The authors of the bestselling Understanding Classical Sociology (SAGE Publications, 1995), present the companion volume dealing with the modern period of social theory. Understanding Modern Sociology will be: welcomed by lecturers as a vital new teaching and research aid; students will be stimulated and enriched by the unfussy and reliable advice ......
The authors of the bestselling Understanding Classical Sociology (SAGE Publications, 1995), present the companion volume dealing with the modern period of social theory. Understanding Modern Sociology will be: welcomed by lecturers as a vital new teaching and research aid; students will be stimulated and enriched by the unfussy and reliable advice ......
This is a fully updated and expanded New Edition of the successful undergraduate text. Providing a lucid examination of the pivotal theories of Marx, Durkheim and Weber, the authors submit that these figures have decisively shaped the discipline. They show how the classical apparatus is in use, even though it is being directed in new ways in ......
This is a fully updated and expanded New Edition of the successful undergraduate text. Providing a lucid examination of the pivotal theories of Marx, Durkheim and Weber, the authors submit that these figures have decisively shaped the discipline. They show how the classical apparatus is in use, even though it is being directed in new ways in ......
Born in 1917, Harold Garfinkel is one of a handful of sociologists to have founded a major sociological research programme, and he is perhaps the only one to have done so in the twentieth century. Unlike, many major theorists, whose individual contributions have become part of the sociological canon, Garfinkel's contribution is identified with a distinctive empirical approach that continues to be taken up in sociology and a number of other social science fields. Garfinkel coined the term ethnomethodology - to describe a unique orientation to the production of social order. This term became established to describe the approach he founded. His book Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) was a landmark publication that articulated the ethnomethodological programme and illustrated it with a number of studies. Much of Garfinkel's contribution is embodied in a research programme, consisting in studies written by his students who took up his research agenda. The volumes include an introduction by Lynch and Sharrock that discusses Garfinkel's intellectual biography and reviews his contribution. The 80 selections included in the set of volumes consist of basic position statements, critical discussions, methodological writings, discussions of the problem of social reality, comparisons between ethnomethodology and other perspectives, and studies exemplifying Garfinkel's influence at different phases of his long and distinguished career. The result is an unparalleled resource in understanding Garfinkel's achievement and the extraordinary wealth of his sociological ideas and methods. The four volumes are organized in seven sections: 1. Position Statements - Providing a guide to the meaning of ethnomethodology, the ethnomethodological programme, the relationship between Garfinkel and classical sociology, an assessment of the significance of the ethnomethodological movement and evaluations of the contribution of ethnomethodology. 2. Criticisms and Reactions - Garfinkel's work provides a number of challenges and opportunities for sociologists. Some have found it very liberating, others have questioned its durable contribution. Included here are criticisms and reactions from some of the leading figures in the discipline, notably Anthony Giddens, Ernest Gellner, Alvin Gouldner, John Goldthorpe, Louis Coser and Jurgen Habermas. 3. Ethnomethodology and Other Perspectives- Ethnomethdology both drew on other established perspectives and revitalized them. The editors single out four perspectives here for special consideration: Phenomenology; Symbolic Interactionism; Conversation Analysis; and Constructionism. 4. Methods as Topics and Resources - This section explores ordinary and scientific measurement as ethnomethodological phenomena; evidence and inference in ethnomethodology; and quantitative practice and ethnomethodology. 5. From the Problem of Reality to the Production of Reality - This section addresses questions of objectivity and realism; the anatomy of factual accounts; the anatomy of reality; and reflexivity of actors and accounts. 6. Studies of Organizations and Institutions - One of the distinctive features of ethnomethodology is the productiveness of the approach as an instrument of research. This section conveys the wealth of ethnomethdological studies by focusing on investigations of practices in legal, medical, educational, and other organizations. 7. Studies of Work in the Professions and Sciences - The final group if studies exemplifies the influence of Garfinkel's programme in 'studies of work in the sciences and professions'. These studies focus on practices of scientific research, mathematical proving, and technological design. The studies develop upon Garfinkel's insights about the relationship between formal accounts and the 'lived-work' of producing accountable actions.
Ethnomethodology is an approach to sociological research founded in the 1960s by Harold Garfinkel and developed by Harvey Sacks and many others. Early initiatives challenged the more abstract types of social theory, and developed distinctive methodological initiatives for a sustained programme of empirical research on social and communicative actions. This four-volume set includes selections that discuss and exemplify how ethnomethodologists use observations, analyses, and interventions to gain insight into larger questions of social order and the organization of practical. Section One: Background on Social Scientific and Everyday Methods Section Two: Ethnomethodology and the Practical Resolution of Methodological Problems Section Three: Indexical Expressions - Topic, Resource or Nuisance? Section Four: Objectification in Discourse Section Five: Language, Categories and Membership Section Six: Studies of Work Section Seven: Action as Algorithm - Computer Supported Cooperative Work Section Eight: Ethnomethodology and Social Institutions Section Nine: Language, Interaction, Embodied Conduct
