Chicago School Of Sociology Research Articles

Foreigners, Crime and Changing Mobilities

This article explores the conceptual significance of changing mobilities to theories of crime and punishment through a critique of the work of scholars from the Chicago school of sociology. The argument presented demonstrates that the concepts of social disorganization, differential association and culture conflict are part of the colonial and national histories of the United States of America. The argument is advanced that these classic concepts are implicated in the processes by which this nation demarcated its nationals from foreigners'. Furthermore, the increasing pace, scope, and complexity of a range of globalizing processes questions the continuing validity of the Chicagoan paradigm. Simply put, modern distinctions between 'us'and 'them', as well as 'here' and 'there', are undergoing substantial transformation. Reconfigurations of such profound significance call for a critical engagement with the scholarly literature on contemporary mobilities, identities and forms of belonging. As persons from elsewhere, foreigners are people who figure as 'in' the social body, but also in some sense not 'of it. For centuries, the notion has carried connotations of strangerhood, and been used to identify certain people as different from oneself in some significant way. In earlier usage, a foreigner could be somebody from another county or parish, who was thereby an outsider to one's immediate locality. Today's 'foreigners' are more likely to be those who hail from another nation. They may have been born beyond the frontiers of the national territory. Alternatively, they may be native-born, yet are barred from full national belonging because their parents are foreign nationals, or they have linguistic or corporeal features which many natives see as typically alien. Either way, 'foreigners' call up an elaborate imagination of what lies beyond the national boundaries. This article explores the conceptual significance of changing mobilities through a critical reading of work by members of the Chicago school of sociology published during the 1920s and 1930s.1 The concepts of social disorganization, differential association and culture conflict originated in their work, and were grounded within a particular set of ideas about mobilities, identities and forms of belonging. These concepts have been identified as orientalist, in the sense that they depict the 'other' as inferior, dangerous, criminal and amoral (Agozino 2000).2 They are also part of the colonial and national histories of the United States. It will be my contention that the apparently benign concepts of social disorganization, differential association, and cultural conflict are implicated in the processes by which this nation demarcated its nationals from

The Disavowal of the Social in the American Reception of Durkheim

In the last decade or more, the central texts of structural theorizing – Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Weber – have become part of a seemingly outdated problematic of class, history and society, and this has led to the erosion of some of the most central concepts of sociological theory. Terms such as the ‘social’ and the ‘structural’ no longer seem able to identify materially existing collectivities, their mode of existence or their specific system of social relations. The central objective of this article is to examine some of the claims put forward by postmodern theorists (Baudrillard, 1983; Deleuze, 1979; Rose, 1996) concerning the rise of new spatializations and the era of the ‘post-social’ by a return to the inaugural texts of Émile Durkheim (1938, 1951, 1964, 1968). My purpose is to see whether or not Durkheim broke with the language of totality that is often ascribed to him by postmodern theorists and to assess to what extent the claims of poststructuralist theorizing are based both on a misreading of the textsof structural theory (Marx, Durkheim, Weber, etc.) and on a historical tendency to disavow the social. It is argued that the conception of the social put forward by 19th-century social theorizing has not been well understood nor readily accepted either as an independent domain of treatment or as a subject matter differentiated from other subject matters. The reception texts of the Chicago school of sociology in the 1920s (Park and Burgess, 1921) and of the Harvard theoryschool of the 1930s (Parsons, 1968; Sorokin, 1928) are examined in order to discern whether these schools accepted the social as an object of theoretical attention or whether they in fact excluded it from the disciplinary matrix as they formed their own theoretical frameworks. Some textual evidence is drawn upon to support the thesis that the social became an object of theoretic disavowal during the time when Durkheim's fundamental sociological writings were being received in America.

Invented by Horror: The Gothic and African American Literary Ideology in Native Son

