2

American Sociology
Theories and Contexts
Are you already a sociologist? American sociologist Charles Lemert Chapter Outline
thinks you are, because you use ideas about the social world to navi-
gate your life. This might be called common sense. For example, you THINKING LIKE A
SOCIOLOGIST 23
might share the widely held view that college education is linked to Critical Questions and the
increased income. But why? What is the source of your belief? Sociological Imagination 25
The difference between common sense and sociology is that so-
SOCIAL THEORY, ­SOCIOLOGY,
ciologists use specific theories and methods to ask critical questions AND THE SOCIAL
about social life (Lemert 2008). In this case, sociologists ask questions SCIENCES 26

about how education works to produce differences in income. What is CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY 27
it about college education exactly that leads to higher average incomes The Industrial Revolution 27
The Democratic Revolution 28
among college graduates compared to nongraduates: is it the content
The Creation of Nation-States 29
of specific classes, the prestige of the particular institution, or the cul-
The European Canon 29
tural knowledge learned at college that is important? Do the habits
The Forgotten Canon? 33
and mannerisms of educated people help college graduates navigate job
interviews by signaling that they are the “right kind of people” for the SOCIOLOGY IN AMERICA 36
The Chicago School and
job? Perhaps these are questions you will pursue in your own career as American Sociology 36
a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, a politician, or . . . a sociologist? Conflict, Consensus, and
Symbolic Interaction 37

Thinking Like a Sociologist SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

TODAY 39
Sociological theories can refine our common-sense image of the Moving Away from Grand
Theories 40
world, by challenging us to think differently about things we believe
Theories about Difference 40
we already know. For example, it is true that people with a college
The Cultural Turn 43
education usually do have higher incomes. But this is not only be-
Global Context 44
cause people learn job-specific skills in college. College is also about
status and credentials. For most of the 20th century, college atten- SOCIOLOGY TODAY 45
Thinking Sociologically 45
dance was a sign of privilege, and a way to access prestigious social
Why Sociology? 46
networks. In the 1960s, US government programs were established
to expand college enrollment in an effort to reduce social inequality. CASE STUDY: W. E. B. DU BOIS
AND THE HISTORY OF
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY 47
Graduation
In today’s global economy, a college degree is required for entry to most workplaces.
24 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

LEARNING GOALS
2.1 Understand that sociology developed as a way to explain social patterns and social change and is one
of a family of social science disciplines located within the liberal arts.
2.2 Understand that knowledge is socially located and develops within particular intellectual and
national traditions and different social networks and institutional settings.
2.3 Identify core theoretical concepts in the discipline.
2.4 Understand that the history of sociological theory is distinct from making theoretical arguments or
applying theory to contemporary examples.

However, this was not a perfect solution for reducing inequality, because the
people who are most likely to do well in school are those whose parents are
well-educated, have good jobs, or both (Blau and Duncan 1967; Bourdieu and
Passeron 1979, 1990; Lareau 2003). Sociological theories about inequality and
privilege can help us better understand what might seem to be a common-sense
relationship between college education and income. By asking critical ques-
tions, these theories encourage us to see the social world in new ways.

METHODS AND INTERPRETATION

Measuring the Effect of Education on Earnings
The US Census Bureau and
Unemployment rate (%) Median usual weekly earnings ($)
the Department of Labor collect
Doctoral degree 1.6 1,825
national data showing that edu-
cation has an enormous impact Professional degree 1.5 1,884
on earnings for most of the US Master’s degree 2.1 1,434
population. They report that “ed-
Bachelor’s degree 2.2 1,198
ucation levels had more effect on
earnings over a 40-year span in Associate’s degree 2.8 862
the workforce than any other de- Some college, no degree 3.7 802
mographic factor, such as gender,
High school diploma 4.1 730
race and Hispanic origin” (Julian
and Kominski 2011). Figure 2.1 Less than a high school diploma 5.6 553
shows that in 2018, the median
Total: 3.2% All workers: $932
weekly earnings for workers with
a Bachelor’s degree ($1,198) were
Figure 2.1 Unemployment rates and earnings by educational attainment, 2018.
more than 60 percent higher than Note: Data are for persons age 25 and over. Earnings are for full-time wage and salary workers.
earnings for workers with only a Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey.
high school diploma ($730) and
more than twice the median weekly earnings of people individual life outcomes. In the language of sociology,
with less than a high school diploma ($553). these exceptions show that people’s lives are not entirely
There are exceptions to the general pattern of rela- shaped by social structures.
tionship between education and earnings. Some well-
known people never attended college or dropped out, ACTIVE LEARNING
including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft Discuss: Ask your parents or another adult why they
founder Bill Gates, and Apple founder Steve Jobs. While think college is important for career success. Be sure to
these individuals are comparatively rare, they show ask what it is exactly about education that pays off for
how chance, contingency, and choice can play a role in most people.
 T hi n ki n g Lik e a S o ci o lo g ist 25

Critical Questions and the

Sociological Imagination
A critical question relies on reason, theory, prior
knowledge, and new evidence to reflect upon
social actions. Critical questions allow for more
than a yes/no answer. Sociologists who ask critical
questions reject the idea that a given social out-
come was inevitable. Instead, they seek to explain
why something happened the way it did—and not
otherwise. At their best, critical questions help us
imagine new social possibilities.
Cultivating the ability to ask a critical ques-
tion is fundamental to what C. Wright Mills
(1916–1962) called the sociological imagination. C. Wright Mills
As we discussed in Chapter 1, the sociological
imagination is the ability to see the connections
between individual lives and wider social structures.
The sociological imagination implies that where you stand determines what
you can see. Think about your position in a classroom. Perhaps you can see the
front of the room, the instructor, or the students sitting in front of you? What
you cannot see as clearly is yourself. To get a picture of where you are, you have to
use your imagination to move outside your position and reflect on your surround-
ings. This imaginative ability to move outside of yourself, using your mind to view
yourself as part of a wider social scene, is a mental capability called reflexivity. Reflexivity The imaginative
The sociological imagination is based on reflexivity. It acknowledges that ability to move outside of
our perceptions are limited by our social positions. Our views are shaped by yourself in order to understand
the time and place and bodies where we live. This is true for every person. We yourself as part of a wider social
bring our experiences, knowledge, attitudes, and abilities into every social sit- scene.

uation. And these experiences are shaped by the groups, families, and other
institutions to which we belong. By asking critical questions about ourselves
and our social world, sociology can help us extend our perceptions. The prom-
ise of the sociological imagination is that we will be able to see a much wider
picture, tell much better stories, and take much more effective social action.
This chapter encourages you to apply the sociological imagination to so-
ciology itself. In other words, we want you to think critically about sociology’s
history, so that you can see sociology from the viewpoint of sociologists them-
selves. To help you do this, we tell three stories about American sociology.
• The first story is about social theory, sociology, and the social sciences. From
the beginning, sociology had big ambitions, trying to become the master dis-
cipline that would hold together all the social sciences. Because of these am-
bitions, theory has always been part of the work that sociologists produce.
• The second story is about the big ideas and important thinkers in the
sociological tradition. Sociology originally developed in Europe and the
United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as an at-
tempt to u
­ nderstand three key processes that were changing society:
the Industrial Revolution, the spread of democracy, and the creation of
nation-states. By the mid-1900s, particularly in the United States, there
were three main perspectives in sociology: conflict theory, consensus
theory, and symbolic interaction.
• The third story is about how sociology and sociological theory have
changed over the last 50 years. During these decades, sociologists stopped
26 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

organizing their work in terms of the “three-fold model” of conflict theory,

consensus theory, and symbolic interactionism. As sociologists have
become more concerned with culture, difference, and globalization, they
have turned away from overarching theories that were supposed to apply to
all societies. As a result, sociological theory now works to understand spe-
cific social problems rather than developing concepts that can be applied to
any type of social analysis.

Social Theory, Sociology, and

the Social Sciences
The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) was one of the first sociol-
ogists. He was interested in how different types of scientific knowledge were
connected to each other. Comte identified six “fundamental sciences”: math-
ematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology. Of these six,
Comte believed that sociology was destined to become the most important.
Because social phenomena were the most complex, he argued, sociology needed
to integrate all the other sciences into a single theory of social phenomena. If
sociology could achieve this, Comte believed, then people would use its knowl-
edge to create a new and better society.
Comte’s ambitious agenda for sociological theory was influential for a
Social sciences The disciplines long time. In fact, many sociologists in the 19th century believed that social
that use systematic scientific science would eventually replace religion as the major intellectual force or-
and cultural methods to study ganizing in the world. They looked to sociology to develop a science of society
the social world, as distinct from itself, by establishing a master theory that could explain social phenomena.
the natural and physical worlds. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who is generally regarded as the “father of
sociology” in France, believed strongly in this vision of sociology as the most im-
portant of the social sciences. At the Sorbonne in Paris, where Durkheim was a
professor of education and sociology, his lectures on social science were required
for all students (Jones 1986). As a key adviser for the French Ministry of Edu-
cation, Durkheim helped spread sociology throughout the national curriculum.
At the center of Durkheim’s vision was the idea that sociology was a dis-
tinct science, different from philosophy, psychology, or the natural sciences.
Social facts Facts about the Durkheim wanted sociologists to study social facts, which are the forces ex-
collective nature of social life ternal to the individual that influence how people act, think, or feel (Durkheim
that have their own patterns [1895] 2014). Social facts are different from biological facts or psychological
and dynamics beyond the indi- facts, because they exist outside of the individual’s body or conscience. For ex-
vidual level. ample, in his study, Suicide, Durkheim (1997) showed that suicide rates were not
simply the result of unpredictable, isolated, individual choices. Instead, they
were related systematically to other social facts such as religion, nationality,
gender, and marital status. We discuss Durkheim’s theories in greater depth
later in the chapter. For now, we want to emphasize two points. One, Durkheim
insisted that social facts were the basic pieces of information that scientists
needed to understand society. And two, Durkheim wanted to develop a single
theory to understand and explain these social facts.
The same kind of grand vision motivated the work of Talcott Parsons
(1902–1979), an American sociologist. Parsons, who led Harvard’s Department
of Social Relations (an influential collaboration of sociologists, anthropologists,
and psychologists), worked to create a single theory for all the social sciences
that could help support a democratic society.
 Cl assi c a l S o ci o lo g y 27

As we discuss later in the chapter, this pursuit of a single theory that could
explain all social phenomena began to fall out of favor during the 1960s and
1970s. But it is an important part of the story of sociology. For most of its early
history, sociologists were trying to accomplish two different things. They were
trying to develop a general theory of society, and they were trying to explain
the tremendous social changes that were taking place in the world.

