History of Sociology: Contemporary Sociology

This article will focus on the history of contemporary sociology. This article will provide an overview of developments in contemporary sociology from post World War II to today. Differences between modern and contemporary sociology will be highlighted. The work of contemporary social theorists, including Talcott Parsons, Immanuel Wallerstein, Anthony Giddens, Herbert Blumer, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu, Marvin Harris, Robert Merton, Jurgen Habermas, will be described. Theories and methods in contemporary sociology, such as communicative action, habitus, interpretive sociology, structuration, structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and world-systems theory, will be introduced. A discussion of the links between post-World War II socio-political movements and trends in contemporary will be included.

Keywords Communicative Action; Habitus; Interpretive Sociology; Society; Sociology; Structural Functionalism; Structuration; Symbolic Interactionism; Theoretical Model; World-Systems Theory

Contemporary Sociology

Overview

Contemporary sociology encompasses the period in sociological thought and practice from after the Second World War through to the present day. The field's subject matter, theoretical paradigms, funding opportunities, and methodologies changed in significant ways during this period (Turner, 1990).Topics of inquiry in contemporary sociology include family relationships, problems of overpopulation, social movements, the self, social change, poverty, business and industry, group solidarity, identity, group conflict, and violence.

Understanding contemporary sociology, including the socio-political influences and key theorists, is vital background for all those interested in the field of sociology as well as social theory as a whole. This article explains the history of contemporary sociology in three parts:

• An overview of developments in contemporary sociology. Differences between modern and contemporary sociology will be highlighted.

• A description of the ways in which social theorist like Talcott Parsons, Immanuel Wallerstein, Anthony Giddens, Herbert Blumer, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu, Marvin Harris, Robert Merton, Craig Calhoun, Gerhard Lenski, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas, influenced the development of sociology after WWII.

• A discussion of the links between post-World War II socio-political movements and trends in contemporary sociological theory. The socially and politically responsive nature of sociology will also be explored.

Developments in Post World War II Sociology

Following World War II, the field of sociology grew in North America and Western Europe as the US government and Western corporations began adopting sociological tools, theories, and research methods. The main topics of sociological inquiry included: marriage and family; social stratification; politics; work; corporations and other large organizations; and gender roles and gender relations. In the late twentieth century, the discipline entered a post-modern phase during which sociologists concerned themselves with the deconstruction and reanalysis of previously held assumptions about society, race, gender, and identity The tensions between subjective and objective stances were also studied. The field became increasingly specialized with specialty journals and conferences, and critics of contemporary sociology charge that the field has become more fragmented than diverse or complex.

Following WWII, sociology grew in its uses and popularity. In the post-war years, the discipline, an increasingly popular department at colleges and universities, began to be applied to industry, government, and family life. In contrast to pre-war sociology, contemporary sociology has been less concerned with social ethics and progress, and shifted its focus away from urban and rural studies. Though sociologists still study regional issues, they tend not to be defined by geographic place so much as by the issues they study. Urban issues such as poverty and race relations were also taken up. Studies of minorities decreased following World War II only to begin again in the 1960s with the civil rights movement (Turner, 1990).

Sociological method changed after World War II as sophisticated quantitative and qualitative methods were developed. Mathematical measurement of relationships replaced descriptive statistics, and surveys conducted over the phone or Internet have largely replaced self-administered questionnaires. Other key components of research like sampling have been greatly refined. Case studies, popular during the first half of the twentieth century, have been eclipsed by participant observation, and hypothesis testing has replaced scientific empiricism (Turner, 1990).

Sociological theory also changed following World War II, as well. For example, theoretical propositions, or statements of how changes in one or more independent variables could affect a dependent variable, replaced concepts. Propositional systems and theoretical models have also become popular (Turner, 1990).

Institutional and financial support for research has changed, too, since the mid-twentieth century. Public funding for social science research grew during the decades immediately following WWII. During the 1960s public funding especially increased for research that could produce strategies for controlling crime. Funding for criminology and social deviance research has stayed strong since that time. By and large, criminology research focused on studying the effectiveness of crime control strategies rather than understanding the meaning of crime and deviance. Federal support for sociological research waned in 1970s and 1980s. While money for applied research remains, funding for basic research is scarce. Secondary analysis of existing data, a less expensive research venture, has become more common as a result of this shrinkage (Turner, 1990).