Richard Wright's Native Son is still usually taken as one of the foremost examples of late American naturalism, and much is made of the impact of modem sociology, particularly what became known as the Chicago School of Sociology, on the conception and shape of the novel. [1] Yet numerous scholars, at least in passing, have remarked on the influence of the gothic tradition on Wright's novel, arguing to one degree or another whether his usage of the gothic undermines or supports the sociological realism of the work. [2] However, the crucial importance of gothic literature and what might be thought of as the gothic sensibility to the representation of political consciousness and political development (and the relation of the gothic to contemporary mass culture) in Native Son has not received much sustained scholarly attention. The primary question here is not whether Native Son is a gothic novel, but how the gothic functions within the novel and how it relates to the African American folk culture of the South as well as the mass culture associated with the urban North. In fact, Native Son is not a gothic novel, but an anti-gothic in which the gothic figures an American consciousness, particularly the consciousness of black Americans, which is the product of the particular social relations of American capitalism and hence something to be transcended. Wright's use of the gothic is also implicitly a critique of the African American writers who preceded him, and their handling of the actual and symbolic journeys from and to the African American folk and constructions of the folk inheritance. Wright's use of the gothic is not in conflict with his ideological stance as a black male Communist writer of the mid-twentieth century, but in fact follows from this stance. As Teresa Goddu points out (133-40), it is not hard to see why black writers (and such white writers as Herman Melville and Theodore Weld) in the nineteenth century, particularly during the antebellum era, would find such works attractive literary models for the representation of slavery and American race relations. Generally speaking, classic European gothics, such as Walpole's Castle of Otranto or Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho--not to mention such later American gothic-influenced texts as Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables and the short fiction of Poe--contain a past event involving an unrightful and violent usurpation which constrains the actions of succeeding generations. This familial original sin is often passed down through the bloodlines of both the sinners and the sinned against. There is a strange doubling in which the two families strangely come to resemble each other. One also sees in the classic gothic novel patriarchal tyranny, transgressive sexuality which generally accompanies relat ions of power, and an instability of markers of social identity, such as family, class, race, gender, and nationality. Slavery also involved a moment of usurpation in which the birthright of the enslaved individual was stolen. As in the gothic, the results of this usurpation are transmitted through the bloodlines of the enslaved. One finds in the novels and fugitive slave narratives by such nineteenth-century black writers as William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, and Harriet Jacobs a patriarchal tyranny and a concomitant transgressive sexuality in which the slave master coerces or attempts to coerce female slaves into unwanted sexual relations. One also often sees a flight from tyranny on the part of the female slaves which resembles that of the typical gothic heroine from the typical gothic villain. There is a foregrounding of the instability of the normative markers of social identity such as those of nationality, family, class, citizenship, and so on, insofar as such markers exist, at the sufferance of the slave master. Finally, there is within many of these texts a strange doubling of the slave and the enslaver. Perhaps the most ubiquitous figure of nineteenth-century black literature is that of the mulatto, a person of equal African and European ancestry. …

Changing Representations of the Criminal

I claim that, in the specific social-theoretical domain of'crime and punishment' (as well as in other areas of the social sciences), we should aim at overcoming both the de-coupling of concepts of'structure' and'culture', often lamented in post-Marxist social theory, and the sterile and uninteresting counterappositon between qualitative and quantitative styles of analysis. In this paper I suggest that we can achieve such a result by introducing the concept of'representations' of crime and criminals. Representations of crime and criminality are not random and unpredictable results of creative endeavours (though they are also this). Rather, they are conceptualizations deeply embedded within the main patterns of social relationships in a given society in a given period. I hypothesize that, in a somewhat cyclical fashion, at least since the inception of modernity and criminological thought in the nineteenth century, representations of crime and criminals have been oscillating between two different social attitudes. A sympathetic attitude toward criminals has emerged in social periods when good economic conditions, optimism, a tendency toward liberalism and low imprisonment rates, tended to prevail. At such juncture (at least some) criminals were seen as innovators fighting against an unjust and suffocating social order, and punishment as playing a rehabilitative and experimental role. In other periods, criminals were seen instead with antipathy, and portrayed as monstrosities, evil forces fighting the very foundations of a social fabric and a moral order that should be defended at all cost. In these periods of prevailing conservatism, social theorists saw their mission in responding against situations of socio-economic crisis, characterized by the necessity to'tighten the belt', and by higher imprisonment rates and harsher penalties. I give illustrations of such oscillating attitudes, as far as the domain of criminological thought is concerned, by considering more specifically: the Italian Positive School, the Chicago school of sociology and differential association theory, the'labelling' theorists of the 1960s/1970s, and what I term the'revanche criminology' of the'crisis decades' after 1973.

Society, Space and the Biotic Level: An Urban and Rural Sociology for the New Millennium

Urban and rural sociology is currently dominated by two relatively separate approaches. One perspective emphasises political economy and increasing globalisation. Another focuses on the meaning of urban and rural areas in people's lives. This paper argues for a fusion between these two views. Urban and rural sociology should be concerned with the relations between political economy on the one hand and the biological and psychological bases of human behaviour on the other. Recent developments in the human sciences and psychology assist in making this link. They can be used to extend the original insights of the early Chicago School of sociology, particularly as regards the formation of human identities. Nevertheless, there remain substantial arguments as to how `the Chicago School's biotic level' should be conceptualised and how we envisage its links to the more conscious, pre-planned, aspects of human behaviour. Early Marx and Williams's now somewhat neglected work on the country and the city offer provocative yet helpful ways forward.