Classical Sociology
Sociology emerged during a period of tremendous social change. The Indus-
trial Revolution, the spread of democracy, and the creation of the modern
­nation-state were causing massive social upheaval in Western Europe, and their
influence was spreading quickly throughout the world. Sociologists wanted to
understand and explain these changes, which were making people interact in
ways that had never happened before.

The Industrial Revolution

Most of the early sociologists lived in the immediate aftermath of the Industrial
Revolution, which began in England around 1760. Before the Industrial Revolu-
tion, most goods were made by hand, by individuals or small groups of people,
often working at home. After the Industrial Revolution, most goods were
mass-produced in factories, with the use of machines to speed up and standard-
ize the work process. The logic of marriage and families adapted to meet the
needs of factory production. Scientific improvements in health and medicine
extended life. Food became more plentiful. By 1850, the Industrial Revolution
had spread throughout Europe and North America, reorganizing almost every Globalization A concept that
part of social life. For this reason, some scholars have called the Industrial Rev- refers to the growing social,
olution “the most important event in human history” (Hobsbawm 1996: 29). economic, cultural, and political
The Industrial Revolution accelerated the process of globalization, which interdependence of the world’s
refers to the way that our actions and activities are linked across different regions people.
and continents (Held 1999). Because factories were able to produce things faster
and more inexpensively, factory owners searched constantly for new markets where
they could sell their goods. Local markets
grew into regional markets, and finally
into global markets. All of this required in-
creased coordination and administration
across larger territories. As a result, social
relationships became much more standard-
ized across the world and between different
groups of people. By standardizing time,
currencies, weights, and other measures,
an enormous expansion of global trade was
made possible. New transportation tech-
nologies made it easier to move goods and
people across great distances. New commu-
nication technologies made it easier to co-
ordinate the activities taking place in these
distant markets. All of this sped up and in-
tensified the pace of global interconnection, The new industrial landscape
This 19th-century engraving by Durand-Brager of Vivian’s copper foundry in Swan-
blurring the boundaries between local and sea, Wales, depicts the pollution from open-pit mines and smoke from foundries
global events (Held 1999). that transformed the landscape.
28 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

The Industrial Revolution also en-

couraged greater urbanization, which
refers to the growth of cities. For exam-
ple, the population of London more than
tripled between 1750 and 1850 from
700,000 people to more than 2.3 mil-
lion. As more people moved into cities
to work in factories, population density
increased. New systems of public trans-
portation made it easier for people to
get to work, and allowed cities to spread
across much larger territories. Cafés,
coffeehouses, and pubs offered places
where friends and strangers alike could
meet, relax, and discuss the day’s events.
Crime increased, and professional police
Industrial division of labor
This 19th-century watercolor by I. F. Bonhomme shows women and children working in forces were created to control disorder
the coal-sifting room at the Blanzy mine, Saone-et-Loire, France. Women and children and to act as a deterrent against theft
were among the first factory workers. and violence. Social inequality also in-
creased. London was the wealthiest city
in the world in the 19th century, but it
was also a place of great poverty, where
millions of people lived in overcrowded,
unhealthy, and unpleasant slums. This
was also true of American cities like
New York and Chicago.
Taken together, industrializa-
tion, globalization, and urbanization
changed the way that people interacted
with each other. This new world was
memorialized in the novels of Charles
Dickens (Oliver Twist, Hard Times),
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables), Upton
Sinclair (The Jungle), and many others.
Sociologists of the time also believed
that they could help describe and ex-
plain these momentous social changes.

Machine technology The Democratic Revolution

The industrial revolution witnessed rapid technological invention in new factories. This
steam hammer was erected in James Nasmyth’s foundry near Manchester in 1832. To-
The second big change in the early days
day’s factories can be cleaner but they are still based on industrial technology. of sociology was the spread of democ-
racy. Democracy refers to the rule of
Urbanization A social process the people, and it has its origin in the city-states of ancient Greece. But democ-
in which the population shifts racy was not a very influential system of government before the 18th century.
from the country into cities, and This began to change with the American Revolution (1776) and the French Rev-
where most people start to live olution (1789), which replaced the rule of kings with the rule of the people.
in cities rather than rural areas. The democratic revolutions that started in England, France, and the United
States spread quickly. By 1850, movements for democracy could be found in
most E­ uropean societies. These movements challenged the rulers of those soci-
eties, who either had to forcefully maintain their control, or let the people have
more say over political decisions.
 Cl assi c a l S o ci o lo g y 29

Ideas about democracy combined with ideas about science began to change
how people thought about modern society. Until the 17th century, Western so-
cieties had revolved around the institution of religion, and politics involved
compromise between the king, landowners, and church leaders. But this ar-
rangement was challenged throughout the 19th century, by intellectuals as well
as revolutionary leaders of democratic movements. In fact, many intellectuals
predicted that religion would eventually disappear completely in a new, secular
society. Comte, Durkheim, and the other early sociologists believed that social
science could help create a freer and more democratic society, one less reliant
on religion and tradition. They hoped that sociology could help discover newer
and better ways to create social order that more accurately reflected the wishes
and desires of the people.

The Creation of Nation-States

The third great change during this era was the creation of nation-states. In a
nation-state, a government has control over a defined territory; the people who
live in that territory are citizens of the nation, united by a common identity,
a common history, and a strong sense of social connection. Nation-states first
emerged in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, and began to spread
rapidly throughout the world in the 18th and 19th centuries (Mann 1993).
Nation-states were connected to industrialization and democracy in im-
portant ways. New communication and transportation technologies made it
easier to govern across larger territories. Mass literacy and mass media meant
that the people in these territories were reading the same things, learning new
things and participating in a cultural world far greater than their local market.
With the growth of citizen armies in newly democratic societies, governments
were able to link the rights of citizenship with the duty of military service and
sacrifice for the nation.
By the end of the 19th century, “the people” and “the nation” had become
virtually interchangeable. With the growth of national education systems,
national languages, literatures, holidays, and museums, national identity
became one of the most powerful forms of common experience and belonging
in modern social life (Anderson 2006; Weber 1946).
The growing power of nation-states was also associated with violence and
domination. The most powerful industrialized nations used their superior
military technologies to conquer new territories, leading to a vast system of
colonialism that extended Western influence and control around much of the
world. Believing that they were more advanced, these nations justified their
conquests by claiming that they were bringing democracy and other modern
benefits to “less civilized” parts of the world. Pseudoscientific arguments about
the supposed superiority of the “European race” encouraged European nations
to believe that other parts of the world were incapable of self-rule, and would
be better off being controlled by the more advanced European nations (Smedley
1993). The European nation-states controlled almost the entire continent of
Africa by the end of the 19th century, as well as India, much of Southeast Asia,
and Australia. Racism, disrespect, poverty, and violence were regular features The patriotism of the colonies
Instead of resisting British colonial
of life for indigenous people in these colonial territories. government, the colonized were
asked to fight on behalf of the British
The European Canon Empire. In this 1917 postcard, a Brit-
ish and an Indian soldier pose next
Early sociological theorists struggled to describe and explain these vast, inter-
to the Red Ensign, an extension of
locking changes, among them Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Max Weber (1864– British nationalism in a flag symbol-
1920) in Germany, and Émile Durkheim in France. These three thinkers are izing Britain’s overseas possessions.
30 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

especially important in sociology, and their combined work helped create the
canon for sociological scholarship. This means they are a standard point of ref-
erence for many sociologists and their ideas continue to be used today.

KARL MARX. Karl Marx was one of the most influential intellectuals of the
19th century. His ideas about social and economic conflict changed the course
of history. The Communist Manifesto, which he published in 1848 with Friedrich
Engels, inspired dozens of socialist movements throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries. Although he was trained as a philosopher, Marx is now viewed as one
of the most important early sociologists.
Marx believed that society is shaped by the history of economic conflict. At
any given time, Marx argued, there were two economic groups, or social classes.
The dominant class, which controlled economic production, used that control
in order to profit from the work of others. Everyone else lacked control over the
conditions of their work. At the mercy of the dominant class, those who were
Karl Marx dominated lacked true freedom. For Marx, the interests of the dominant class
and the dominated class were fundamentally opposed. In order for the dom-
Canon The set of thinkers and
ideas that serve as a standard
inated class to become free, its members needed to overthrow the dominant
point of reference for a scholarly class and set up a new system for organizing work. The problem was that the
or artistic tradition. dominated class often failed to realize the true path to their freedom and hap-
piness, a situation that Marx called “false consciousness.”
Capitalism An economic
Marx saw economic conflict as the central social fact determining every
system based on the private
society, shaping social relationships between masters and slaves, landowners
ownership of property, includ-
and peasants, factory owners and workers. In modern Western societies he de-
ing the means of material life
such as food, clothing, and shel-
scribed this fundamental economic conflict in terms of private property, or cap-
ter, and in which the production ital. C
­ apitalism is a system that transforms the means of material life—food,
of goods and services is clothing, shelter—into objects to be bought and sold on markets. A small class
controlled by private individu- of capitalist owners control all the land, finance, factories, and machinery of
als and companies, and prices production. Everyone else is destined to be a worker with no choice but to labor
are set by markets. for capitalists for low wages under bad conditions. Instead of producing for their
Alienation A condition where own purposes, Marx argues that capitalism strips workers of their humanity
humans have no meaningful and creates alienation—a condition where humans have no meaningful con-
connection to their work, or to nection to their work, or to each other. According to this view, all government,
each other. justice, cultural, and religious institu-
tions are organized to support the rule
of capitalists. For Marx, these are the
defining features of the modern era:
the domination of society by capital-
ists, the relentless expansion of pro-
duction in pursuit of profit, and the
exploitation of those at the bottom of
the system. The key for overcoming this
situation was the creation of a revolu-
tionary class consciousness among the
workers.
Marx’s ideas remain influential
today. The idea that economic inequal-
ity is a permanent feature of capital-
ist society, and in particular, that the
Mass worker action. The Manchester General Strike, 1926 economic interests of powerful corpo-
The Illustrated London News captures the size and organization of the Manchester
General Strike on May 15, 1926. Depicted here is the Great Procession of Corporation rations and a few extremely wealthy
Tramwaymen starting from Albert Square and led by their band. individuals shape the law and culture,
 Cl assi c a l S o ci o lo g y 31

