Symposium Editors' Introduction.

Sponsored by the Research Committee of the History of Sociology, International Sociological Association, a symposium on the lives and works of sociologists Gunnar Myrdal and Alva Myrdal was presented at the meeting of the World Congress of Sociology in Montreal, in July 1998. Sven Eliæson, professor at Stockholm University, arranged and chaired the session. The papers examined the scientific, epistemological, methodological and policy influencing effects and implications of the Myrdals' many writings while exploring the impact of their academic careers and numerous ventures into public service on their own and their children's domestic lives. Long associated with the ideology and praxes of social democracy in Sweden, the Myrdals also contributed to an understanding of the race problem in the U.S., provided a reconceptualization of economic development in post-colonial Asia, examined the place of values in social science, and offered a critical revaluation of the character of and possible solutions to such public problems as housing, population decline, family formations and long-term poverty.