A Second Chicago School? The Development of a Postwar American Sociology

From 1945 to about 1960, the University of was home to a group of faculty and graduate students whose work has come to define what many call a second Chicago School of sociology. Like its predecessor earlier in the century, the postwar department was again the center for qualitative social research - on everything from mapping the nuances of human behaviour in small groups to seeking solutions to problems of race, crime and poverty. Howard Becker, Joseph Gusfield, Herbert Blumer, David Riesman, Erving Goffman and others created a large, enduring body of work. In this book, sociologists critically confront this legacy. The eight original chapters survey the issues that defined the department's agenda: they focus on deviance, race and ethnic relations, urban life and collective behaviour; the renewal of participant observation as a method and the refinement of symbolic interaction as a guiding theory; and the professional and institutional factors that shaped this generation, including the leadership of Louis Wirth and Everett C. Hughes; the role of women; and the competition for national influence sociology faced from survey research at Columbia and grand theory at Harvard. The contributors also discuss the internal conflicts that call into question the very idea of a unified school.

Globalisierung, Stadtentwicklung, Segregation

“Socio-spatial segregation” has been a privileged topic of research and debate since the days of classical Chicago school sociology. A promising new avenue in this debate seems to be an understanding of urban development in the framework of globalisation processes, the economic, political, ecological and social aspects of which are being described. Thus, the approach becomes normative, holistic, transdisciplinary, and future-oriented: The urban future will be determined by global conditions filtered through the position of a given city in the hierarchical urban system. Such determinants are being discussed. Increasing socio-cultural heterogeneity, together with increasing socio-economic polarisation, appear as the dominant future trends. The resulting new tasks for urban development is how to translate global developments into local conditions of social justice, ecological sustainability, and democratic decision-making. Some propositions are made towards this goal.

The University of Chicago Press and the rise of the “Chicago School of Sociology” 1892–1920

The University of Chicago (UC) Press was a major catalyst in the rise of the University of Chicago's Department of Sociology to preeminence by 1920 in American, indeed international, sociology. The role of the UC Press in this development has been overlooked, even though a majority of books and articles written by Albion Small, W. I Thomas, their cohort, and their students in this period bore the UC Press imprint. Editorial control of theAmerican Journal of Sociology, founded by Small in 1895, was exercised within the UC Department of Sociology due to its publication by the UC Press. The University's support through its scholarly press was vital in establishing nationwide recognition and scholarly authority for “Chicago Sociology” within the fledgling discipline. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A05BB023 00003

Explaining ethnic harmony: Hawai'i's multicultural ethos

The Chicago school of sociology's model of integration as the pathway toward ethnic harmony, based as it was on the example of Hawai'i, was embraced by the US Supreme Court in 1954, but ethnic harmony has proven elusive on the US mainland. The essay reexamines twenty‐two alternative explanations for the relative harmony of ethnic relations in Hawai'i, concluding that the development of a new multicultural ethos resulted from complex interethnic interactions over the years in response to events that otherwise could have produced ethnic chaos.

Ethnography: research method or philosophy?

From pioneering beginnings at the Chicago School of Sociology in the 20s and 30s, ethnography (as described in other articles in this issue) has developed into an important methodology that is widely used by social scientists ( 1 ). It was from the 30s a split began to appear between ethnography as practised by social scientists, and ethnographic methods used by anthropologists. Anthropology continued to study the culture of races, while social scientists used the same methods to look at culture on a social level. Sociologists realised that the methodology of ethnography was just as appropriate to the description of everyday Western cultures as it was to that of more distant cultures.

Society and nature: towards a green social theory

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Science, Social Science, Politics and the Environment: Some Unhelpful Dichotomies Biological Theory and the Environment * Social Theory and the Environment * Conclusion: Towards an Eclectic but Unified Approach * Notes 2. People, Nature and Social Theory People and Nature in Early Sociological Theory: Evolutionism as a False Lead * Tonnies: From Land and Community to Society * Modernity, Community and Human Nature: The Chicago School of Sociology * From Biologism to Functionalism * People and Environment: The Arguments of Later Marxism * Conclusion: Society, Nature and Social Theory * Notes 3. 'Nature as Man's Inorganic Body': Marx's Conceptual Framework Nature, Alienation and People: The Early Marxian Perspective * Marxism and the Environment: Continuing Developments and Debates * Marx and Engels on People and Nature: An Assessment and Comparison with Existing Environmental Analysis * Developing Marx's Approach * Notes 4. Arguments within Biology: From Neo-Darwinism to the Study of Organisms and Their Environments A Methodological Issue * The Neo-Darwinian Revolution * Socioecology: Organisms in Ecological Context * Organism and Environment: The Emergent 'New Biology' * Notes 5. 'Nature as Alive': Social Relations and Deep Mental Structures The Evolution of Mind * Biology and the Problematic Notion of 'Culture' * The Mind: Eroding the Culture-Nature Distinction * An Understanding of the Biologically Evolved Mind * Social Relations and Nature as 'Alive' * Alienation and Fetishisation: Returning to the Yanomami Case Study * 'Women as Nature': Consciousness, Natural Differences and Environmentalism * Notes 6. Spreading 'Man's Inorganic Body': Some Implications Space, Time and Modernity: Aspects of Giddens' Account * Society and Nature: Developing and Using Giddens' Analysis * Nature and the Time-Space Distanciation of Social Life * Time-Space Distanciation Combining with Alienation: The Instance of Food and Health * Time-Space Distanciation, Consumption and the Reification of 'Nature' * Notes 7. Nature Reified: A Contemporary Case Study Notes 8. Society and Nature: From Theory to Practice Realism: Some Areas of Debate * From Theory to Practice * Notes Epilogue Index

