Social Scientist Theorists
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The subject is Robert Ezra Park (1864-1944), a theorist in the development of social science and criminology who did not begin to address those subjects until he began university teaching in his 50th year. This has also made it difficult to pinpoint the assumptions underlying his thought and work. He was a strong advocate of the scientific method, and his philosophical foundation is best represented in the "positivistic organicism" tradition. He was further guided by the principle that society was organismic in character. Park adopted the consistent conception that dissecting society into its "forms" allows for more precise descriptions. He further assumed that sociology was inextricably intertwined with history. He opposed what he called "do-gooder" reformists and accepted a doctrine of Social Darwinism. Park was part of a movement to elucidate human ecology, and he coined the term and presented many writings which synthesized ecological explanations of human conduct, with his most important work on the subject being Introduction to the Science of Sociology from 1921, a work that was highly influential. Park and Ernest Burgess co-authored the book, and these two were among the first to include a chapter on "isolation" as an important element in understanding human social life, along with the topics social contact and interaction, social forces, competition and conflict, and accommodation and assimilation. Park's methodology was also important if later ove
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; 3) inner containments; and 4) inner pushes, organic and psychological. The theory is considered to have little to offer today but to have been important in its time.
CHAPTER 9
The subject is Robert King Merton (born in 1910), one of the premier sociologists of our day. Merton draws his intellectual roots from the Depression in the 1930s in which an entire generation of sociologists observed the collapse and deregulation of social traditions and the effect that this had both on individuals and societal institutions. Merton has pointed to at least 10 individuals who played a role in his intellectual development, including Simpson, Sorokin, Henderson, Gay, Sarton, Murray, Parsons, Durkheim, and Simmel. Merton was at Harvard in the 1930s.
Merton sees human beings as having naturally insatiable appetites, and these appetites are strongly influenced by the culture in which the individual resides. He described aberrant behavior as a symptom of dissociation between aspirations defined by culture and socially structured means, and anomie can result when the dissociation between norms and means is pervasive and extensive. Dissociation can lead to two types of general response, one placing greater emphasis on the goals and the sec
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Albert Cohen, Ohio University, Richard Quinney, Herbert Sheldon, Saul Becker, Richard Cloward, Edward Sutherland's, Mead Sutherland, Merton Harvard, Mead Goffman, control theory, criminal behavior, labeling theory, basic assumptions, criminological theory, juvenile delinquency, key ideas, theory deviance, prison guards, social classes, criminal behavior learned, question basic assumptions, theory deviance research, commit deviant acts, george herbert mead,
Approximate Word count = 3489
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)
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