Sociology's relationships with other disciples have changed, too. The field's early twentieth century goal of social reform facilitated a close connection with the applied social work. Since that time, however, sociology has separated from social work and is more closely tied to political science, anthropology, history, and psychology (Turner, 1990).

Additionally, sociology is no longer an exclusively American venture. The fall of Communism allowed Eastern European nations to rebuild their sociological communities, and the field has also established itself in South America and Asia (Keen & Mucha, 2004). With this internationalization, comparative research has grown common as a means of exploring the universal dynamics of social systems.

Further Insights

Post-World War II Intellectuals & Their Influence on Sociology

While objective and empirical thought continued to influence sociology in the first half of twentieth century, contemporary sociology is characterized by its subjective orientation. The subjective orientation that developed in the late twentieth century was in large part a reaction to the scientific empiricism of much classical and modern sociology.

Contemporary sociology, though diverse and subjective in nature, still has shared goals and intellectual pursuits. For example, contemporary sociologists develop general analytical tools; synthesize diverse theoretical approaches; encourage and facilitate dialogue among different theoretical perspectives; expand the conceptual, political, and methodological boundaries of current theory; analyze past theoretical ideas; diagnose and address contemporary social conditions; and challenge the notion of fixed sociological theory (Camic & Gross 1998).

The key social theorists, Talcott Parsons, Immanuel Wallerstein, Anthony Giddens, Herbert Blumer, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu, Marvin Harris, Robert Merton, Craig Calhoun, Gerhard Lenski, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas described below have all shaped the theories, methodologies, and direction of contemporary sociology.

Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) is best known for his contributions to and association with structural functionalism. Structural functionalism is a theory which holds that a society's particular social institutions, norms, and more all serve to maintain that society's social system. In effect, Parsons sought to develop a grand theory for the social sciences. For example, he posited that societal action is based on four interrelated subsystems: the behavioral systems of its members, the personality systems of those members, the society as a system of social organization, and the cultural system of that society. Parsons was one of the preeminent American sociological theorists during the decades after World War II as his functionalist perspective was taken up as a means of analyzing the Nazi regime (Barber & Gerhardt, 1999). However, functionalism fell out of favor during the 1970s as other theories gained ascendancy (Brick, 2004). Two of Parsons' well-known works are The Social System (1951) and Essays in Sociological Theory, Pure and Applied (1949).

Immanuel Wallerstein

Immanuel Wallerstein (b. 1930) has dedicated his work to understanding historical global practices and realities, developing his world-systems theory to analyze the reality and the history of the modern world. The world-systems theory is an approach for studying the activities and realities of actors including individuals, states, and firms. The spread of economic globalization at the end of the twentieth century made Wallerstein's ideas popular with those seeking to understand the relationship between economic and social processes. Wallerstein's best well-known work is The Modern World-System (1970) (Eckhart, 2005).

Anthony Giddens

Anthony Giddens (b. 1938) is most well known for his theory of structuration, which looks for meaning in social practices ordered across space and time rather than in the actions of individual actors, and thus mediates the micro/macro and structure/agent dichotomies that characterize much of contemporary social theory. Giddens was critical of classical functionalism and structuralism for overlooking the role of actors in society, as well as of phenomenology and ethnomethodology for overlooking the effect of the structural constraints of systems and organizations. Giddens predicted that a new synthesis would occur in sociology to replace the competing sociological theories of the past century (Camic & Gross, 1998).

Herbert Blumer

Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) developed the theory of symbolic interactionism. Building on the work of his teacher George Herbert Mead, Blumer's symbolic interactionism locates meaning in social interactions. According to Blumer, social actors ascribe meaning to things based on their experiences and social interactions. Meaning, in this theoretical system, is an interpretive and evolving process. Symbolic interactionism, along with ethnomethodology, emerged as a leading paradigm of qualitative sociology (Snow, 2001).