continue to resonate. While Marx’s prediction in The Communist Manifesto that

workers would inevitably rise up to overthrow capitalism and form a communist
utopia seems unlikely in the early 21st century, there continue to be many move-
ments for justice and economic equality that are inspired by Marx’s writings.
Many sociologists have also been inspired by Marx’s goal of using social
science to improve the lives of the less fortunate. For example, the project of
public sociology is a commitment to using sociological ideas in wider public Public sociology A commit-
conversations and struggles for social justice both in the United States and ment to bringing sociological
around the globe. knowledge to a general public
audience, and participating in
MAX WEBER. Max Weber was also interested in understanding capitalism wider public conversations and
and modern society, but he took a different approach than Marx. While Marx struggles for social justice.
wanted to produce scholarship that could help change the world, Weber be-
lieved that science needed to be separate from politics. While Marx’s writings
were deeply critical of capitalism, Weber argued that social science should
limit itself to explaining, rather than evaluating, social outcomes. Finally,
while Marx argued that material things like labor practices and economic

PAIRED
CONCEPTS Power and Resistance

Sociological Theorists in the Real World

Many sociological theorists have played important roles in French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) was one of
politics and public life. For example, Émile Durkheim was the most influential critics of globalization and neoliberalism
an important advisor to the French Ministry of Education in Europe. His book The Weight of the World was a bestseller
in the early 1900s, and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) in France, and an inspiration to the waves of worker strikes
served as minister of foreign affairs in France. Talcott Par- and protest movements in France throughout the 1990s.
sons was a frequent advisor to the US government during
World War II. Robert Merton (1910–2003) conducted a
number of studies for the US government about radio pro-
paganda during the 1940s, and worked briefly as an adviser
to the Pentagon (Simonson 2005: 11–12). More recently, the
British sociological theorist Anthony Giddens was a consul-
tant to governments around the world, and was one of the
chief architects of the “New Labour” style of politics that led
to the election of Tony Blair as British Prime Minister in 1997.
Other sociologists have entered political life not as gov-
ernment advisers, but rather as social critics trying to inspire
acts of resistance to power. The most famous example is
Karl Marx, whose writings against capitalism inspired labor
Anthony Giddens (left) and Tony Blair
movements and social revolutions around the world. In the
British sociological theorist Anthony Giddens was a chief archi-
United States, W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was a vocal critic of tect of the “New Labour” style of politics that led to the election
racial discrimination and police violence, a cofounder of the of Tony Blair as Britain’s prime minister in 1997. Giddens went on
NAACP in 1909, and a leading voice trying to help organize to serve as a consultant to governments around the world.
African resistance against European colonial domination.
C. Wright Mills was a well-known critic of the US govern- ACTIVE LEARNING
ment and its military throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and Think about it: Is there a time when a new idea or concept
he was a major influence on the 1960s social movements changed the way you thought about your life or about the
that came to be known as “the New Left.” More recently, the world? How did it change your thinking?
32 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

relationships were the most important issues, Weber argued that a good
sociological explanation also needed to consider how ideas influence social
actions.
Like Marx, Weber thought that capitalism was a central feature of
modern society. What Weber added to the story, however, was a more nu-
anced sense of culture and organizations. For example, in The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ([1905] 2011), Weber studied why capital-
ism developed first in specific Protestant communities in Europe and North
America. He argued that religious ideas in those communities created the
kinds of economic beliefs that were necessary for capitalism to flourish.
Weber argued that many of the ways that people needed to act in a capi-
talist society were not “natural”—for example, the specialized division of
labor, the investment of profit back into the business, and the desire to work
longer than what is minimally necessary. When these principles became
connected to religious beliefs and religious communities, they acquired a
Max Weber moral force that allowed them to spread quickly throughout society.
Weber was also interested in the organization of political authority,
Bureaucracy An organizational
form with a clearly d
­ efined hi-
which had changed from traditional forms based on the divine right of kings
erarchy where roles are based
to modern forms based on law and reason. Weber argued that one of the key
on rational, predictable, written ­developments in modern society was the creation of bureaucracies. In a bu-
rules and procedures to govern reaucracy, the organization is run according to formal rules and regulations
every aspect of the organization rather than personal ties, traditions, or customs. Weber argued that all insti-
and produce standardized, sys- tutions in modern society—governments, militaries, corporations, and even
tematic, and efficient outcomes. cultural and religious organizations—were organized as bureaucracies.
Weber argued that the rise of bureaucracy was connected to the process
Rationalization A major
of rationalization, in which all social relationships become more organized,
­dynamic of modernity in which
social relationships become
standardized, and predictable. Rationalization made organizations much
more predictable, standardized, more effective in their operations, but it also led to a certain disenchant-
systematic, and efficient. ment in modern life, in which people blindly follow bureaucratic rules with-
out any sense of passion or ultimate
purpose.
Rationalization is still going on
today. George Ritzer has written about
the “McDonaldization of Society,” in
which more and more of our social life
becomes predictable, standardized,
systematic, and efficient—just like
in a McDonald’s restaurant (Ritzer
2013). But a rationalized world can
be a tedious and dehumanizing place
in which to live and work. This is obvi-
ous to anyone who has stood in line to
renew their driver’s license, or tried to
get a question answered from a com-
pany’s customer-service department.

ÉMILE DURKHEIM. The third key clas-

sical sociologist was Émile Durkheim.
Waiting at the DMV Like Marx and Weber, Durkheim
The tedium of waiting at the Department of Motor Vehicles is an iconic experience of bu-
reaucracy in the United States. People sit in rows of chairs and wait their turn patiently before was deeply interested in the way that
they proceed in an orderly manner to the counter where their applications can be processed. economic change was shaping the
 Cl assi c a l S o ci o lo g y 33

­ ivision of labor and social life in industrial societies. Where Durkheim

d
differed was in his focus on solidarity, which refers to the social ties that
bind people together.
In The Division of Labor in Society (1893), Durkheim examined how sol-
idarity was changing in industrializing, urbanizing nation-states such as
France. In older societies, people were tied to each other through a strong
sense of similarity, which Durkheim called mechanical solidarity. In
these earlier societies people lived in the same place all their lives, and
their social experiences were similar to those of the other people in their
community. As a result, they tended to think the same way as everyone
else, and they could assume that everyone in their society shared the same
values and beliefs. This kind of social stability did not exist in modern in-
dustrialized societies.
Durkheim believed that people still felt connected to one another in
modern society, but it was based on something other than similarity. In-
stead, they were held together through a sense of social difference and Émile Durkheim
interdependence. Because people work in increasingly specialized jobs,
Disenchantment The condi-
they know that they depend on other people’s expertise, and this creates a tion of rationalized bureaucratic
kind of social connection. In other words, we feel connected to our doctor, societies characterized by the
our accountant, and the cashier at the local market, even if we do not know growing importance of skepti-
very much about them. Durkheim called this new form of social integration cism and the decline of belief as
­organic solidarity. a source of social action.
Durkheim believed that organic solidarity had certain advantages because
it encouraged greater individuality and tolerance. But he also had concerns. Be- Division of labor A central prin-
cause modern societies were so large and changed so quickly, Durkheim worried ciple for organizing the produc-
that people would feel isolated and disconnected, a situation he referred to as tive work in society that sorts
different people into different
anomie. Durkheim wanted sociologists to identify alternative sources of social
work roles to ensure the produc-
connection that would promote solidarity. For example, Durkheim thought
tion and reproduction of human
that national identity and national symbols could create a sort of common con-
life. This includes the separation
sciousness among the members of a nation-state, and as such the nation could of work and life into different,
be an important source of social solidarity that was similar to the mechanical more specialized parts.
solidarity of older societies (Durkheim [1893] 2014; Smith 2004). Durkheim
believed that collective representations—the images we have of our own Mechanical solidarity A
social groups like the nation, but also ethnicity, race, and religion—continue system of social ties that pro-
to produce social solidarity. duces social cohesion on the
Durkheim’s systematic approach to social analysis continues to be influen- basis of similar work and life in
less complex divisions of labor.
tial. Sociologists today study how people re-create a feeling of interdependence
in our rapidly changing world, by examining the forms of social solidarity that
Organic solidarity A system of
exist at work, at play, in our close relationships, and in our worlds of social
social ties that produces social
media. Sociologists are also studying the kinds of collective representations cohesion based on difference in
that bind people to society—not only during national holidays of commemora- complex division of labor.
tion like July 4 or Memorial Day but also during moments of national trauma
like remembering September 11. Anomie The condition of feel-
ing isolated and disconnected
in the absence of rich social
The Forgotten Canon?
connection.
In addition to Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, many other social analysts stud-
ied modern society. Among these are the “forgotten founders” who include Collective representations
­lesser-known European theorists as well as prominent women and a range Pictures, images, or narratives
of theorists from non-European backgrounds (Lengermann and Niebrugge-­ that describe the social group
Brantley 1998; Deegan 1990; 1991; 2002; 2014). This list includes thinkers like and are held in common.
34 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

Ibn Khaldûn (1332 CE/732 AH–March

19, 1406 CE/808 AH) in Northern
Africa; Auguste Comte (1798–1857),
Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825),
and Alexis de Tocqueville in France;
Georg Simmel (1858–1918) and Karl
­Mannheim (1893–1947) in Germany;
Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)
and Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
in E
­ ngland; and Charlotte Perkins
Gilman (1860–1935), Jane Addams
(1860–1935), and W. E .B. Du Bois
(1868–1963) in the United States. In
this context, selecting Marx, Weber,
and Durkheim as sociology’s founders
Solidarity in Prayer, September 23, 2001
seems arbitrary and limited. Shouldn’t
People pray holding American flags during a prayer service at Yankee Stadium for the we dismiss them as “dead white guys”?
victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks in New York in 2001. Perhaps.

