The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, 1986 M08 15 - 285 pages
From 1915 to 1935 the inventive community of social scientists at the University of Chicago pioneered empirical research and a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods, shaping the future of twentieth-century American sociology and related fields as well. Martin Bulmer's history of the Chicago school of sociology describes the university's role in creating research-based and publication-oriented graduate schools of social science.

"This is an important piece of work on the history of sociology, but it is more than merely historical: Martin Bulmer's undertaking is also to explain why historical events occurred as they did, using potentially general theoretical ideas. He has studied what he sees as the period, from 1915 to 1935, when the 'Chicago School' most flourished, and defines the nature of its achievements and what made them possible . . . It is likely to become the indispensible historical source for its topic."—Jennifer Platt, Sociology

 

Contents

The City and Its University
12
The Establishment of the Social Sciences
28
A
45
Sociology the Social Survey Movement and
64
The Development of Field Research Methods
89
The Organization of Sociology by Park and Burgess
109
The Local Community Research Committee 192330
129
Financial Support for the Local Community
141
The Development of Quantitative Methods in the
151
Quantitative Methods in the Later 1920s
172
The Chicago Manifold
190
The Conditions of Creativity
208
A Note on Documentary
225
Index
275
Copyright

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About the author (1986)

Martin Bulmer is senior lecturer in social administration at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of London. His publications include Neighbours: The Work of Philip Abrams and Essays on the History of British Sociological Research.

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