Contributions of Clinical Sociology to the Medical Field

Health care in the United States is a complicated structure of social roles, processes, and communication, involving both patients and professionals. Understanding the social dimensions of the health care process can assist health professionals in providing better care to their patients. This paper analyzes several dimensions of the health care system, as suggested in a paper by Kallen (Kallen D. J. 1984. Clinical Sociology Review 2:78–93.) These include the perceptions of participants in the system; structures of the groups involved, including their roles and norms; the process by which groups, as opposed to individuals, operate; and finally the need for the clinical sociologist as a system maintenance specialist, to deal with these problems.     

Contributions of American Pragmatism to the Sociology of Knowledge

The authors identify and develop the contribution of pragmatic thought to the sociology of knowledge. The argument presented here elucidates the pragmatist position on several controversial issues currently confronting the sociology of knowledge, namely; the issues of rationality, relativism, subjectivism, objectivity, language, truth, and the nature of theory and explanation. The paper concludes that the corpus of pragmatic thought resolves these issues in a timely, relevant, and significant way.     

Darwin Meets the King: Blending Sociology and Evolutionary Psychology to Explain Police Deviance

Ce papier utilise la perspective de Parnaby et Leyden's ( 2011 ) qui adapte l'approche de Merton de la déviance policière en incorporant des éléments de psychologie évolutionniste. Nous proposons que l'intégration de la psychologie évolutionniste contribue à un modèle théorique plus robuste. Plus précisément, nous considérons qu'une structure sociale anomique crée les conditions sociales par lesquelles des mécanismes psychologiques adaptifs qui coïncident avec les modes d'adaptation de Merton et se manifestent dans le comportement. Nous soulignons l'importance d'une intégration de la sociologie et de la psychologie évolutionniste et adressons certains malentendus sur cette dernière. In this paper, we build on Parnaby and Leyden's ( 2011 ) modified Mertonian approach to police deviance by incorporating elements of evolutionary psychology. It is our contention that an infusion of evolutionary psychology will lead to a more robust theoretical model. Specifically, we argue that an anomic social structure helps create the social conditions within which specific adaptive psychological mechanisms manifest behaviorally in ways that coincide with Merton's modes of adaptation. The importance of integrating sociology and evolutionary psychology is emphasized while a number of misunderstandings about the latter are addressed.     

On the Contributions of Cognitive Sociology to the Sociological Study of Race

In this article, we argue for cognitive sociology as a framework for studying the sociology of race. Cognitive sociology concerns itself with classification, identity construction, meaning and collective memory and is thus centrally concerned with generic issues that apply well to racial category construction and maintenance. We, first, outline the cognitive sociology framework. We then elaborate on traditions in the sociology of race and racism that have implicit affinities to cognitive sociology. We argue that cognitive sociology provides a useful generic framework with which to look at specific issues in racial classification, the social construction of race, and to racist cognitions, while critical race theory and other sociology of race frameworks can compliment cognitive sociology by addressing issues of power and domination in cognitive frameworks.     

Sociology of Deviance and Criminology in France: History and Controversies

This article investigates the peculiar history of sociology of deviance and criminology in France, from the end of the 19th until now. In the 1880s, the criminal questions invade the intellectual debate. I show how sociology (Gabriel Tarde and the Durkheimians) was largely built against biomedical determinisms. Then, the criminal question has conducted doctors and lawyers to join forces in the first half of the 20th century in order to develop the first criminological institutions, or “criminal sciences.” In the 1950s and 1960s, Jean Pinatel would try to elaborate a synthesis out of this but he would fail to institutionalize a criminological discipline. Yet, from the 1970s, sociology of deviance has known a rennaissance in the scientific field, partly because of the influence of American sociology of deviance and British critical criminology. Since then, the social sciences are the first producers of scientific knowledge about the criminal phenomena, the criminal justice system (police, justice), and about the public policies of security and prevention. However, between 2007 and 2012, in a political context of neo-conservatism, the need to institutionalize the criminological discipline in France led to a controversy.     

Sociology as an Art Form: One Facet of the Conservative Sociology of Robert Nisbet

Robert Nisbet’s ideas on sociology as an art form are examined in the light of Nisbet’s intellectual biography as we as in the tradition of other writers who have approached sociology and history as an art. Nisbet conceived sociology as an art of landscape and portraiture, in which neither theory nor methods should be allowed to become ‘idols of the profession.’ His thought on sociology as an art is best understood as part of a long-term effort to re-center sociology in a conservative intellectual tradition.     

Sex,Sacredness, and Structure: Contributions to the Sociology of Collective Dreams

The article starts with a metaphoric and rhetorical use of the dream concept and then deals with collective dreams. Borrowing ideas from Freud, Durkheim, and Levi-Strauss, concepts are developed to describe collective dreams, for example, the American Dream. I demonstrate that binary oppositions, such as Durkheim's “sacred versus profane” distinction, structure collective dreams. Different forms of symbolic operation are described.     

Moving from Urban Sociology to the Sociology of the City

The American Sociologist - Castell’s claim that urban sociology has no subject matter has yet to be refuted. In this article, I argue that urban sociology should be understood as the...     

Robert E. Park and the Chicago School of Sociology: A Centennial Tribute*

Bien qu'il semble plus près de nous qu'eux, Robert Park, né en 1864, etait contemporain de Durkheim, Simmel et Weber. Nonobstant le mythe si répandu au sujet de l'école de Chicago en sociologie, Park ne fit pas qu'accumuler des données empiriques sur les problèmes sociaux à Chicago; il fut un théoricien d'une valeur exceptionnelle, bien au fait de la science sociale europeienne et profondément intéressé au côte humaniste en sociologie. Avec certains collègues, dont feu Robert Redfield, il partagea ou leur communiqua une perspective qui, d'une part, s'est avérée d'une importance théorique vitale et qui, d'autre part, a été des plus fructueuses dans la recherche. La lecture de son ôeuvre est toujours profitable et agréable.     

Organizational Responses to Imputations of Deviance*

This paper proposes that the study of deviance be expanded to include organizations as actors to which deviance may be imputed. In contrast to traditional empirical studies which tend to emphasize powerless persons who passively accept attributions of deviance, this study focuses on powerful actors who actively defend themselves. Attention is focused on the types of accounts offered by one organization, the Central Intelligence Agency, in reaction to imputations of deviance to it at key times since its founding in the late 1940s. The various accounts have been aided by powerful third parties willing to use their resources in support of justifying and excusing claims by the CIA. As a result, the agency has escaped virtually unscathed from attempts to label it as deviant.     

Robert E. Park and the Theoretical Content of Chicago Sociology: 1920–1940*

Drawing on the entire body of Robert E. Park's work published in the period 1921–1944, this paper describes his general theoretical system at three points in time: in 1921, between 1922 and 1929, and from 1930 to 1944. Park refined and altered his general theory of society over this period partly because of ambiguities in his original 1921 formulation and partly because of pressure from changing social and intellectual milieux. Park is treated as the leading theorist of the Chicago School of Sociology, and this account of his theoretical system is used as a base for assessing the validity of five different contemporary claims about the theoretical contributions of the Chicago School of Sociology.