociological study of an urban working class tight-knit community, and the effects of the post-war governments' social housing policy leading to their rehousing. Many East Londoners by rigid slum clearance moved out into the new estates of the Home Counties (some of which is now outer Greater London). The study was carried out in the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green, in the East End of London and a new housing estate in Essex. The research was carried out by Michael Young and Peter Willmott, who had been an integral part of building the welfare state in Britain during the tenure of Clement Attlee and the Labour government between 1945-51.

The study itself has been acknowledged by many sociologists and in its authors' critiques as being one of the most influential sociological studies of the twentieth century. It is argued by some that it has inspired British sociology to take new paths away from the more traditional broad Functionalist versus Marxist . It used social observation as its means to do so, going away from statistical information that had been previously preferred. In this sense, it counters the Structuralist (Positivist) model that posits statistics can always be found to prove cause and effect within society.

The idea was to interact and understand a post-war community, to determine its aspirations, worries, doubts and insecurities. This key understanding moves the study into a more Interactionist line, about each individual's role within society. Indeed, it could also be linked to Max Weber's idea of empathy and "going deep" to comprehend the complexity of communities.

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