On Social Organization and Social Control.

In the four decades following the end of World War II, Morris Janowitz (1919-88) published major works in macrosociology, urban and political sociology, race and ethnic relations, and the study of armed forces and society. His research was deeply rooted in the traditions of philosophical pragmatism and the Chicago school of sociology, influences which led him to reject grand theories and mechanistic explanations of social life. Yet he remained confident in the capacity of sociological reason to come to grips with central aspects of the human condition. On the basis of his studies, Janowitz came to believe that the transition from early to advanced industrial society radically altered institutional organization to make democratic social control more difficult, though not impossible, to achieve. The task of his pragmatic sociology was to identify fundamental trends in the social organization of industrial societies, to indicate their substantive implications for social control, and to clarify realistic alternatives for institution building which would strengthen the prospects for maintaining liberal democratic regimes. In this volume, James Burk selects from Janowitz's scholarly writings to provide a comprehensive overview of his wide-ranging interests. Organized to demonstrate the common logic of inquiry and substantive unity of Janowitz's contribution to several subfields of sociology, the collection includes analyses of the concept of social control, ethnic intolerance and hostility, citizenship in Western societies, models for urban education, and the professionalization of military elites. Burk provides a richly detailed, critical account of Janowitz's intellectual development, placing his writings in historical context and showing their continuing relevance for sociological research. Useful to both students and specialists, the volume is an important source for the ideas and methods of one of sociology's leading figures.

Sociologists and american prohibition: A study of early works in the american journal of sociology1895–1935

Sociology, since its inception, has regarded itself as an agency for investigating social change. Alcohol reform during American Prohibition has been studied from status-politics and politico-economic perspectives. This work delineates what sociologists of the early twentieth-century observed and wrote about the American experiment with Prohibition in the early American Journal of Sociology. Overall, these sociologist gave limited attention to Prohibition. Why AJS sociologists had so little to contribute can be understood by situating the answer in the early sociohistorical context of the social pathology perspective and the Chicago School of sociology.

William Isaac Thomas and the Helen Culver Fund for Race Psychology: the beginnings of scientific sociology at the University of Chicago, 1910-1913.

W. I. Thomas is not given full credit for his contributions to the early development of scientific sociology in the United States and, in particular, the Chicago School of Sociology. Based on new documentary evidence regarding the Helen Culver Fund for Race Psychology and also a reconsideration of a 1912 article by Thomas, it is suggested that Thomas had been evolving his new scientific approach to sociology very early (1910 to 1913), before contact with men who were said to have influenced him (for example, Robert Park and Florian Znaniecki). In discussing the substance of his scientific approach to sociology, emphasis is placed on six traits: empirical, inductive, comparative, systematic or strategic, analytic or conceptual, and social psychological. Each quality is illustrated from his personal and professional writing from that period. The implications of Thomas's work for “schools” of sociological thought and for the role of private philanthropy are considered briefly.

Reviews : Lee Harvey, Myths of the Chicago School of Sociology, Aldershot: Avebury/Gower Publishing, 1987, £23.50, vi + 350 pp

Reviews : Lee Harvey, Myths of the Chicago School of Sociology, Aldershot: Avebury/Gower Publishing, 1987, £23.50, vi + 350 pp

The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity and the Rise of Sociological Research

The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity and the Rise of Sociological Research

The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research.Martin Bulmer

<i>The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research.</i>Martin Bulmer

The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research.

The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research.

The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research. By Martin Bulmer. University of Chicago Press, 1984. 285 pp. $29.00

The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research. By Martin Bulmer. University of Chicago Press, 1984. 285 pp. $29.00

Book Reviews : Martin Bulmer, The Chicago School of Sociology - Institutionalizatian, Diaersity and the Rise of Sociological Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984, pp. xix, 285, $29.00 (cloth)

Book Reviews : Martin Bulmer, The Chicago School of Sociology - Institutionalizatian, Diaersity and the Rise of Sociological Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984, pp. xix, 285, $29.00 (cloth)