PAIRED
CONCEPTS Inequality and Privilege

Forgotten Founders in Sociology

Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the premier philosophers invented the term ‘asabiyyah to refer to the social cohe-
of the Arab world. His scholarly output contains funda- sion among humans arising from group life.
mental conceptual work in what we would recognize as There is evidence that 19th-century thinkers were
the social sciences, specifically anthropology, economics, aware of Khaldun’s work but omitted reference to him
and sociology (Gates 1967; Haddad 1977; Dhaouadi 1990). and other non-European traditions in their theorizing.
Khaldun wrote prolifically on many topics, including six This is an example of how the classical sociological canon
volumes of general sociology (Khaldûn 2004). Centuries is Eurocentric in its exclusion of non-European voices and
before Émile Durkheim wrote about solidarity, Khaldun references.
Harriet Martineau was an English writer and early
sociologist. She argued that the study of society must
include key political and religious as well as social insti-
tutions. Martineau was popular and influential during her
lifetime, and she wrote on a variety of topics, including
political economy, taxation, the poor laws, travel, women’s
rights and education, and the abolition of slavery. In 1834
she traveled widely in America, observing its morals and
manners. On her return to England she published Society
in America (1837). For sociologists, Martineau’s book about
research methods, How to Observe Morals and Manners
(1838), and her introduction and translation of sociologi-
cal ideas in Auguste Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive
(1853), are particularly important.
Despite her influence, Martineau’s ideas were not in-
corporated when sociology was institutionalized as an
academic discipline in the late 19th century and into the
Ibn Khaldun 20th. Like other women authors and activists, Martineau
 Cl assi c a l S o ci o lo g y 35

PAIRED
CONCEPTS continued

the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Later in his

career, he became a pan-Africanist and published many
works on Africa, including The World and Africa (1947).
Although Du Bois’s academic career almost precisely
spans the formation and development of the discipline
of sociology, his scholarly voice and output were discon-
nected from influential institutions in the discipline until
recently. The context of this exclusion was the deep racial
segregation of US society during his lifetime, and the way
white privilege worked to preserve some voices in the new
discipline of sociology rather than others. It is only in the
last two decades that American textbooks have included
him in the sociological canon.

Harriet Martineau

was excluded. Historians like Michael Hill have argued that

this reflects the pervasive gender inequality and mascu-
line privilege of the early institutions of the discipline. Male
founders excluded women’s voices to make a scholarly
case for their place in the university. Today, however, Mar-
tineau is considered to be one of the founders of the field
of sociology (Giddens and Griffiths 2006; Hill 2002).
W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist and civil
rights activist. He was the first African American to earn
a doctorate at Harvard, and he was a professor of history,
sociology, and economics at Atlanta University. A prolific
author and editor, Du Bois had a long and distinguished
career, writing landmark studies on black culture, commu-
nities, and politics. These include The Philadelphia Negro W. E. B. Du Bois
([1899] 1967), a landmark study on urban Philadelphia;
The Souls of Black Folk ([1903] 1994); his influential chapter, ACTIVE LEARNING
“The Talented Tenth,” in The Negro Problem (1903), which Discuss: Do you think the ideas of people who are more
made a case for education and collective racial uplift; and powerful because of race, class, gender, or social position
Black Reconstruction in America (1935), which chronicled are more likely to be influential in society? Why or why not?
the continuing oppression and inequality that followed Are there times when they may be less influential?

It is true that the classical sociological theories of Marx, Weber, and

Durkheim are limited by a distinctly 19th-century European point of view.
Marx did not comprehend the complexity of occupational and technical change.
He also underestimated the power of nation-states, ethnicities, and religious
identities to shape individual lives and world history. Weber underestimated
the ability of religious traditions to adapt and thrive despite the onslaughts of
secular life. Durkheim’s references to “primitive” societies have been criticized
for being Eurocentric and simplistic. Neither Marx, nor Weber, nor Durkheim
really developed an adequate theory of race, gender, or colonialism.
36 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

While these men’s theories have their limits, it is still the case that they
operate as “classics” in sociology and enjoy a privileged status, in the sense that
all sociologists are familiar with their main arguments (Alexander 1987: 11).
By providing a common frame of reference, the classical theories make it easier
for sociologists to communicate with each other. New theoretical movements
in sociology often develop through arguments about the classical theorists, by
reinterpreting what one or more of the classical theorists “really meant.” This is
just as true in the United States as it is in Europe, despite the fact that American
sociology has its own distinctive history.

Sociology in America
Sociology existed in the United States in the late 1800s, but it was not as well or-
ganized as in Europe. William Graham Sumner was teaching sociology classes at
Yale University as early as 1875. Frank Wilson Blackmar began teaching his “Ele-
ments of Sociology” class at the University of Kansas in 1890. Franklin G ­ iddings
began teaching courses in sociology at Columbia University in 1894, and he was
the first person in the United States to be appointed a full professor of sociology.
But American sociology really began to gain a distinct identity when the University
of Chicago created a Department of Sociology—the first in the world—in 1892.

The Chicago School and American Sociology

Like the European founders, Chicago sociologists were interested in modern
social life, especially immigration, urbanization, and crime. They used the

PAIRED
CONCEPTS Global and Local

The Importance of Immigration in American Sociology

Compared to their European counterparts, American sociol- Sorokin, who was a leading sociologist at Harvard University
ogists in the early 20th century were much more interested and the University of Minnesota, was a Russian immigrant.
in immigration. The cities in which ­American sociologists Mirra Komoravsky, a Barnard sociologist who was the second
worked were major immigration destinations. As we dis- woman to serve as the president of the American Sociolog-
cuss in Chapter 15, about 48 million people left Europe ical Association, was also a Russian immigrant. Paul Lazars-
between 1864 and 1924, which was more than 10 percent feld, the founder of Columbia University’s Bureau of Applied
of the population on the continent (Massey 1995). More Social Research, was an Austrian immigrant. Reinhard Bendix
than half of them came to the United States, and their ar- ­(University of California, Berkeley), Herbert Marcuse (Brandeis
rival strongly affected cities throughout the Northeast and University), Max Horkheimer (Columbia University), and
Midwest. In 1920, more than 4 ­ 0 ­percent of the population Erich Fromm (Columbia University, New School for Social
in New York City was foreign born. Boston (32%), Chicago Research) were German immigrants. Even today, sociology
(30%), Cleveland (30%), and ­Philadelphia (22%) had very departments around the United States have significant num-
large foreign-born populations. Sociologists living in those bers of faculty who emigrated from other countries, bringing
cities could not help but notice this massive influx of immi- a global perspective to their research and their teaching.
grants, and their research ­reflected this.
In fact, many early sociologists were themselves immi- ACTIVE LEARNING
grants, and they had direct experience of the global pop- Find out: Are there any foreign-born sociologists studying
ulation transfer from Europe to the United States. At the at or teaching in your university? Try to visit their office
University of Chicago, Louis Wirth (from Germany) and Flo- hours, and find out how they think their experience as an
rian Znaniecki (from Poland) were both immigrants. Pitirim immigrant has influenced their research and their teaching.
 S o ci o lo g y i n A m er i c a 37

city of Chicago as a social laboratory to study social change in industrial

society. Using a special kind of method—ethnography based on partici-
pant observation—Chicago sociologists painted a detailed portrait of early
20th-­century American life (Deegan 2007).
The Chicago School of sociology is especially well known for developing a
theory of the social self. Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) offered an early
version of this theory, with his concept of the “looking glass self.” Cooley ([1922]
2012:152) emphasized how society serves as a mirror people use to develop a
self-concept as they reflect on how others see them. They react to their sense of
others’ social perceptions, often in ways that meet social expectations.
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) developed a more complex theory of the
social self, with his distinction between the “I” and the “me.” For Mead, the “I”
is the prior, pre-social part of the self. The “me” is a socialized version of the self
(Mead 1967). So the statement, “I am hungry and Mommy feeds me” involves:
1. identifying the hunger;
2. identifying Mommy as a social object in the world who can feed me; and
3. recognizing that the “I” who is expressing hunger is also “me” for others—
for Mommy.

This third step is a highly complex symbolic process. The child must place
herself in the position of another—in this case, Mommy—to look back at her-
self. In that moment, the child uses her developing sociological imagination to
see herself, her mother, and the relationship between them. She has stepped
outside her self, using her capacity for reflexivity.
Influenced by these ideas about the social self, sociologists at the ­University
of Chicago produced important empirical studies about life in the modern city.
Key examples of this research include W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki’s The
Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918–20), a study of Polish ­immigrants
and their families; Robert Park’s (1922) study, The Immigrant Press and Its
Control (1922), and St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton Jr.’s 1945 study of
race and urban life on the South Side of Chicago, Black Metropolis (Drake and
Cayton 1993). By the middle of the 20th century, the Chicago School’s focus on
the social self came to be expressed as the theory of symbolic interactionism,
which we describe later in the chapter. The method of urban ethnography is also
widely used today in works such as Slim’s Table, about working-class masculinity
(Duneier 1992), and The Stickup Kids, about drug robberies in the South Bronx
in the late 1980s (Contreras 2012).

