In the 19th century, sociology expanded in the US, including the evolution of both macrosociologies, concerned with the evolution of societies, and microsociology, concerned with everyday human social interactions. Based on the pragmatic social psychology of George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) and, later, the Chicago School, sociologists developed symbolic interactionism.[59] In the 1920s, György Lukács released History and Class Consciousness (1923), while a number of works were published posthumously of Durkheim and Weber.
In the 1930s, Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) developed action theory, integrating the study of social order with the structural and voluntaristic aspects of macro and micro factors, while placing systems theory and cybernetics in the discussion within a high explanatory context. In Austria and later the USA, Alfred Schütz (1899-1959) developed social phenomenology, which would later inform social constructionism.
During the same period, certain members of the Frankfurt School, such as Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895-1973), developed critical theory, integrating the historical materialist elements of Marxism with the ideas of Weber, Freud, and Gramsci—in theory, though not always in name—generally characterizing capitalist modernity as a departure from the central principles of enlightenment "Enlightenment (belief)").
During the interwar period, sociology was undermined by totalitarian governments, for reasons of ostensible political control. After the Russian Revolution, sociology gradually became "politicized, Bolshevistized, and finally Stalinized" until it practically ceased to exist in the Soviet Union. it was also undermined by conservative universities in the West. This was due, in part, to the perception of the subject as possessing an inherent tendency, through his own objectives, and referring towards leftist or liberal thought. Since the topic was founded by structural functionalists; occupied by organic cohesion and social solidarity, this vision was somewhat unfounded (although it was Parsons who had introduced Durkheim to the American public, and his interpretation has been criticized for a latent conservatism).[52]
In the middle of the century there was a general - but not universal - tendency for American sociology to have a more scientific nature, due to the importance that action theory and other theoretical approaches to the system presented at that time. Robert K. Merton launched his Social Theory and Social Structure (1949).[62] In the late 1960s, sociological research was increasingly used as a tool by governments and businesses around the world. Sociologists developed new types of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Paul Lazarsfeld founded the Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research,[63] where he exerted enormous influence on the techniques and organization of social research. His many contributions to sociological method have earned him the title "founder of modern empirical sociology".[64] Lazarsfeld made great progress in the statistical analysis of surveys, panel methods, latent structure analysis, and contextual analysis.[64] He is also considered one of the founders of mathematical sociology. Many of her ideas have been so influential that in 2015 they are considered on their own.[64].
In 1959, Erving Goffman published The Presentation of the Person in Everyday Life and introduced the theory of dramaturgical analysis which states that all people aspire to create a specific impression of themselves in the minds of others. C. Wright Mills presents The Sociological Imagination, encouraging humanistic discourse and a rejection of abstract empiricism and grand theory. Parallel to the emergence of several social movements in the 1960s, especially in Great Britain, the cultural turn saw an increase in theories of conflict emphasizing social struggle, such as neo-Marxism and second wave feminism.[65].
Ralf Dahrendorf and Ralph Miliband presented the pioneering theory on class struggle and industrialized nation-states. The sociology of religion saw a renaissance in the decade with new debates on the thesis of secularization, globalization and the very definition of religious practice. Theorists such as Lenski and Yinger formulate "functional" definitions of religion, inquiring into what religion does rather than what it is in familiar terms. Thus, various new social institutions and movements could be examined for their religious role. Marxist theorists continued to examine consumerism and capitalist ideology in analogous terms. During the 1970s, Antonio Gramsci's selection from the Prison Notebooks [1929-1935] was finally published in English.[66].
In the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called poststructuralists and postmodernist theory, drawing on structuralism and phenomenology as much as classical social science, had a considerable impact on the frameworks of sociological research.
Often understood simply as a cultural style "after Modernism characterized by intertextuality, pastiche, and irony, sociological analyzes of postmodernism have presented a distinct era in relation to (1) the dissolution of metanarratives (most notably in the work of Lyotard), and (2) commodity fetishism and the "reflection" of identity with consumption in late capitalist society (Debord; Baudrillard; Jameson).[67] Postmodernism has also been associated with the rejection of conceptions of the enlightenment of the human subject, a trend followed by thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss and, to a lesser extent, in Louis Althusser's attempt to reconcile Marxism with anti-humanism. Most theorists associated with the movement actively denied the label, preferring to accept postmodernism as a historical phenomenon rather than a method of analysis, however, the pieces. Postmodernists consciously continue to appear within the social and political sciences in general.
In the 1980s, theorists outside France tended to focus on globalization, communication and reflection in terms of a 'second' phase of modernity, rather than a clear new era itself. Jürgen Habermas established communicative action as a reaction to postmodern challenges in the discourse of modernity, informed by both critical theory and American pragmatism. His fellow German sociologist, Ulrich Beck, presents the book Risk Society (1992) as an explanation of the way in which the modern nation-state has become organized. In Britain, Anthony Giddens proposed reconciling recurring theoretical dichotomies through the theory of During the 1990s, Giddens developed work on the challenges of "high modernity", as well as the politics of a new "third way" that would greatly influence New Labor in the UK and the Clinton administration in the US. The leading Polish sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, wrote extensively on the concepts of modernity and postmodernity, incorporating the concept of "liquid modernity",[68] particularly with respect to the Holocaust and the Holocaust. consumerism as historical phenomena.[69] While Pierre Bourdieu earned significant critical praise for his continued work on cultural capital,[70] certain French sociologists, most notably Jean Baudrillard and Michel Maffesoli, were criticized for perceived obfuscation and relativism.[71][72].
Functionalist systems theorists such as Niklas Luhmann remained dominant forces in sociology until the end of the century. In 1994, Robert K. Merton won the National Medal of Science for his contributions to the sociology of science.[73] The positivist tradition is popular today, especially in the United States.[74] The two most widely cited American disciplinary journals, the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review, published primarily research in the positivist tradition, with ASR exhibiting the greatest diversity (British Journal of Sociology"), on the other hand, publishes mainly non-positivist articles).[74] The century witnessed the improvement of quantitative methodologies used in sociology. The development of longitudinal studies that follow the same population over years or decades allowed researchers to study long-term phenomena and increased the ability of researchers to infer causality. The increase in the size of data sets produced by new study methods was followed by the invention of new statistical techniques for the analysis of these data. Analysis of this type is typically performed with statistical software packages such as SAS (programming language), Stata, or SPSS.
Social network analysis is an example of a new paradigm in the positivist tradition. The influence of social network analysis is widespread in many sociological subfields such as economic sociology (see the work of J. Clyde Mitchell, Harrison White, or Mark Granovetter, for example), organizational behavior, historical sociology, political sociology, or sociology of education. There is also a minor revival of a more independent and empirical sociology in the spirit of C. Wright Mills, and his studies of the power elite in the United States of America, according to Stanley Aronowitz").[75].