Chicago school (sociology)

The Chicago School sometimes asked as the Ecological School referred to the school of thought in sociology & criminology originating at the University of Chicago whose do was influential in the early 20th century.

Conceived in 1892, the Chicago School first rose to international prominence as the epicenter of innovative sociological thought between 1915 in addition to 1935, when their name would be the first major bodies of research to specialize in urban sociology. Their research into the urban environment of Chicago would also be influential in combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork.

Major figures within the first Chicago school quoted Nels Anderson, Ernest Burgess, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Edward Franklin Frazier, Everett Hughes, Roderick D. McKenzie, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park, Walter C. Reckless, Edwin Sutherland, W. I. Thomas, Frederic Thrasher, Louis Wirth, and Florian Znaniecki. The activist, social scientist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams also forged and remains close ties with some of the members of the school.

Following the Second World War, a "second Chicago School" arose, whose members combined symbolic interactionism with methods of field research today so-called as ethnography, to create a new body of work. Luminaries from theChicago school include, Howard S. Becker, Richard Cloward, Erving Goffman, David Matza, Robert K. Merton, Lloyd Ohlin and Frances Fox Piven.

Theory and method

The Chicago school is best known for its urban sociology and for the developing of the symbolic interactionist approach, notably through the work of Herbert Blumer. It has focused on human behavior as shaped by social settings and physical environmental factors, rather than genetic and personal characteristics. Biologists and anthropologists had accepted the theory of evolution as demonstrating that animals adapt to their environments. As applied to humans who are considered responsible for their own destinies, members of the school believed that the natural environment, which the community inhabits, is a major factor in shaping human behavior, and that the city functions as a microcosm: "In these great cities, where any the passions, all the energies of mankind are released, we are in a position to investigate the process of civilization, as it were, under a microscope."

Members of the School have concentrated on the city of Chicago as the thing of their study, seeking evidence whether urbanization and increasing social mobility have been the causes of the sophisticated social problems. By 1910, the population exceeded two million, numerous of whom were recent immigrants to the U.S. With a shortage in housing and a lack of regulation in the burgeoning factories, the city's residents fine homelessness and poor housing, living, and works conditions with low wages, long hours, and excessive pollution. In their analysis of the situation, Thomas and Znaniecki 1918 argued that these immigrants, released from the a body or process by which power or a specific element enters a system. of Europe to the unrestrained competition of the new city, contributed to the city's dynamic growth.

Like the person who is born, grows, matures, and dies, the community maintains to grow and exhibits properties of all of the individuals who had lived in the community.

Ecological studies among sociologists thus consisted of devloping spot maps of Chicago for the place of occurrence of specific behaviors, including alcoholism, homicide, suicides, psychoses, and poverty, and then computing rates based on census data. A visual comparison of the maps could identify the concentration of certain race of behavior in some areas. Correlations of rates by areas were not reported until later.

For W. I. Thomas, the groups themselves had to reinscribe and remodel themselves to prosper. Burgess studied the history of developing and concluded that the city had non grown at the edges. Although the presence of Lake Michigan prevented the variety up encirclement, he postulated that all major cities would be formed by radial expansion from the center in concentric rings which he described as zones, i.e. the office area in the center; the slum area aka "the zone in transition" around the central area; the zone of workingmen's homes farther out; the residential area beyond this zone; and then the bungalow item and the commuter's zone on the periphery. Under the influence of Albion Small, the research at the school mined the mass of official data including census reports, housing/welfare records and crime figures, and related the data spatially to different geographical areas of the city. Criminologists Shaw and McKay created statistical maps:

Thomas also developed techniques of self-reporting life histories to render subjective balance to the analysis. Park, Burgess, and McKenzie 1925 are credited with institutionalizing, if non establishing, sociology as a science. They are also criticized for their overly empiricist and idealized approach to the analyse of society but, in the inter-war years, their attitudes and prejudices were normative. Three broad themes characterized this dynamic period of Chicago studies:

The school is perhaps best known for the subcultural theories of Thrasher 1927, Frazier 1932; 1932, and Sutherland 1924, and for applying the principles of ecology to develop the social disorganization theory which refers to consequences of the failure of:

Thomas defined social disorganization as "the inability of a neighborhood to solve its problems together" which suggested a level of social pathology and personal disorganization, so the term, "differential social organization" was preferred by many, and may have been the consultation of Sutherland's 1947 differential connection theory. The researchers have reported a clear analysis that the city is a place where life is superficial, where people are anonymous, where relationships are transitory and friendship and category bonds are weak. They have observed the weakening of primary social relationships and relate this to a process of social disorganization comparison with the concept of anomie and the strain theories is instructive.