Conflict, Consensus, and Symbolic Interaction

Following World War II (1939–1945), sociologists in the United States con- Consensus theory Consensus
verged on three general models for thinking about society: consensus theory, theorists focus on social equi-
conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Consensus theory was associ- librium, which is the way that
ated with the work of Talcott Parsons, who tried to develop a general theory of different parts of society work
society that could be used by all the social sciences. Drawing on the European together to produce social
cohesion.
theories of Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud, Parsons argued
that modern American society was a functional equilibrium, a situation where
things like money, political power, social influence, and cultural values tended
to balance out, so that no single type of social resource could dominate society.
Parsons also argued that all societies were converging toward a single modern
form, in which each part of the social system became autonomous and self-­
organizing, designed to fulfill a specific function with maximum efficiency. Al-
though he understood the social facts of inequality, Parsons’s most important
38 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

question (similar to Durkheim’s) was: What factors contribute to stable social

systems?
While Parsons was the dominant sociologist throughout the 1940s and
1950s, he was not without his critics. Many thought that his model of func-
tional equilibrium was unable to explain social change. Others thought that his
theory was insensitive to human domination, suffering, conflict, and inequal-
ity. In contrast to Parsons’s argument that all societies were evolving naturally
toward a single modern form, these critics insisted instead that the world’s
most powerful nations were imposing capitalism on the rest of the world.
By the end of the 1960s, these criticisms of Parsons had come together in
Conflict theory Conflict theo- the formation of a different model of society, based on conflict theory. Con-
rists argue that social structures flict theory, which was developed by sociologists including C. Wright Mills and
and social systems emerge out Ralf Dahrendorf (1929–2009), focused on power inequalities, domination, and
of the conflicts between differ- the role of social conflict in social change. Conflict theorists argued that social
ent groups. structures emerged out of the conflicts between different groups. Instead of a
functional equilibrium between different parts of society, conflict theorists em-
phasized that social structures were designed to reinforce the unequal distribu-
tion of power and resources. Ultimately, conflict theorists such as Mills wanted
to understand how elites were able to maintain their control over society.
Symbolic interactionism A The tradition of symbolic interactionism cuts across both of these
perspective associated with the schools. Symbolic interactionism is interested in individuals, interactions, and
Chicago School of sociology interpretations. Herbert Blumer (1900–1987), a sociologist at the University
that argues that people develop of Chicago, synthesized earlier work by Mead and Cooley to define the three
a social self through interaction
basic propositions that informed symbolic interactionism: (1) individuals act
with others.
based on the meanings they have about the world; (2) those meanings develop
through the social interactions they have with other people; (3) those mean-
ings continue to develop and change, as the individual interprets the social in-
teractions and experiences they have (Blumer 1968; Morrione 1988; Tamotsu
1988). While conflict and consensus theory emphasized the ways that struc-
tures shape actions, symbolic interactionism emphasized the ways that actions
shape structures.
Erving Goffman (1922–1982) argued that people deliberately collaborate to
maintain social order through interaction. His masterwork, Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life (1956), uses a theatrical metaphor to explain how social encounters
are scripted like plays. In this view, people are like actors who know how to per-
form in social life because social interactions are organized around scripts. We
expect people to act according to those scripts—for teachers to behave differently
than students, for prison guards to behave differently than prisoners, and for
doctors to act differently than patients. In all these examples, Goffman’s work has
been used to explain how and why people follow social scripts and maintain social
order. Importantly, however, the idea that social life is scripted has also been used
as a critical tool for challenging social rules when they are found to be oppressive
or constraining. This is what feminists do when they challenge scripts that say
women do not have the same rights as men. It is what social activists do when they
plan social protests. As these examples show, interactional theorists like Goffman
provide tools for thinking about both conflict and consensus in social life.
By the middle of the 20th century, a standoff between the three perspectives
came to dominate the story American sociology told about itself. The resulting
three-fold model braided together the different strands of the broad sociological
tradition from Europe and America by joining a focus on inequality and social
values and connecting the analysis of large-scale social structures with smaller
 S o ci o lo g i c a l T h eo ry To day 39

PAIRED
CONCEPTS Structure and Contingency

Inverting and Subverting the Social Script

Protesting peacefully Billionaires for Bush

Vietnam War protesters challenged the script that guns, violence, During the 2000 US presidential campaign, protesters challenged
and war were more powerful than peace and harmony by hand- the script that elections matter, suggesting that the system was
ing flowers to soldiers at protests. Sometimes they even placed rigged to favor the rich. They also challenged the assumption that
flowers in the barrels of the guns that were pointed at them. only poor people and “radicals” participate in protests. Billionaires
for Bush (or Democratic candidate Al Gore) dressed as wealthy
people professing support for policies that support the wealthy.
ACTIVE LEARNING
Discuss: Do you think this kind of social protest that
challenges social scripts is effective? Why or why not?

scenes, psychological theories, and interactional settings. Framing all sociolog-

ical theory in terms of conflict, consensus, and symbolic interactionism, the
three-fold model was an extremely successful conceptual move: the model ap-
pears in nearly every general sociology textbook written from the 1950s onward.

Sociological Theory Today

Central as it is to the history of sociology, the three-fold model is inadequate
for understanding the work of contemporary sociologists. Instead, it is best
understood as a way to think about a particular moment in sociology’s history.
During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, sociologists in the United States wanted
to try to identify the most basic concepts and categories for thinking about so-
ciety. Was society about social order, social conflict, or social interaction? By the
1970s, though, these debates seemed too abstract, and too disconnected from
the massive changes that were taking place around the world (Seidman, 1985).
In response, social theory moved closer to social life; it became more concrete,
empirical, and connected to theoretical traditions from other disciplines (Seid-
man and Alexander 2001).
By the second half of the 20th century, the economic structure of Western
industrial societies was becoming more global and interconnected. Political life
40 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

was changing rapidly too. Women and racial minorities began to claim civil
rights. The student movement and the antiwar movement radicalized the “baby
boom” generation. Wars of liberation struggled to overthrow European colo-
nial powers. Global improvements in education, communication, and transpor-
tation technologies brought the world closer together. Sociologists wanted to
­understand and explain these changes.
The volume and pace of global migration also began to accelerate. People
were displaced by war, traveled for education or business, or emigrated in pur-
suit of greater social opportunities. The rapid circulation of technology and
cultural ideas connected people in new ways over greater distances (Appadurai
1996). Cultural and communicative issues became as important as economic and
political ones. With the development of the internet and social networks, tra-
ditional links between politics, economics, and culture seemed far less evident.
In the mid-19th century, Karl Marx observed that “all that is solid melts
into air.” He meant that traditional social relations and social ideas were being
swept away by modern capitalism. As the 21st century dawned, sociological
theorists returned to the idea that the social ground underneath our feet is
always shifting and unstable. Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) refers to this
as “liquid modernity” in an attempt to describe “the growing conviction that
change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty” (2000: 82).
Facing this situation of permanent uncertainty, sociologists turned to dif-
ferent kinds of theories to understand the social world. First, they moved away
from grand theories that attempted to explain everything toward more specific
and concrete “theories of the middle range.” Second, sociologists paid more at-
tention to issues of identity, difference, and exclusion, and the ways in which so-
ciological theories tend to privilege certain voices at the expense of others. Third,
sociologists adopted a more cultural perspective, examining the ways in which
interpretation informs all areas of social life. Finally, sociologists considered
more seriously the global and transnational dimensions of contemporary life.

Moving Away from Grand Theories

Theories of the middle Contemporary sociologists are interested in what Robert Merton (1968) called
range Theories that focus on theories of the middle range, which focus on particular social practices
particular institutions and prac-
and outcomes. Mid-range theories encourage sociologists to move away from
tices rather than an overarching
­abstract ideas about “society in general” toward specific issues and concrete
theory of society.
problems that can be studied empirically (Figure 2.2).
The move toward mid-range theory has encouraged sociologists to produce
(low) (high) research that can yield important findings and open up new directions for
Grand Theory future research. Robert Merton trained dozens of sociologists in this style
of mid-range theory, and those students produced some of the most im-
Middle-Range portant sociological research of the 1960s and 1970s: Peter Blau on social
Theory stratification and the occupational structure; James Coleman on educa-
tional opportunity and social capital (1996); Alice Rossi on gender and the
Empirical Low-Level Compre- life course (1985); Seymour Martin Lipset on the social bases of democ-
Content Theory hensiveness
racy (1960); Alvin Gouldner on the changing roles of intellectuals as a “new
class” in modern society (1979); and many others.
Data
Theories about Difference
The Real Since the 1970s, sociologists have paid more attention to how sociology
World
(high) (low) has historically ignored theoretical works that were written by women,
Figure 2.2 Diagram of theories of racial minorities, and people living outside Europe or North America. This
the middle range. is especially problematic since sociology has long been a discipline that
 S o ci o lo g i c a l T h eo ry To day 41

studied gender and family structures, racial and ethnic relations, immigration,
and class difference. Feminists, post-colonial theorists, queer theorists, and
theorists of intersectionality have criticized these exclusions for reproducing
inequality and encouraging a limited view of the social world. Their criticisms
have had a major influence on the practice of sociology today.

FEMINISM. Feminism began with the idea that women have political, eco- Feminism A theoretical cri-
nomic, and social rights equal to men’s. It is an intellectual movement that tique and historical series of
extends well beyond sociology, influencing almost every type of academic schol- social movements that pro-
arship. It is also a global social movement, fighting for justice for women and posed women as equal to men
other sexual minorities. In fact, many scholars consider feminism to be the and argued that women should
be treated as equals in major
most important global social movement of the 20th century (Alexander 2006:
social institutions.
250–60; Habermas 1998: 418–27).
Feminism’s influence on sociology has been significant. Many feminist so-
ciologists study marriage and the family, examining how these social institu-
tions reinforce male privilege. Others have argued that a feminist perspective
should be a part of all sociological research, in order to uncover how assump-
tions about gender differences continue to encourage the exclusion or margin-
alization of women (Stacey and Thorne 1985). For example, when some military
officers trained soldiers, they insulted the new trainees by calling them girls
(Barrett 1996). Other military experts described countries that successfully

PAIRED
CONCEPTS Solidarity and Conflict

The History of Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS)

