CHICAGO SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY Sadykova Aigerim ITM 121

CHICAGO SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY Sadykova Aigerim ITM 121

ECOLOGICAL SCHOOL • The Chicago School (sometimes described as the Ecological School) was the first major body of works emerging during the 1920 s and 1930 s specializing in urban sociology, and the research into the urban environment by combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago, now applied elsewhere. While involving scholars at several Chicago area universities, the term is often used interchangeably to refer to the University of Chicago's sociology department—one of the oldest and one of the most prestigious.

• When the University of Chicago was founded in 1892, it established the nation's first department of sociology. The study of sociology was still a relatively undeveloped field, but by the 1920 s the department had become nationally famous and graduates of its Ph. D. program dominated newly formed sociology programs across the country. • The Chicago School is best known for its urban sociology and for the development of the symbolic interactionism approach. It has focused on human behavior as determined by social structures and physical environmental factors, rather than genetic and personal characteristics. Biologists and anthropologists have accepted theory of evolution as demonstrating that animals adapt to their environments. As applied to humans who are considered responsible for their own destinies, 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 all 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. ”

• The American Journal of Sociology was established in 1895 by Albion Small and is the oldest academic journal of sociology in the United States. The journal is attached to the University of Chicago's sociology department and it is published bimonthly by The University of Chicago Press. Its editor-in-chief is Andrew Abbott (University of Chicago). The journal presents work on theory, methods, practice, and history of sociology. It also publishes sociology-related papers by scholars from outside sociology, speaking to sociologists, social scientists, and the general sociological reader.

• Members of the School have concentrated on the city of Chicago as the object of their study, seeking evidence whether urbanization and increasing social mobility have been the causes of the contemporary social problems. Originally, Chicago was a clean slate, an empty physical environment. By 1860, Chicago was a small town with a population of 10, 000. There was great growth after the fire of 1871. By 1910, the population exceeded two million. The rapidity of the increase was due to an influx of immigrants and it produced homelessness, poor housing conditions and bad working conditions based on low wages and long hours. • Ecological studies consisted of making spot maps of Chicago for the place of occurrence of specific behaviors, including alcoholism, homicides, suicides, psychoses, and poverty , and then computing rates based on census data. A visual comparison of the maps could identify the concentration of certain types of behavior in some areas. Correlations of rates by areas were not made until later.

• Development of the Chicago school was defined by teachers jointly with students researches which have made strong impact on development of a sociological science. There was a relative unanimity of views, no less than informal leadership of group of leading sociologists, first of all Park and Burgess. Also there were numerous pupils and followers. • Recognition of need of development for each research of the special program with the purposes, tasks, the hypotheses which have been accurately formulated by object and a subject of studying became one of central among them. That becomes today almost on "automat" in any research and to that teach students — future sociologists, has been formulated, proved, approved, realized for the first time during researches of the Chicago school. This methodology of empirical research became one of major factors of development of world sociology.

THE MAJOR RESEARCHERS IN THE FIRST CHICAGO SCHOOL INCLUDED ERNEST BURGESS, GEORGE HERBERT MEAD, ROBERT E. PARK.

• Ernest Watson Burgess (1886– 1966) was an urban sociologist. He was educated at Kingfisher College in Oklahoma and continued graduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago. In 1916, he returned to the University of Chicago, as a faculty member. Burgess was hired as an urban sociologist at the University of Chicago. Burgess also served as the 24 th President of the American Sociological Association. • Five years after his arrival as a professor at the University of a Chicago in 1921, Ernest Burgess would publish one of his most celebrated works. He collaborated with sociologist Robert Park to write a textbook called Introduction to the Science of Sociology. This was one of the most influential sociology texts ever written. Many people at the time referred to this book as the “Bible of Sociology”. • This book represented the observation and reflection of men who have seen life from very different points of view. The book discussed many topics such as the history of sociology, human nature, investigating problems, social interaction, competition, conflicts, assimilation and more. Introduction to the Science of Sociology was so well organized and comprehensive that most graduate students taught by University of Chicago alumni were required to read it. This book was so informative that it was still being used decades after the death of Ernest Burgess.

• Robert Ezra Park (1864 – 1944) was an American urban sociologist who is considered to be one of the most influential figures in early U. S. sociology. From 1905 to 1914 Park worked in Washington at the Tuskegee Institute. After Tuskegee, he taught at the University of Chicago, from 1914 to 1933, where he played a leading role in the development of the Chicago School of sociology. Park is noted for his work in human ecology, race relations, migration, assimilation, social movements, and social disorganization • During Park's time at the University of Chicago, its sociology department began to use the city that surrounded it as a sort of research laboratory. His work – together with that of his Chicago colleagues, such as Ernest Burgess, Homer Hoyt, and Louis Wirth – developed into an approach to urban sociology that became known as the Chicago School. • “My contribution to sociology, has been, therefore, not what I intended, not what my original interest would have indicated, but what I needed to make a systematic exploration of the social work in which I found myself. The problem I was interested in was always theoretic rather than practical. I have been mainly an explorer in three fields: Collective Behavior; Human Ecology; and Race Relations”

THE CITY • The City, first published in 1925 and reprinted here in its entirety, is a cross-section of concerns of the Chicago urban school during the period of its most intense activity. Park and Burgess realized that ecological and economic factors were converted into a social organization by the traditions and aspirations of city dwellers. In their efforts to achieve objectivity, these sociologists never lost sight of the values that propel human beings. • "It is a classic which remains relevant largely because it poses questions still unresolved. “ • Studying an urban environment, Park, Burgess, and their pupils considered practically all set of the social phenomena and processes of city life: localization of separate types of deviant behavior, regulation of interaction of various groups of the population and communities, creation of effective remedies of the social help and social control etc.

• George Herbert Mead (1863– 1931) was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general. • In a career spanning more than 40 years, Mead wrote almost constantly and published numerous articles and book reviews in both philosophy and psychology. However, he did not publish any books. Following his death, several of his students put together and edited four volumes from records of Mead's social psychology course at the University of Chicago, his lecture notes, and his numerous unpublished papers. • Most notable among Mead's published papers are “Suggestions Towards a Theory of the Philosophical Disciplines”, “Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of Meaning” , “What Social Objects Must Psychology Presuppose” and other. • In his lifetime, Mead published about 100 scholarly articles, reviews, and incidental pieces.

CONCLUSION • Influence of the Chicago school on sociology development, in particular, American, affects an extent of the 30 -40 th then the initiative passes to the Harward and Colombian universities. Main reasons for decline of the Chicago school: leaving of her leader - Park - in 1934; an aggravation of disagreements concerning research methods; absence equivalent to Park and Burgess of followers in theory; crisis of local and regional orientations as a whole in an economic depression and an aggravation of problems of the national value which has demanded new methods of research. Further value of the Chicago school has remained for city sociology, and now her ideas are especially actual for so-called "environmental sociology“. • The Chicago school promoted formation and development of many directions in sociology. Her many ideas still have scientific value, and results of researches have made the significant contribution to understanding of public processes. In end it is possible to tell that a contribution which was brought by the Chicago school, is very important not only for development of the American sociology, but also for development of world sociology as a whole.