Myths of the Chicago School of Sociology

357 Pages·1987·8.302 MB·English

by  Lee Harvey

MYTHS OF THE CHICAGO SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY
In memory of my dad
Aveley Walter Harvey
whose encouragement
made this possible.
Myths of the Chicago School
of Sociology
LEE HARVEY
Department of Sociology and A.S.S.
City of Birmingham Polytechnic
Avebury
Aldershot • Brookfield USA • Hong Kong • Singapore • Sydney
© Lee Harvey, 1987
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Gower
Publishing Company Limited.
Published by
Avebury
Gower Publishing Company Limited,
Gower House
Croft Road
Aldershot
Hants GU11 3HR,
England
Gower Publishing Company,
Old Post Road
Brookfield
Vermont 05036
United States of America.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Harvey, Lee, 1949-
Myths of the Chicago School of Sociology
1. Chicago school of sociology
I. Title
301’.01 HM22.U5
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Harvey, Lee, 1949-
Myths of the Chicago school of sociology
Bibliography: p.
Includes index
1. Sociology— United States— History. 2. Chicago
school of sociology— History. I. Title
HM22.U5H37 1987 301'.0973 86-33497
ISBN 0-566-05398-5
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Athanaeum Press Ltd, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
1. The ’Chicago School’ 1
2. Chicagoans as ameliorists 23
3. Chicagoans as ethnographers 47
4. The quantitative tradition at Chicago 74
5. Chicagoans as atheoretical empirical researchers 109
6. G. H. Mead and the Chicagoans 154
7. Chicago dominance 176
8. Schools and metascience 213
Appendices 221
References 300
Index 331
v
Acknowledgements
My thanks to all those who helped in the research for this
book. In particular, thanks to the very helpful staff of the
Special Collections Department, University of Chicago Regen-
stein Memorial Library, who greatly facilitated my archive
research. Thanks to James Coleman for his very informative
recollections, to Morris Janowitz and Martin Bulmer for their
assistance and suggestions. Thanks also to Library staff at the
City of Birmingham Polytechnic notably Jane Richards and
Michael Shoolbred for their extensive assistance in searching
out references, and to Jean Wood (who has now escaped to sun­
nier climes) for similar help in the early stages. Especially,
I would like to thank Martyn Hammersley for his invaluable
contribution over the last eight years. The City of Birmingham
Polytechnic provided financial assistance, for which I am
grateful. Thanks also to my family and friends who encouraged
the endeavour, especially my mother, Kathleen Harvey, friends
and colleagues Ardha Best, Mike Little and Nick Stanley for
being so positive about my work. Most importantly to Morag
MacDonald who had not only to live with this book but also
contributed enormously to the empirical data collection.
Without her support, assistance and patience the work would not
have been completed.
vi
1 The ‘Chicago School’
Introduction
The 'Chicago School of Sociology' means a number of different
things to different people. References to the 'Chicago School'
in the literature are quite varied and the constructions of the
'school' are very much a function of the commentator's academic
endeavour, predeliction and preconceptions as well as a view of
what a 'school' of sociology is and what purpose and role it
plays in the history of sociology.
This book directs itself to examining the preponderant con­
structions of the 'Chicago School' which have grown up over the
last quarter century. Before beginning this examination, some
introductory remarks about the nature of 'school', the academic
concerns of those who refer to a 'Chicago School' and the type
of construction of a 'Chicago School' are necessary.
The concept of 'school*
The concept of school is widely used in attempts to understand
the history and contemporary structure of sociology. For the
most part it is used informally, without definition, to refer
to groups of sociologists assumed to be sharing a certain
perspective and perhaps a particular institutional location.
This casual approach to the term has lead to a plethora of
different concepts trading under the same label. This has
tended to handicap, rather than help, those sociologists and
historians of the social sciences who have attempted a more
rigorous analysis using the concept of 'school* as a metascien-
tific category. [1]
The casual approach to the term school involves nothing much
more than a process of grouping together practitioners into
convenient pigeon-holes in order to boundary, and thus facili­
tate, a sociological or historiographical analysis. The nature
of a 'school', when the term is used in this casual way is
determined by the structure of the pigeon holes, rather than by
any explicit thesis about, either, the internal structuring of
a research unit, or of any thesis about the nature of scientif­