At the 1969 annual meeting of the American Sociological positions in national and regional sociology associations;
Association (ASA), Alice Rossi addressed the association’s convinced the ASA to regularly collect and publish data
leadership on behalf of a newly formed Women’s Caucus, on the status of women in the discipline; and successfully
which had been created to address the status of women petitioned to create a section of the ASA devoted to the
in the discipline of sociology. Rossi reported on research sociology of sex and gender (Roby 1992).
that showed significant disadvantages for women; while Today, SWS is a global organization. Their mentoring
about one-third of all graduate students were women, program helps graduate students and younger scholars
only about 15 percent of faculty positions were held by navigate the profession successfully, and they identify
women (Rossi 1970). Women faculty were more likely than graduate sociology departments that have demonstrated
men to have part-time appointments and higher teaching a commitment to gender equity in hiring, scholarship,
loads, and to be located in lower-prestige departments and teaching. Their website is a repository of research and
and universities. Rossi argued that it was time for the dis- news about gender biases in teaching evaluations, as well
cipline to take active steps to redress these inequalities: as the growing problem of online harassment of feminist
more representation of women in the ASA leadership and scholars. They maintain an active blog for their community
on the editorial boards of major journals, more active com- members, and they write regular press releases as a way of
munication by the Women’s Caucus to the larger commu- communicating with journalists and the larger public.
nity of sociologists, and more active organizing activities
by women in sociology (Rossi 1970). ACTIVE LEARNING
Leaders of the Women’s Caucus created Sociologists Find out: In the college you are attending, what percentage
for Women in Society (SWS) in 1971 as an organization of the sociology faculty are women? Contact the depart-
devoted to improving the status of women in the disci- ment chair, and ask if they have data on how the gender
pline. They established a childcare program for the annual composition of faculty in the department has changed
conference of the ASA; nominated women to leadership over the last 30 years. What do the data show?.
42 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

develop nuclear weapons as “losing their virginity” (Cohn 1987). This kind of
gendered and sexual language is pervasive in the business world as well, cre-
ating a “male model of a career” that limits the strategies available to women
(Blair-Loy and Williams 2013). Feminist sociologists emphasize that identities
like “woman” and “man” are made rather than given: we construct them in sym-
bolic interaction through the meanings, norms, institutions, and scripts we use
Critical race theory A theory that
in everyday life.
first developed in critical legal
studies to show the ways that the CRITICAL RACE THEORY. Critical race theory begins from the idea that race
law reinforced racial injustice and is a social concept connected to histories of social conflict, political organiza-
domination. tion, and cultural classification (Crenshaw et al. 1996, 2016). Omi and Winant
(1994: 52) argue that the history of conflict over race creates a “racial common
Racial formation theory A sense” in society, which connects racial stereotypes with institutionalized pat-
critique that analyzes modern terns of social inequality to create a racial formation. These stereotypes and
Western society and particu- inequalities are often written into the law, in a way that guarantees the subordi-
larly US society as structured nation of racial minorities (Brooks 1994; Crenshaw et al. 1996, 2016). For exam-
by a historically developed ple, when laws about property rights were first developed in the United States,
“racial common sense.” Racial
they were organized around principles of racial domination. African Americans
stereotypes and institutional-
were defined as property, Native Americans were denied their landholdings,
ized patterns of inequality are
embedded in the fundamental
and only whites were legally entitled to possess and occupy land (Harris 1993).
fabric of modern social life at Laws that followed the end of slavery, such as the Jim Crow laws (which made
both the individual and the segregation legal in many parts of the United States) and redlining (which was
institutional levels. developed to exclude non-whites from particular residential neighborhoods),
also shaped the history of racial inequality in the United States.
Intersectionality A perspec-
tive that identifies the multiple, INTERSECTIONALITY. Intersectionality is a way of thinking about the mul-
intersecting, and situational tiple, intersecting, and situational nature of the categories that shape peo-
nature of the categories that ple’s identities. Initially developed by legal scholar and civil rights advocate
shape people’s identities. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the intersectional perspective argued against
the common sense that people had a single dominant racial (or other) iden-
Post-colonial theory A critical tity. Instead, the intersectional perspective asserted that multiple identities
perspective that argues that
shape individual life chances in the political and legal systems. In sociology
the ways we see globalization,
and related disciplines like gender studies, Africana studies, and other critical
power, and economic systems
in the modern world are all
cultural studies, the idea of intersectionality was also developed as a way to
shaped by the conquest and think about power in a more complex way, taking into account multiple social
subordination of the world’s categories such as age, ethnicity, nativity, language, and disability.
peoples by Western European
powers dating from the 15th POST-COLONIAL THEORY. Post-colonial theory is a critical response to the
and 16th centuries. history of global European conquest, which began in the 15th and 16th centu-
ries and accelerated with the creation of nation-states. Post-­
colonial theory focuses on the politics of knowledge (Bhambra
2009). For example, theories about racial difference and racial
hierarchy helped Western powers justify their domination of
non-Western ­populations. European colonizers assumed that
the colonized could not become civilized without the knowl-
edge, beliefs, and technology of the more “advanced” societ-
ies of the West. Post-­colonial theorists such as Edward Said
(1935–2003) and Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) have criticized
the way that European theories about modern society privi-
leged the distinction between (modern) Western societies and
non-­Western ones. This distinction ignored important differ-
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw ences between non-Western societies. It also made it easier
 S o ci o lo g i c a l T h eo ry To day 43

for Western nations to be-

lieve that they were civiliz-
ing non-Western societies,
or bringing them into the
modern world, instead of
merely conquering and ex-
ploiting them.

QUEER THEORY. Queer

theory builds on feminism
and other threads of criti-
cal social thought to chal-
lenge the supposedly stable Frantz Fanon Edward Said
identities of gender and
sexuality. As developed by
philosophers and gender theorists including Judith Butler,
queer theory uncovers how deeply the logic of homopho-
bia and heterosexism are embedded in social practice and
social institutions, and how that logic helps maintain
social order (Warner 1993; Turner 2000). At the same time,
queer theory provides a broader critique of the social order.
Similar to an intersectional perspective, a queer perspec-
tive points to the connections between different social cat-
egories and relationships and questions the limits of “the
normal, the legitimate, the dominant” in every domain of
human life (Halperin 1997: 62).
Sociologists today are much more reflective about Judith Butler
the exclusions and silences that are present in any given
theory, and they are more likely to orient to a variety of different theories that Queer theory A critical per-
can be used as tools to help them understand specific social questions. ­Students spective that identifies the logic
are also far more aware of silences and exclusions, and particularly of how of homophobia and heterosex-
expert social knowledge can work to exclude and marginalize people. ism in social practice and social
institutions, and how that logic
The Cultural Turn works to maintain social order.

Another development was the cultural turn in sociology, which began in

Cultural turn An interdisci-
the early 1970s but became a significant influence during the 1990s. In many
plinary movement in sociology
­respects, the cultural turn was a return to the Thomas theorem, one of the and other disciplines that em-
earliest theoretical statements of American sociology from the Chicago School. phasizes the collective cultural
Formulated in 1928 by W. I. Thomas (1863–1947) at the Chicago School, the dimension of social life.
Thomas theorem argues that the way that people interpret a situation has real
consequences for how they act. In other words, if we want to understand social Thomas theorem The prop-
life, we need to pay attention to the stories that people tell about themselves osition that the way people
and the world around them. Today, there is a growing recognition that cul- interpret a situation has real
tural issues are important for all sociological research (Hall, Grindstaff, and consequences for how they act.
Lo 2010: 3).
While the cultural turn encouraged an attention to meaning and inter-
pretation that had been emphasized earlier by symbolic interactionism, the
cultural sociology that emerged in the 1990s was different in a number of
ways. For symbolic interactionists, meanings are created by a social self, who is
continually interpreting and reflecting upon her social interactions and social
experiences. Cultural sociologists still study the meanings that people use to
understand their lives. But they are also interested in the ways that meanings
 44 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

circulate in collective memories, mass media, public rituals, and everyday ob-
jects. For example, brands like Disney, Nike, and Coca-Cola are known all over
the world, as are icons such as the American flag, the Eiffel Tower, and the
Olympic rings. There are clearly established ideas associated with most of these
cultural objects, and there are frequent public conflicts over what they really
mean. Are the Olympics about the spirit of competition, nationalism, or com-
mercialism? Is the American flag a symbol of freedom or global power?
Increasingly, sociologists have come to recognize that these kinds of cul-
tural conflicts are just as important as political or economic conflicts. Cultural
classifications and conflicts are a central focus of Chapter 4, though they fea-
ture in many other chapters of this book as well.

Global Context
A key area of study for sociology today is globalization, which refers to the
growing interdependence of the world’s people. As we discuss in Chapter 4,
globalization has economic, political, and cultural dimensions. The spread of
Cultural meanings global trade, and the enormous power of global finance and multinational cor-
Andy Warhol disrupted artistic porations, are major forces in social life. The political dimensions of globaliza-
conventions in the 1960s with Pop
tion are seen in the rise of international nongovernmental organizations such
Art renditions of ordinary objects
like Campbell’s Soup cans. In this as Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and Amnesty International, as well
2012 image, an original Warhol as regulatory bodies above the nation-state such as the United Nations and
painting is hung in the Campbell’s the International Criminal Court. Globalization can also be seen in migration
Soup company corporate board-
room in Camden, New Jersey, patterns and patterns of global violence: both global migration and global ter-
framing specialty soup cans with rorism have increased in recent years, as Figure 2.3 and Figure 2.4 illustrate.
art and sayings by Andy Warhol. To understand the global context of today’s social world, sociologists should
What does Campbell’s get from
Warhol’s art? What does the soup
not assume that modern society is organized in terms of territorially distinct
can symbolize? nation-states (Beck 2005, 2006). While nation-states continue to be important,
they now act on a global stage alongside other important actors. For example,
multinational corporations orient to a global market that is beyond the con-
trol of any single country. Global financial and environmental crises transcend
national borders. New immigrant communities maintain a simultaneous in-
volvement in their nation of origin as well as their nation of destination, creat-
ing transnational communities that challenge the boundaries between two or
more nation-states (Faist 2000, 2004).
Millions of stateless people and refu-
300 gees fall between the boundaries of na-
tion-states in the modern world system.
250 Global civil-­society ­organizations
promote “universal human rights” by
Volume of net migration in millions

200
protesting against nation-states and
corporations that violate those rights.
Sociologists draw our attention to the
150
“excluded others” of contemporary so-
ciety, reminding us that the misfor-
100 tunes and miseries of displaced, poor,
and oppressed peoples are a side effect
50 of the modern societies in which we live
(Bauman 2004). While globalization is
a central focus of C­ hapters 14 and 15, it
0
1970 1975 1985 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 is also a more general dimension of all
Figure 2.3 Global Net Migration, 1960–2015. social life that influences sociological
Source: World Bank Data. research today.
 S o ci o lo g y To day 45

Sociology Today 18,000

15,000
Contemporary sociologists engage
creatively with the challenges of
12,000
21st-century social life. Some contem-
porary sociologists focus on producing 9,000
empirically driven theories about par-
ticular institutions, historical events, 6,000
and cultural structures. Some focus on
race, gender, sexuality, and how these 3,000
interact to produce different systems
of hierarchy and social inequality.
Other sociologists turn their atten- 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016
tion to global power and post-colo- Figure 2.4 Incidents of Global Terrorism, 1970-2016.
nial resistance. And many sociologists Source: Global Terrorism Database.
combine these different theoretical
resources to analyze a particular prob-
lem or imagine a new kind of social relationship. All of them draw on the so-
ciological tradition—the history of sociological thinking described in this
chapter—to do their work.

