From 1945 to about 1960, the University of Chicago 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 behavior 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, leading sociologists critically confront this legacy. The eight original chapters survey the issues that defined the department's agenda: the focus on deviance, race and ethnic relations, urban life, and collective behavior; 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 Chicago 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."

When the University of Chicago was founded in 1892 it established the first sociology department in the United States. The department grew rapidly in reputation and influence and by the 1920s graduates of its program were heading newly formed sociology programs across the country and determining the direction of the discipline and its future research. Their way of thinking about social relations revolutionized the social sciences by emphasizing an empirical approach to research, instead of the more philosophical "armchair" perspective that previously prevailed in American sociology. The Chicago School Diaspora presents work by Canadian and international scholars who identify with what they understand as the "Chicago School tradition." Broadly speaking, many of the scholars affiliated with sociology at Chicago understood human behaviour to be determined by social structures and environmental factors, rather than personal and biological characteristics. Contributors highlight key thinkers and epistemological issues associated with the Chicago School, as well as contemporary empirical research. Offering innovative theoretical explanations for the diversity and breadth of its scholarly traditions, The Chicago School Diaspora offers a fresh approach to ideas, topics, and approaches associated with the origins of North American sociology. Contributors include Michael Adorjan (University of Hong Kong, China), Gary Bowden (University of New Brunswick), Jeffrey Brown (University of New Brunswick), Tony Christensen (Wilfrid Laurier University), Luis Cisneros (postdoctoral scholar, University of Arizona), Gary A. Cook (Beloit College), Mary Jo Deegan (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), Scott Grills (Brandon University), Mervyn Horgan (University of Guelph), Mark Hutter (Rowan University), Benjamin Kelly (Nipissing University), Rolf Lindner (Humboldt University & HafenCity University, Germany), Jacqueline Low (University of New Brunswick), Mourad Mjahed (Peace Corps, Rabat, Morocco), DeMond S. Miller (Rowan University), Edward Nell (New School for Social Research), David A. Nock (Lakehead University), Defne Över (PhD candidate, Cornell University), George Park (Memorial University), Thomas K. Park (University of Arizona), Dorothy Pawluch (McMaster University), Robert Prus (University of Waterloo), Antony J. Puddephatt (Lakehead University), Isher-Paul Sahni (Concordia University), Roger A. Salerno (Pace University), William Shaffir (McMaster University), Greg Smith (University of Salford, UK), Robert A. Stebbins (University of Calgary), Izabela Wagner (Warsaw University, Poland and CEMS EHESS - School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, France), and Yves Winkin (ENS Lyon, France).

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.

This facsimile collection makes available classic texts from the Chicago School from the 1920s to the 1940s.

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The Blackwell Companion to Major Contemporary Social Theorists is a survey of contemporary social theory that focuses on the thinkers themselves. In original essays especially commissioned for this volume, leading experts and practitioners examine the life and work of 13 major theorists such as Elias, Baudrillard, Giddens, and Butler. Includes 13 original essays by leading scholars on major contemporary social theorists. Covers key figures such as Elias, Goffman, Foucault, Habermas, Giddens, Bourdieu, and Butler. Essays include biographical sketches, the social and intellectual context, and the impact of the thinker's work on social theory generally. Includes bibliographies of the theorist's most important works as well as key secondary works. Can be used in conjunction with The Blackwell Companion to Major Classical Social Theorists, edited by George Ritzer, for a complete reference source in social theory.