ic knowledge and its development.
The term 'school', when appropriated in this rather informal
way, has been used to group people together to show similari­
ties in style, approach, epistemology, theoretical concerns, or
substantive interests. Such groupings may be restricted to
people working in the same place at the same time (e.g. The
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies). Alternatively,
'school' might refer to a number of 'generations' of practit­
ioners bounded by a particular institutional affiliation (such
as the Frankfurt School) or 'allegience' to a recognised cen­
tral figure (such as the Durkheimian School and the Parsonian
School). Or, a 'school' may be used to refer to contemporaries
scattered across a number of institutions but who are seen as
having some sort of identifiable common core (e.g. the struc­
tural functionalists). A wider meaning still occurs where the
core is seen to span a period of time and space such that
members could not possibly have worked either together, or in
the same environment, but have been identified as having adop­
ted some tenets which stand independently of the research
situation. This last is usually referred to as a 'school of
thought' (e.g. Marxism, or Pragmatism). 'School' has also been
used in conjunction with groupings of people circumscribed by
national boundaries (e.g. Polish School of Sociology; Soviet
Sociology; The French School of Sociology) [2].
However, there have been attempts to develop the idea of
'school' and make it into a more rigorous metascientific con­
cept. Approaches that use the 'school' as some form of meta­
scientific unit prescribe the nature of the school in explicit
terms which are informed by both the internal structure and
dynamic of the social unit and by a thesis about the nature of
the growth of social scientific knowledge (Mullins, 1973; Rad-
nitzky, 1973; Tiryakian, 1979a; Besnard, 1983; Bulmer, 1984a).
The development of this more rigorous metascientific concept of
school owes a lot to the debate in the philosophy of science,
in particular to Kuhn's (1962, 1970) 'paradigm' thesis and to
Lakatos' (1970, 1973) 'methodology of scientific research pro­
grammes' (see Harvey, 1985, 1986).
2
The result has been a number of related, but distinct ideas
as to what constitutes a viable metascientific unit. These
range from 'invisible colleges' (Price, 1963, 1963; Crane,
1972) through 'networks' (Mullins, 1973) to 'schools' (Tiryak-
ian, 1979a, 1979b; Bulmer, 1984, 1984a). While substantial
differences exist between these various metascientific units
they have certain elements in common. Although differing in
scope, they are all closely defined concepts and they each
prescribe the criteria for demarcation of any co-operating
group as a metascientific unit. All see research units as
integrally related to the development of science and all delim­
it their respective metascientific unit to a group of communi­
cating researchers.
The metascientific construct of 'school' is the narrowest of
these units and tends to refer only to people who work in a
closely defined institutional context and/or in close associa­
tion with a dominant leader figure. Metascientific schools have
thus been likened to 'schools of art' with a charismatic leader
by those who adopt the concept [3], while those less sympathet­
ic see schools as insular, rather like religious sects (Krantz,
1971a; Crane, 1972; Lakatos, 1975).
While not everyone agrees as to the exact nature of
'schools', Tiryakian's (1979a) model has proved popular among
sociologists and historians of sociology. His is a rather rigid
model, however, and Bulmer (1984a) has developed it into a more
flexible construct (Harvey, 1986). Bulmer suggests that a num­
ber of features are likely to be present in some form if the
social grouping can be said to be a 'school'. A 'school' has a
central figure around whom the group is located, who is an
inspiring and effective leader, whose school it essentially is,
and without whom the school begins to break up. The school
needs an infrastructure which includes a propitious academic
and geographic location, institutionalised links with existing
bodies, external financial support and a means of disseminating
its work. A school must attract students and develop an intel­
lectual attitude and be open to ideas and provide a climate for
'intellectual exchanges between the leader and other members of
the group'. A school is thus a more closely-knit group 'than is
usual in academic departments or disciplines' (Bulmer, 1985, p.
67) [4].
Constructions of the 'Chicago School'
The different constructions of the 'Chicago School' cover a
wide span of time and focus on different aspects of the insti­
tutional context and work undertaken by the Chicagoans. This
section examines these constructions and suggests a typology
which reflects the concerns of the commentators.
3