Thinking Sociologically
The paired concepts we described in Chapter 1 are a useful way for understand-
ing how sociologists think about contemporary society. They also provide a
useful framework for organizing the history of sociological theory.
The paired concept of solidarity and conflict, for example, uses fundamental
insights from the work of thinkers like Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and ­Talcott
Parsons to analyze contemporary society. Thinkers like Jeffrey Alexander, Pierre
Bourdieu, Michelle Lamont, and Michael Omi and Howard Winant focus on
solidarity—what connects groups of people and what divides them. A major
focus for these thinkers is the way categories and classifications divide “us” from
“them,” or “self” from “other.” All these thinkers retain a hope for a more peace-
ful and equal human future in an increasingly violent and conflict-ridden world.
Contemporary sociologists who study power and resistance build on the so-
ciological legacy of thinkers like Karl Marx, Max Weber, and C. Wright Mills.
They do so by uncovering how contemporary power structures are organized in
places such as the legal system, the criminal justice system, and the system of
nation-states. We can also use the paired concepts of power and resistance to
understand how feminist and intersectional theories think about institutions
like marriage, the family, the education system, and corporate hierarchies. At
the same time, sociologists who study collective behavior and social movements
are interested in discovering how people mobilize and act to resist domination.
Inequality and privilege are also a major focus of contemporary sociology. Be-
cause resources are scarce and distributed unevenly, it is important to know who
gets what and why. That is the central concern of the sociological subfield of social Social stratification A central
stratification. Stratificationists ask: Why are those with a college education more sociological idea that describes
likely to earn high income than those without a college education? Why are poor structured patterns of inequal-
people more likely to die in war than rich people? Why are men more likely to work ity between different groups of
in higher-paid occupations than women? How is the history of privilege and dom- people.

ination connected to the history of inequality and dispossession? These questions

are being taken up by sociologists around the world, who are using theories about
difference to think about patterns of inequality, exclusion, and marginalization.
46 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

The social changes of the modern period that gave rise to the discipline of
sociology were also the beginning of the modern, global world system. Today,
both global and local processes continue to shape contemporary social life. While
the importance of global processes is increasingly apparent, sociologists also
emphasize that individuals continue to live out their lives in particular locales.
These include city neighborhoods and suburbs, workplaces and colleges, and also
new settings like social networking sites, airports, and corporate boardrooms.
The last paired concept, structure and contingency, is at the heart of sociolog-
ical theory. It refers to the idea that human life is both highly patterned and also
historically open. We reproduce patterns in our everyday life: we follow scripts,
we abide by institutional rules, and we support social order. But patterns can
also be changed; they are shaped by our choices and actions. Karl Marx, for
example, saw that capitalist society was turning many areas of life into ob-
jects to be bought and sold on markets. Yet he also believed the future could
be changed, and he imagined a perfect society in which people came together
to share resources equally and fulfilled every human being’s potential. Émile
Durkheim perceived that people understand themselves and society through
inherited collective representations that symbolize who they are, but he also
argued that these representations can be changed. And while Erving Goffman
imagined social rules as a script that individuals used to maintain an orderly
social life, his work has been fundamental in challenging those rules by help-
ing people perceive the scripts so they can challenge them and write new ones.

Why Sociology?
Why choose sociology? In Chapter 1, we answered this question by focusing on
individual skills and benefits that sociology offers. We pointed to the way that
sociology can offer useful knowledge to help you understand your life and the
world around you. We also emphasized the job skills that sociology can develop.
In this chapter, we want to offer a more intellectual answer to the question of
“Why sociology?”
The intellectual answer is that sociology offers useful concepts and theories
for studying the rapidly changing and increasingly global social world in which
we live. Sociology has developed valuable ways of thinking about social patterns
and persistence and also social disruption, adaptation, and transformation. The
concepts, exercises, and stories in this book are designed to aid in developing
your sociological imagination. They are designed to provide the tools and the
space to practice using them so that you will ask better questions and make
better choices about your own future and the future of us all. In short, the so-
ciological imagination helps us imagine a better future, and how to make our
way in an increasingly uncertain world.
Sociology’s focus on relationships also offers a counter-perspective to the
highly individualistic emphasis of contemporary social life. In the United States,
we are accustomed to thinking in terms of individuals and individual charac-
teristics, experiences, and successes and failures. Sociology counterbalances
this emphasis with resources for understanding social groups, organizations,
institutions, and other social dimensions of human experience. These perspec-
tives are important in a range of settings from public policy and management,
to business, web design, and technical systems. A group perspective is also re-
quired in professional careers like teaching, social work, law, and medicine.
In fact, sociologists can be found in all different kinds of careers and all over
the world. They study everything, including education, immigration, politics,
natural disasters, and the environment. They work in colleges and universities,
 S o ci o lo g y To day 47

CAREERS
The Importance of Theory
Many career advisors today emphasize the impor- George Soros is one of the most well-known examples
tance of acquiring specific skills. According to common of a person who was able to use social theory to generate
wisdom, people who get good jobs are the ones who important new innovations in his career. Born in Hungary
know computer programming, website design, and and educated in England, Soros moved to New York City
other types of specific, technical knowledge. Fortu- in 1956 to work in the financial industry. As a graduate stu-
nately, the study of sociology will teach you many of dent at the London School of Economics, Soros had been
these technical skills. deeply influenced by the theory of reflexivity, which was
Along with technical skills, today’s workplace also part of his philosophy training and which we wrote about
requires people who have general theoretical skills. For earlier in the chapter in our discussion of the sociological
example, a 2012 article in Forbes magazine wrote that imagination. Based on his understanding of reflexivity,
the most important career skill is critical thinking, which Soros was convinced that most investors failed to under-
as we have argued is a central aspect of sociological stand how individual beliefs and biases changed the way
theory. Similarly, in his best-selling book The World Is that financial markets worked. Using a more sociological
Flat, Thomas Friedman argued that the “special sauce” theory of markets, he founded Soros Fund Management in
that creates innovation in today’s world is the ability to 1970. Today, Soros has a net worth estimated at $23 billion.
integrate technical skills with a broad-based liberal arts
education in art, music, literature, and popular culture. ACTIVE LEARNING
A knowledge of theory is what helps people integrate Find out: Describe an example where someone used crit-
these different kinds of knowledge and come up with ical thinking to change a situation. Make sure to define
innovative solutions to critical problems. critical thinking in your answer.

government, prisons and social welfare agencies, hospitals, churches, and non-
profit organizations. They can be found throughout the business sector as well,
working in marketing, communication, the creative industries, finance, and
most other parts of the private sector. The central thread that connects all of
their work is the application of the sociological imagination—the ability to ask
good critical questions—about our shared social world.

CASE STUDY

W. E. B. Du Bois and the History of American Sociology

Sociologist Aldon Morris, in his book The Scholar Denied: tendency of the history of American sociology to under-
W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, notes, play Du Bois’s significance.
“There is an intriguing, well-kept secret regarding the Morris argues that the Du Bois–Atlanta School of So-
founding of scientific sociology in America. The first ciology deserves much more credit for creating scientific
school of scientific sociology in the United States was sociology in the United States, and that its contributions
founded by a black professor located in a historically predate those of the Chicago sociology department by
black university in the South. This reality flatly contra- nearly two decades. Du Bois was the first African Amer-
dicts the accepted wisdom” (Morris 2015: 1). Morris ican to receive a PhD from Harvard University, where
takes a critical look at the assumption made by most he studied with some of the leading philosophers and
sociologists that the University of Chicago was the first historians of his time. He spent two years studying at
important school of American sociology, as well as the the University of Berlin, where he was one of the first
48 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

