The Tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology

Description

The value of the book lies in its reassessment of the distinctive features of the Chicago School, of its contributions in the theoretical and methodological fields and of its influence on the growth of sociology throughout the world and in America in particular. The book pays particularly close attention to the eclectic nature of the research methods used by the Chicago sociologists as they sought to integrate subjective and objective aspects of human life. It demonstrates that this eclecticism formed an integral part of their theories but also emphasises that empirical observation, too, was important, although not as an end in itself. While, for example, they were working on the concepts of organization, marginality and interaction, they did not consider these as ends in themselves but as additions to the development of a more general theoretical approach. Often in the past, and wrongly, Chicago’s theoretical contribution has been restricted to the urban sector. The book clearly and unequivocally reveals how the tendency to see the Chicago School as a 'theoretical' is the result of misinterpretation and of a failure to realize that, for the sociologists of the period, understanding the social dynamics of the city of Chicago was tantamount to interpreting the central tendencies of modern society itself. The book analyzes how empirical observation was important but not an end in itself. The Chicago School developed a profusion of sociological theories in many areas of inquiry and never opted for any one particular approach. The various essays in the book also make it clear that the School decisively contributed to the development of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Cover Half Title Dedication Title Copyright Contents Introduction PART I: THEORETICAL PROBLEMATIC 1 The Gothic foundation of Robert E. Park’s conception of race and culture 1. Capitalism, imperialism, and Gothic sociology 2. Robert Park’s Congo. A Gothic analysis of capitalist imperialism 3. Capitalism and Gothicism: Small and Park 2 The contribution of Georg Simmel to the foundation of theory at the Chicago School of Sociology Introduction 1. Albion W. Small and Georg Simmel: the ‘common intent’ to found sociology as an independent science 2. Robert E. Park: sociology as ‘an approach to substantive problems’ 3. The search for ‘subject matter’ in sociology by the Chicago sociologists 3 The neighbourhood and deviance in the Chicago School. A relationistic interpretation 1. The concept of deviance between the systematics and history of sociology 2. The concept of ‘neighbourhood’ : disorganization and the relational nature in the natural area 3. Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess: at the sources of relationism in the early Chicago School 4. ‘Ethnographic’ relationism in the early Chicago School and metropolitan differences in current urban deviance 4 The place of the Chicago School of Sociology in the study of nationality and ethnicity PART II: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH 5 Chicago sociology and the empirical impulse: its implications for sociological theorizing 6 Chicago methods: reputations and realities Introduction 1. Prewar Chicago methods 2. Postwar Chicago methods 3. The construction of disciplinary memory 7 Seventy years of fieldwork in sociology. From Nels Anderson’s The Hobo to Elijah Anderson’s Streetwise Introduction 1. The Hobo or Hobohemia? 2. Fieldwork in The Hobo 3. Elijah Anderson’s Streetwise 4. Fieldwork and the way information is analyzed in Streetwise Conclusion 8 One hundred years of methodological research. The example of Chicago Introduction 1. The institutional importance of Chicago sociology 2. Early influences on sociological methods at Chicago 3. The inappropriate reduction of Chicago sociology to qualitative sociology 4. The legacy of Chicago sociology’s research methodologies PART III: IMPORTANT SOCIOLOGISTS FROM CHICAGO AND THE ACTUALITY OF THE CHICAGO APPROACH 9 George Herbert Mead’s transformation of his intellectual context Introduction 1. Mead’s interlocutors 2. Adam Smith 3. Josiah Royce 4. William James 5. Wilhelm Max Wundt 6. John Dewey 7. Francis Herbert Bradley 8. Conway Lloyd Morgan, James Mark Baldwin, and James Rowland Angell 9. Charles Horton Cooley 10 Erving Goffman: a symbolic interactionist? 1. The theoretical approach of Erving Goffman 2. Is Erving Goffman a symbolic interactionist? 11 Persistence and change: fundamental elements in Herbert Blumer’s metatheoretical perspective Introduction 1. Situated 2. Dual character 3. Indeterminate 12 The sociology of ‘going concerns’. Everett Hughes’ interpretive institutional ecology Introduction 1. Hughes as a theorist 2. Interpretive institutional ecology: Choosing the label 3. Institutions, going concerns, careers, social interaction 4. The structuralist side of the frame of reference: ecological competition and social functions 5. The interpretive side of the frame of reference: interaction, process, interpretation, agency, and careers 6. Brief assessment Conclusion 13 The Chicago School of Sociology’s heritage in Polish sociology Introduction 1. The Chicago School, Znaniecki, and institutionalization of Polish sociology before 1939 2. The Chicago School in Polish sociology, 1945-1989 2.1. From negation to ideologization: 1945-1956 2.2. The influence of the Chicago School upon the development of Polish sociology in the years 1957-1976 3. The sociological trend of Polish social ecology 3.1. In the footsteps of Florian Znaniecki’s sociology: towards the Polish edition of 'The Polish Peasant': 1957-1976 3.2. From The Polish Peasant to The Young Generation of Peasants: 1976-1984 3.3. From qualitative sociology to the renaissance of interest in the Chicago School: 1984-1990 3.4. The tradition of the Chicago thought in the investigation of transformation processes in Poland: 1991-? Conclusion Index Contributors