Toward A Sociological Theory of Information

Toward A Sociological Theory of Information PDF Author: Harold Garfinkel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317250257
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 499

Get Book

Book Description
In 1952 at Princeton University, Harold Garfinkel developed a sociological theory of information. Other prominent theories then being worked out at Princeton, including game theory, neglected the social elements of "information," modeling a rational individual whose success depends on completeness of both reason and information. In real life these conditions are not possible and these approaches therefore have always had limited and problematic practical application. Garfinkel's sociological theory treats information as a thoroughly organized social phenomenon in a way that addresses these shortcomings comprehensively. Although famous as a sociologist of everyday life, Garfinkel focuses in this new book-never before published-on the concerns of large-scale organization and decisionmaking. In the fifty years since Garfinkel wrote this treatise, there has been no systematic treatment of the problems and issues he raises. Nor has anyone proposed a theory of information like the one he proposed. Many of the same problems that troubled theorists of information and predictable order in 1952 are still problematic today.

Toward A Sociological Theory of Information

Toward A Sociological Theory of Information PDF Author: Harold Garfinkel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317250257
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 499

Get Book

Book Description
In 1952 at Princeton University, Harold Garfinkel developed a sociological theory of information. Other prominent theories then being worked out at Princeton, including game theory, neglected the social elements of "information," modeling a rational individual whose success depends on completeness of both reason and information. In real life these conditions are not possible and these approaches therefore have always had limited and problematic practical application. Garfinkel's sociological theory treats information as a thoroughly organized social phenomenon in a way that addresses these shortcomings comprehensively. Although famous as a sociologist of everyday life, Garfinkel focuses in this new book-never before published-on the concerns of large-scale organization and decisionmaking. In the fifty years since Garfinkel wrote this treatise, there has been no systematic treatment of the problems and issues he raises. Nor has anyone proposed a theory of information like the one he proposed. Many of the same problems that troubled theorists of information and predictable order in 1952 are still problematic today.

A Primer in Social and Sociological Theory

A Primer in Social and Sociological Theory PDF Author: Kenneth Allan
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1452235651
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Organized around the discourses of modernity, democracy, and citizenship, A Primer in Social and Sociological Theory: Toward a Sociology of Citizenship helps readers to develop skills in critical thinking and theory analysis as they explore nine central ideas of thought: modernity, society, self, religion, capitalism, power, gender, race, and globalization. Each chapter concludes with a section that discusses the craft of citizenship as it relates to the chapter content.

Toward a Sociological Theory of Religion and Health

Toward a Sociological Theory of Religion and Health PDF Author: Anthony Blasi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004205977
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book

Book Description
This book seeks to involve recognized researchers in the social scientific study of health, medicine and religion, which has burgeoned across the past twenty years, toward more general theoretical development within the field, particularly with respect to the elderly and disadvantaged.

Sociology and the New Systems Theory

Sociology and the New Systems Theory PDF Author: Kenneth D. Bailey
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495620
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book

Book Description
This book provides current information about the many recent contributions of social systems theory. While some sociologists feel that the systems age ended with functionalism, in reality a number of recent developments have occurred within the field. The author makes these developments accessible to sociologists and other non-systems scholars, and begins a synthesis of the burgeoning systems field and mainstream sociological theory. The analysis shows not only that important points of rapprochement exist between systems theory and sociological theory, but also that systems theory has in some cases anticipated developments needed in mainstream theory.

Face to Face

Face to Face PDF Author: Jonathan H. Turner
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804744173
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Updating classic sociological theory and utilizing the results of recent research in evolutionary and neurphysiological theory, this ambitious work aims to present no less than a unified, general theory of what happens when people interact.

Toward a Structural Theory of Action

Toward a Structural Theory of Action PDF Author: Peter H. Rossi
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483288277
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Get Book

Book Description
Toward a Structural Theory of Action: Network Models of Social Structure, Perception, and Action centers on the concept of social structure, perceptions, and actions, as well as the strategies through which these concepts guide empirical research. This book also proposes a model of status/role-sets as patterns of relationships defining positions in the social topology. This text consists of nine chapters separated into three parts. Chapter 1 introduces the goals and organization of the book. Chapters 2-4 provide analytical synopsis of available network models of social differentiation, and then use these models in describing actual stratification. Chapter 5 presents a model in which actor interests are captured. Subsequent chapter assesses the empirical adequacy of the two predictions described in this book. Then, other chapters provide a network model of constraint and its empirical adequacy. This book will be valuable to anthropologists, economists, political scientists, and psychologists.

Toward a Sociology of the Trace

Toward a Sociology of the Trace PDF Author: Herman Gray
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816655979
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book

Book Description
Questions national identity by investigating the creation of memory and meaning.

Theory and Educational Research

Theory and Educational Research PDF Author: Jean Anyon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135854432
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book

Book Description
Most empirical researchers avoid the use of theory in their studies, providing data but little or no social explanation. Theoreticians, on the other hand, rarely test their ideas with empirical projects. As this groundbreaking volume makes clear, however, neither data nor theory alone is adequate to the task of social explanation—rather they form and inform each other as the inquiry process unfolds. Theory and Educational Research bridges the age-old theory/research divide by demonstrating how researchers can use critical social theory to determine appropriate empirical research strategies, and extend the analytical, critical – and sometimes emancipatory – power of data gathering and interpretation. Each chapter models a theoretically informed empiricism that places the data research yields in constant conversation with theoretical arsenals of powerful concepts. Personal reflections following each chapter chronicle the contributors’ trajectories of struggle and triumph utilizing theory and its powers in research. In the end this rich collection teaches education scholars how to deliberately engage with critical social theory in research to produce work that is simultaneously theoretically inspired, politically engaged, and empirically evocative.

American Society

American Society PDF Author: Talcott Parsons
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317263758
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 889

Get Book

Book Description
Never before published, American Society is the product of Talcott Parsons' last major theoretical project. Completed just a few weeks before his death, this is Parsons' promised 'general book on American society'. It offers a systematic presentation and revision of Parson's landmark theoretical positions on modernity and the possibility of objective sociological knowledge. Even after the passage of many years, American Society imparts a remarkably provocative interpretation of US society and a creative approach to social theory.

Logics of History

Logics of History PDF Author: William H. Sewell Jr.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226749193
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 425

Get Book

Book Description
While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists’ treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians. Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.