CASE STUDY CONTINUED

Americans to be exposed to the ideas of Max Weber, and Park had joined the University of ­Chicago sociology
where he received extensive training in statistics and department in 1914; he was one of its most influential
quantitative social science methods (Morris 2015: 21). His members for 20 years, and was one of the key people
1899 book The Philadelphia Negro was the first empirical responsible for creating what became known as the
study of an urban black community in the United States, Chicago School of sociology. Before he arrived at Chi-
and was published well before any of the community cago, however, Park had worked for nearly 10 years as
studies for which the Chicago School became famous Booker T. Washington’s secretary, and he became the
(Du Bois [1899] 1967). The research group he developed head of publicity for Washington’s Tuskegee Institute.
as an Atlanta University faculty member produced a While Park was familiar with Du Bois’s research and
significant number of empirical studies and important his intellectual status, he was also well aware of the
theoretical understandings about race and American conflict between Du Bois and W ­ ashington. Allied with
life. The series of annual conferences he hosted tried Washington, Park systematically ignored Du Bois’s
to use social-scientific knowledge to develop practical scholarship, excluded him from his intellectual net-
proposals for addressing racial oppression. As Morris works, and credited other scholars for ideas that Du
(2015: 89), argues, “these sustained scholarly activities Bois originally developed; most of Park’s colleagues at
signaled the presence of a groundbreaking sociology the University of Chicago did the same (Morris 2015:
absent elsewhere in America.” 140–7).
Why were Du Bois’s accomplishments overshad- More generally, the sociological studies of race
owed in favor of the Chicago School? A key factor had being conducted at the University of Chicago benefited
to do with inequality and privilege. Racial inequality in from global and local factors that were making the city
US universities meant that Du Bois, despite his many of ­Chicago the most important social laboratory for
accomplishments, was never considered for a faculty studying race relations in the early decades of the 20th
position at elite universities such as Harvard University century. A primary factor was the Great Migration, in
or the University of Chicago. Du Bois started his aca- which millions of African Americans moved away from
demic career at Wilberforce University, a small histori- the South in order to settle into Midwestern cities like
cally black college or university (HBCU) in Ohio, but he ­Chicago. Chicago sociologists studied the local condi-
was frustrated by the fact that the school did not have tions in their city, just like other sociologists in the United
a sociology department. He then spent about a year in States studied the communities in which their universi-
an untenured position at the University of Pennsylvania, ties were located. But Chicago came to be seen by the
where he did the research that was ultimately published rest of the world as the most distinctively ­American city,
as The Philadelphia Negro. But this position offered no and this helped reinforce the Chicago School of sociol-
job security and actually prohibited him from teaching ogy’s reputation as the most distinctively A ­ merican ver-
any students (Morris 2015: 56). Du Bois left to take up sion of sociological research.
his position at Atlanta University, another important While the structure of racism and inequality blocked
HBCU and the first university in the nation to place an Du Bois’s path to a more elite academic position, there
emphasis on graduate education for African American were other contingent factors related to the kinds of in-
students. But Atlanta University was a poor university, tellectual and political choices Du Bois made through-
and it became progressively poorer as Georgia’s state out his career. Put simply, Du Bois was never content
legislatures decided to withhold money from the uni- to limit himself to academic scholarship. He was also
versity because of its refusal to racially segregate its stu- a public intellectual, and he was deeply involved in
dents and faculty (Morris 2015: 57). politics. In 1905, Du Bois helped organize the Niagara
Du Bois’s academic influence also suffered because Movement, which fought for full political and civil rights
of his conflict with Booker T. Washington, an influential for African Americans. Du Bois was also a leader of the
African American of the time who had a different vision global Pan-African Movement, which sought to create
than Du Bois about how to improve race relations. (We a political organization that could unite all social move-
discuss the differences between Du Bois and Washing- ments fighting for racial equality, and which would
ton in Chapter 8.) For now, we want to emphasize the serve as a global social movement advocating for polit-
harm of this conflict to Du Bois’s influence in sociology. ical self-determination in Africa. Towards the end of his
As it turns out, there were strong feelings of solidar- life, Du Bois moved to Ghana, where he received a state
ity between Booker T. Washington and Robert Park. funeral upon his death in 1963.
 S o ci o lo g y To day 49

CASE STUDY CONTINUED

There was also considerable power organized against figure and an effective political organizer, and he was
Du Bois. He was opposed by Booker T. ­Washington, the an aggressive critic of those with whom he disagreed.
most powerful African American leader of the time. And Du Bois had many allies, in intellectual as well as
He was opposed by Robert Park, the most powerful political life. There have always been sociologists who
sociologist. He was opposed by the US government have aimed a critical eye at the history of the discipline
and the FBI, which targeted him as a communist and and challenged the story that privileged the Univer-
a subversive, and which took away his US passport in sity of Chicago and marginalized Du Bois. Aldon Mor-
1951. But Du Bois’s resistance against those who op- ris’s book is a good example of this kind of intellectual
posed him was significant. He was an influential public resistance.

LEARNING GOALS REVISITED

2.1 Understand that sociology developed expansion, and the rise of the modern system
as a way to explain social patterns and social of nation-states.
change and is one of a family of social science • The first department of sociology was founded
disciplines located within the liberal arts. at the University of Chicago in 1892 and was
• Social thinkers like Marx, Weber, and influenced by ideas from Europe, as were the
Durkheim, as well as thinkers from the departments at Harvard and Columbia. Euro-
“­forgotten canon” like W. E. B. Du Bois and pean thinkers and scholars also served on the
Harriet Martineau, invented theories to ex- faculty in Chicago.
plain social changes occurring in the modern • In the first half of the 20th century, the Euro-
era. This was the beginning of a sociological pean legacy, along with the symbolic interac-
way of thinking that asserted that social life tionist tradition developed at the University
should be understood as a whole, complex, of Chicago, were synthesized into the three-
­interacting system of political, economic, and fold model of American sociology. This model
cultural relationships. began to unravel in the 1960s and 1970s with
• One of the most important insights of sociol- critics from within the discipline arguing for
ogy is its insistence on the relational quality mid-range theory. Critics within and outside
of social life. Sociology, for example, is related the discipline also pointed to the limitations
to disciplines like psychology, criminal justice, of the white, male, European perspective of
anthropology, history, and economics. Bound- the field. With the cultural turn, and the rising
aries between these fields shift and change need to address global concerns, a new global
over time, and much good social analysis sociology was established.
occurs at the rich disciplinary boundaries with • Many voices were excluded from early so-
other fields. ciological institutions, particularly women’s
voices, but also scholars from non-European
2.2 Understand that knowledge is socially backgrounds. Today, some previously si-
located and develops within particular lenced voices have been recovered by histo-
intellectual and national traditions and different rians, and new critical voices have entered
social networks and institutional settings. the discipline, including feminists, critical
• Sociology developed as a discipline in response race theorists, post-colonial theorists, queer
to the enormous social changes created by the theorists, and theorists of disability and
industrial and democratic revolutions, colonial intersectionality.
50 Chapter 2  A m er i c a n S o ci o lo g y

2.3 Identify core theoretical concepts in the master theory to explain the social world to
discipline. developing “theories of the middle range.”
• Marx identified the economic system of cap- Contemporary social theory is more empirical
italism as the most important feature of and more cultural than earlier social theory.
modern societies. Weber analyzed rational-
ization as the driving force of institutional Key Terms
and cultural change. Durkheim studied social Alienation 30
facts and focused on the way group organiza- Anomie 33
tion, such as the division of labor and collec- Bureaucracy 32
tive representations, made social life possible. Canon 30
The Chicago School thinkers, who founded Capitalism 30
symbolic interactionism, identified the stable Collective representations 33
patterns of interactional settings in modern Conflict theory 38
cities and institutions as a critical part of Consensus theory 37
social life. Critical race theory 42
• Consensus theorists like Talcott Parsons em- Cultural turn 43
phasized the stability of systems and what Disenchantment 32
held them together. Conflict theorists like Division of labor 33
C. Wright Mills analyzed the role of conflict Feminism 41
in social change. Symbolic interactionists like Globalization 27
Herbert Blumer analyzed how social m ­ eanings Intersectionality 42
and social interaction play a part on both Mechanical solidarity 33
social equilibrium and social change. Organic solidarity 33
• Contemporary critics of sociology, who also Post-colonial theory 42
influence sociology, include feminists, c­ ritical Public sociology 31
race theorists, intersectional theorists, Queer theory 43
post-colonial theorists, and queer theorists. Racial formation theory 42
Rationalization 32
2.4 Understand that the history of sociological Reflexivity 25
theory is distinct from making theoretical Social facts 26
arguments or applying theory to contemporary Social sciences 26
examples. Social stratification 45
Symbolic interaction 38
• Sociology is a way to think about social life. Theories of the middle range 40
Using the sociological imagination, sociolo- Thomas theorem 43
gists ask critical questions about social life, Urbanization 28
such as: Does more education guarantee a
higher income? What is the connection be- Review Questions
tween global processes and local communities?
1. Define social theory. What is the difference be-
• The tradition of social theory in sociology tween professional and amateur sociologists?
informs current sociology in deep ways.
However, the history of sociological theory is 2. What is the sociological imagination and how is
not the same as doing sociology or inventing it connected to reflexivity?
new social theory today. Contemporary 3. What does it mean to say that sociology focuses
sociologists use their sociological imaginations on relationships?
to apply theories to new global social realities 4. What is the sociological canon? Who are the
or invent theories to explain them. major figures in the canon? What is the for-
• Contemporary sociology has moved away gotten canon and what does it tell us about in-
from the grand idea that there can be one big equality and privilege?
 S o ci o lo g y To day 51

5. What conditions were the early sociological Du Bois, W. E. B. [1903] 1994. The Souls of Black
theorists trying to explain? How is that simi- Folk. New York: Dover Publications.
lar or different from today? Madoo Lengermann, Patricia, and Jill Niebrug-
6. What is the three-fold model of sociology? How ge-Brantley. 1998. The Women Founders: Sociology
are conflict, consensus, and symbolic interac- and Social Theory, 1830–1930, A Text with Read-
tionist perspectives different? ings. New York: McGraw-Hill.
7. Why did the three-fold model of sociology Mills, C. Wright. [1959] 2000. Sociological Imagina-
begin to unravel by the 1960s and 1970s? Iden- tion. New York: Oxford University Press.
tify three critiques of the three-fold model of Said, Edward W. 1994. Culture and Imperialism. New
sociology. York, NY: Vintage Books.
8. What is the cultural turn? Describe some ways Seidman, Steven. 2013. Contested Knowledge. Social
that it shaped sociology. Theory Today, 5th ed. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
9. What other disciplines are close to sociology in
the modern academic field? ACTIVITIES
10. What do mid-range theorists do that is differ- • Use your sociological imagination: Sketch a dia-
ent from classical theorists? gram of what you can see in the room you are
11. What was the Chicago School of American sitting in. Then sketch a diagram of the entire
­sociology and why was it important? room as a map for someone else. Be sure to make
12. What is the difference between the history of a note of where you are on the map. How are
social theory and doing social theory? the two sketches different? Why? What things
did you have to think about to move from what
Explore you can see from where you sit to imagining
the room as a map? Provide examples of those
RECOMMENDED READINGS pictures.
Abbott, Andrew. 2001. Chaos of the Disciplines. • Media+Data literacies: Google the names of the
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. major social theorists and forgotten theorists
Coser, Lewis A. 1977. Masters of Sociological from this chapter. How many results are
Thought. New York: Harcourt Brace. returned for each? Are there differences by
Deegan, Mary Jo. 2007. “The Chicago School of gender or race?
Ethnography.” In Handbook of Ethnography, eds. • Discuss: Are the ideas of classical theorists
Paul Atkinson, Amanda Coffey, Sarah Delmont, relevant today? Why or why not?
John Lofland, and Lyn Lofland (pp. 11–25). For additional resources, including Media+Data Literacy exercises,
Newbury Park, CA: Sage. In the News exercises, and quizzes, please go to oup.com/he/
Jacobs-Townsley1e