Erving Goffman

Erving Goffman (1922-1982) developed interpretive sociology, a theory asserting that similar words, deeds, and experiences have different meanings to different people in different situations. Interpretive sociologists, also known as microsociologists, practice a grounded theory approach. In this approach, investigators attempt to derive theory by approaching their data with minimal preconceptions instead of designing their research to test their hypotheses. Goffman used observations from life to explain contemporary society and is considered a leader in the sociology of everyday life. Goffman's best-known works are The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (1961), and Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963) (Scheff, 2006).

Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was a French sociologist who worked to construct general analytical tools for empirical social research such as concepts, explanatory propositions, and interpretive guidelines. For example, Bourdieu worked to develop conceptual tools and procedures for constructing objects and transferring knowledge. His theory of habitus, a term used to describe the dispositions toward action and perception that operate from within social actors, strongly influenced contemporary social thought and discourse. His best-known work is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1984) (Camic & Gross, 1998).

Marvin Harris

Marvin Harris (1927-2001), an anthropologist by training, influenced the direction of twentieth century sociology with his work on cultural materialism. His theory of cultural materialism, which asserts that the problems of society result from pressures within the relationships between a population, its economy, its technology, and its environment, lead sociologists to analyze the role that social infrastructures play in social actions and relationships (Harris, 1999).

Robert Merton

Robert Merton (1910-2003) made significant contributions to the sociology of deviance and his work is often used in the field of criminology. Merton's version of strain theory, which posits that social structures may encourage actors to commit criminal acts, preserves the theoretical link between culture and social structure. Merton was heavily influenced by the work of Pitirim Sorokin, a Russian sociologist who used quantitative methods to study the variables of social change (Rosenfeld, 1989).

Craig Calhoun

Craig Calhoun, who served as the president of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) from 1999 to 2012 until he became the director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has worked to make sociology into an instrument for diagnosing contemporary social conditions and developing ways to understand the differences in categories of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, language, class, region, and nation. Calhoun's theory of the perspective of difference concerns morality, subjectivity, and positioning. His work is representative of sociology's increased concern with social theory as a moral and political enterprise (Camic & Gross, 1998).

Gerhard Lenski

Gerhard Lenski, born in 1924, contributed to the sociological study of religion, inequality, and ecological-evolutionary theory. According to Lenski, technology is the key factor influencing socio-cultural evolution. Technological change, as seen by Lenski, is both the primary engine of social evolution and the source of the expansion of human knowledge. Lenski developed an evolutionary classification of human societies (including hunter gatherers, simple farmers, advanced farmers, and industrial societies) and ranked the major determinants of social evolution. He applied his ecological-evolutionary theory to studies of ancient Israel, Third World developments, and the end of Communism in Europe. Lenski's most well-known works are Power and Privilege (1966) and Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology (1974) (Lenski, 2005).

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a sociologist, social critic, historian, and philosopher. His studies of the construction of modern power, knowledge, and discourse led to the reworking of sociological categories of thought. According to Foucault, power relations are omnipresent. In other words, social actors can never step outside of their power relations. He wrote critical studies of the social institutions of medicine and prison systems. Drawing on both structuralism and postmodernism, Foucault was an interdisciplinary scholar who wrote philosophical reflections on actual conditions of existence. He grounded his philosophical reflections in historical investigations and details to give weight and credibility to his assertions (Takacs, 2004). Foucault's best-known works are The Order of Things (1966), The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), and Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977).

Jurgen Habermas

Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929) is a sociologist and philosopher who developed the concept of communicative action to explain situations in which the actions of the agents involved are coordinated not through goal-directed activity, but rather through acts of reaching cooperative understanding and interpretation. According to Habermas, the theory of communicative action allows theorists to reconceptualize rationality and the organization of the social world (Camic & Gross, 1998).

Discourse

Links Between Post-World War II Society & Sociology

Contemporary sociology focuses on social structures as well as the social conceptions of the self, emotion, and even irrational behavior. Much of contemporary sociology is concerned with understanding the categorical differences of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, language, class, region, and nation. These topics and trends have developed largely in response to socio-political events and movements. World wars, economics depressions, totalitarian movements, urbanization and industrialization have all shaped contemporary sociological thought and practice (Camic & Gross, 1998).

