Howard S. Becker

Sociologist

• Born: April 18, 1928
• Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: August 16, 2023
• Place of Death: San Francisco, California

Education: University of Chicago

Significance: Howard S. Becker was an American sociologist best known for his research on music, art, and deviance. Becker's book Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963) is one of the most well-known works on the topic of deviance. Becker was also an accomplished jazz musician and studies music and visual arts in sociology.

Background

Howard S. Becker was born in Chicago, Illinois, and had in interest in music from a young age. He joined a jazz band at Northwestern University when he was only fifteen years old. Although Becker wanted to be a professional musician, he decided to attend school to please his parents. He then studied at the University of Chicago, where he earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree. He next earned a doctoral degree from the university in 1951. Becker's future work in sociology was greatly influenced by the other sociologists at the University of Chicago. He, like these sociologists, put a great deal of emphasis on qualitative methods in research. Becker continued to play music and even played jazz inside clubs with exotic dancers. This experience was one that helped influence him to study deviance.

Life's Work

Becker began studying deviant behavior in the 1950s. Deviance is generally considered breaking social norms, such as breaking the law. According to Becker, deviance is a label placed on people by other people, and it is not a description of specific behaviors. He believed deviance was not really the act committed but the consequence of the act. In 1953, Becker published the article "Becoming a Marihuana User" in the American Journal of Sociology. Becker's paper was important because it started a discussion about deviance. Before Becker, most sociologists agreed that people who did not follow society's rules were deviant. However, Becker proposed that people who did not follow society's rules were merely following their own rules. They were labeled deviant, not acting deviant.

One of Becker's most important works was the book Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, which was published in 1963. In the book, Becker focuses on a number of groups of people who are labeled deviant. Among them are marijuana smokers and musicians. Becker's work on deviance led to him discussing labeling theory, which is a theory in sociology that says that putting labels on people will influence their own perceptions of themselves and other people's perceptions of them. For example, a person who is arrested for a crime is more likely to consider himself or herself a criminal or a deviant and is more likely to be seen that way by others than a person who was not arrested for the same action. This theory has important implications in society, specifically when some groups are more likely to be labeled deviant for the same actions than other groups are. Outsiders is one of Becker's most well-known works, but it is the only book he published about deviance. He did, however, write papers on the subject.

In 1965, Becker became a sociology professor at Northwestern University. He taught sociology and continued his research for nearly thirty years. Becker left Northwestern in the early 1990s and took a position at the University of Washington. In addition to teaching sociology, Becker taught musical arts, which was his true passion. He retired from teaching in 1999. Nevertheless, he taught sporadically at a number of American universities after his retirement.

Becker also conducted important research in many other areas of sociology. In the 1960s, he wrote about the sociology of music. He wrote about musicians and their choices about what types of music to produce. He pointed out that many musicians have to make music for money that they would not choose to make strictly based on their artistic tastes. In 1982, he published another important book, Art Worlds, in which he discusses photographers and painters. In this book, he examines how artists create pictures and how images are made through a collaboration of whole societies.

In 2014, Becker published What about Mozart? What about Murder?, in which he examines his life, his methods, and critics of his work. He also touches on the topic of deviance again, pointing out that white women of the mid-twentieth century used to take opium products as over-the-counter medications. Some of these women became addicted to the drug, but their actions were not seen as deviant. However, African American youth in the modern world who take similar substances are often labeled as deviant.

Impact

Becker is seen as an important twentieth-century sociologist. His Outsiders work is still considered one of the most important texts about deviance. His work is also important because of how it informed labeling theory. Becker is often cited as one of the developers of the theory because his work was so important to it. Becker's work on sociology in art and music has also been important to the field and to those disciplines. Although Becker's work is best known in the United States, his research has also been appreciated and studied in other countries. Becker visited and lectured in France, where his work became popular. In addition to studying musicians, Becker famously studied other artists and medical students. Becker also contributed to the field of music and continued to play throughout his life.

Personal Life

Becker's first wife was Nan Harris. She died in 1986, and Becker remarried His second wife was Dianne Hagaman. Becker was at his home in San Francisco when he died on August 16, 2023. He was survived by his second wife, his daughter Alison Becker from his first marriage, one granddaughter and one great-granddaughter.

Bibliography

Dixler, Elsa. "Howard S. Becker, Who Looked at Society With a Fresh Eye, Dies at 95." New York Times, 21 Aug. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/books/howard-s-becker-dead.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

Gopnik, Adam. "The Outside Game." New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2015, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/12/outside-game. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

"Howard S. Becker." HowardSBecker.com, howardsbecker.com/vita.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

Keller, Reiner, and Howard Becker. "Ways of Telling about Society." Forum: Qualitative Social Research, www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/2607. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

Lindley, Don E. "Becker, Howard S." The Encyclopedia of Theoretical Criminology, vol. 1, edited by J. Mitchell Mille, Wiley, 2014.

McLuhan, Arthur Evan. "Grounded Theory." Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory, vol. 1, edited by Francis T. Cullen, Pamela Wilcox, Sage, 2010.

Murphy, Kate. "Howard S. Becker." New York Times, 17 Jan. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/opinion/sunday/howard-s-becker.html. Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.

Semi, Giovanni. "Urbanization." Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture, edited by Dale Southerton, Sage, 2011.

Stolley, Kathy S. The Basics of Sociology. Greenwood, 2005.