In 1989, Chicago began an experiment with radical decentralization of power and authority. Intertwining extensive narratives and rigorous quantitative analyses, this book tells the story of what happened to Chicagos elementary schools in the first four years of this reform. }In 1989, Chicago began an experiment with radical decentralization of power and authority. This book tells the story of what happened to Chicagos elementary schools in the first four years of this reform. Implicit in this reform is the theory that expanded local democratic participation would stimulate organizational change within schools, which in turn would foster improved teaching and learning. Using this theory as a framework, the authors marshal massive quantitative and qualitative data to examine how the reform actually unfolded at the school level.With longitudinal case study data on 22 schools, survey responses from principals and teachers in 269 schools, and supplementary system-wide administrative data, the authors identify four types of school politics: strong democracy, consolidated principal power, maintenance, and adversarial. In addition, they classify school change efforts as either systemic or unfocused. Bringing these strands together, the authors determine that, in about a third of the schools, expanded local democratic participation served as a strong lever for introducing systemic change focused on improved instruction. Finally, case studies of six actively restructuring schools illustrate how under decentralization the principals role is recast, social support for change can grow, and ideas and information from external sources are brought to bear on school change initiatives. Few studies intertwine so completely extensive narratives and rigorous quantitative analyses. The result is a complex picture of the Chicago reform that joins the politics of local control to school change.This volume is intended for scholars in the fields of urban education, public policy, sociology of education, anthropology of education, and politics of education. Comprehensive and descriptive, it is an engaging text for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Local, state, and federal policymakers who are concerned with urban education will find new and insightful material. The book should be on reading lists and in professional development seminars for school principals who want to garner community support for change and for school community leaders who want more responsive local institutions. Finally, educators, administrators, and activists in Chicago will appreciate this detailed analysis of the early years of reform.

In this detailed history of the Chicago School of Sociology, Andrew Abbott investigates central topics in the emergence of modern scholarship, paying special attention to "schools of science" and how such schools reproduce themselves over time. What are the preconditions from which schools arise? Do they exist as rigid rules or as flexible structures? How do they emerge from the day-to-day activities of academic life such as editing journals and writing papers? Abbott analyzes the shifts in social scientific inquiry and discloses the intellectual rivalry and faculty politics that characterized different stages of the Chicago School. Along the way, he traces the rich history of the discipline's main journal, the American Journal of Sociology. Embedded in this analysis of the school and its practices is a broader theoretical argument, which Abbott uses to redefine social objects as a sequence of interconnected events rather than as fixed entities. Abbott's theories grow directly out of the Chicago School's insistence that social life be located in time and place, a tradition that has been at the heart of the school since its founding one hundred years ago.

Provides comprehensive coverage of major topics in urban and regional studies Under the guidance of Editor-in-Chief Anthony Orum, this definitive reference work covers central and emergent topics in the field, through an examination of urban and regional conditions and variation across the world. It also provides authoritative entries on the main conceptual tools used by anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and political scientists in the study of cities and regions. Among such concepts are those of place and space; geographical regions; the nature of power and politics in cities; urban culture; and many others. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies captures the character of complex urban and regional dynamics across the globe, including timely entries on Latin America, Africa, India and China. At the same time, it contains illuminating entries on some of the current concepts that seek to grasp the essence of the global world today, such as those of Friedmann and Sassen on ‘global cities’. It also includes discussions of recent economic writings on cities and regions such as those of Richard Florida. Comprised of over 450 entries on the most important topics and from a range of theoretical perspectives Features authoritative entries on topics ranging from gender and the city to biographical profiles of figures like Frank Lloyd Wright Takes a global perspective with entries providing coverage of Latin America and Africa, India and China, and, the US and Europe Includes biographies of central figures in urban and regional studies, such as Doreen Massey, Peter Hall, Neil Smith, and Henri Lefebvre The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies is an indispensable reference for students and researchers in urban and regional studies, urban sociology, urban geography, and urban anthropology.

Everyday life is something we tend to take for granted, something that just is, something unnoticed. But everyday life is perhaps the most important dimension of society – it's where we live most parts of our lives with each other. This book provides a clear, contemporary and comprehensive overview of the sociologies of everyday life. Looking at everyday activities and experiences, from language and emotions to popular culture and leisure, Encountering the Everyday explores what social structures, orders and processes mean to us on a daily basis. The book carefully leads the reader through historical developments in the field, beginning at the earlier Chicago school and finishing with up-to-date ideas of postmodernism and interactionism. Each chapter relates theoretical ideas directly to case studies and real empirical research to make complex concepts and core issues accessible, relevant and engaging. Written by leading international scholars in the field, this truly global book will inspire and inform all students and scholars of everyday life sociology.