In the decades immediately following World War II, the United States and Europe were involved with the postwar project of rebuilding, strengthening, and revitalizing society and the economy. Sociology's concern with authoritarianism as an object of study in the 1940s and 1950s has roots in World War II Nazism and fascism. The field's concomitant concern with functionalism can be explained by the stability of postwar American society. Sociology's focus on the radical reform of society and union of sociology and public policy research during the 1960s may be attributed to the decade's civil unrest and calls for large-scale change. Starting in the 1960s, sociology's evaluation research on subjects such as capital punishment studied whether expensive federal programs were achieving their intended goals. Sociology's large-scale, publicly-funded research on social programs such as Negative Income Tax, Housing Allowance, and Transitional Aid to Released Prisoners, helped government and society determine where to invest its resources.

The field's critical theory of the 1970s can be explained by lack of social consensus and stability following racial protest and Vietnam War, and its commitment to gender studies in the 1970s was related to the women's movement. Sociology's focus on historical antecedents and answers, starting in the 1980s, may be explained by sociologists' desire for answers about their own discipline (Turner, 1990). Sociology's reemergence in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s can be related to the independence of Central and Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union (Keen & Mucha 2004).

Conclusion

Contemporary sociology began in the years following World War II. After World War II, American society was consumed first with rebuilding and incorporating soldiers back into society, and then later with civil rights. Contemporary sociologist, such as Talcott Parsons, Immanuel Wallerstein, Anthony Giddens, Herbert Blumer, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu, Marvin Harris, Robert Merton, Craig Calhoun, Gerhard Lenski, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas, responded to the social climate during the postwar years onward (from 1945 into the twenty-first century) by developing theories and tools to promote social cohesion and tolerance. Structuralism and functionalism characterized sociology of the 1960s and 1970s. The subjective and qualitative approaches of phenomenology and ethnomethodology characterized the sociology of the 1980s and 1990s (Camic & Gross 1998).

Contemporary sociology is characterized by specialized fields, including demography, criminology, political sociology, and public sociology, rather than by any unifying paradigms or laws as classical and modern sociology were. Ultimately, much of contemporary sociological theory, such as notions of social roles and mores, has entered public domain and public understanding. Today, the methodologies, terms, and approaches of contemporary sociology are used, often in an applied way, in law, politics, business, and social medicine (Turner, 1990).

Terms & Concepts

Communicative Action: A sociological theory which explains how the actions of agents involved in social interactions are coordinated not through goal-directed activity but through acts of reaching cooperative understanding and interpretation.

Habitus: Term used to describe the dispositions toward action and perception that operates from within social actors, strongly influenced contemporary social thought and discourse.

Interpretive Sociology: Sociological theory asserting that similar words, deeds, and experiences have different meanings to different people in different situations.

Society: A group of individuals united by values, norms, culture, or organizational affiliation.

Sociology: The scientific study of human social behavior, human association, and the results of social activities.

Structural Functionalism: A sociological theory based on the notion that social structures in society function to maintain the operations of the system as a whole.

Structuration: A sociological theory that looks for meaning in social practices ordered across space and time rather than in the actions of individual actors.

Symbolic Interactionism: A sociological theory that locates meaning in social interactions.

Theoretical Model: Several propositions that are linked together on the basis of more abstract conceptions of underlying causal principles.

World-Systems Theory: An approach for studying the activities and realities of actors including individuals, states, and firms.

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Suggested Reading

Abbott, A. (1997). Of time and space: The contemporary relevance of the Chicago School. Social Forces, 75 , 1149-1182. Retrieved April 8, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9709090370&site=ehost-live

Goldman, H. (1993). Contemporary sociology and the interpretation of Weber. Theory & Society, 22 , 853-860. Retrieved April 8, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9410256307&site=ehost-live

Hodgkiss, P. (2013). A moral vision: human dignity in the eyes of the founders of sociology. Sociological Review, 61, 417–439. Retrieved October 29, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=89854223

Johnston, B. (1998). The contemporary crisis and the social relations department at Harvard: A case study in hegemony and disintegration. American Sociologist, 29 , 26-42. Retrieved April 8, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=1544952&site=ehost-live

Wickham, G. (2012). The core object ‘society’ and sociology’s public relevance: History versus theory. Journal Of Sociology, 48, 427–442. Retrieved October 29, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=83227038