Chicago School Essay

1401 Words6 Pages
Describe and assess the contribution that the `Chicago School of Sociology ` has made to our understanding of cities and urban life. “ The city is the high point of human achievement , objectifying the most sophisticated knowledge in a physical landscape of extraordinary complexity, power, and splendour at the same time as it brings together social forces capable of the most amazing sociotechnical and political innovation.”(Fischer 2002) In order to comment on the Chicago School of Sociology in this essay, it is only fitting that one briefly reflects back over the school`s history and faculty. This paper will then describe and discuss the various and important contributions which have influenced, our thinking and understanding of urban life. The “Chicago School “refers to a specific group of sociologists at the University of Chicago during the first half of the last century. Their way of thinking about social relations was heavily qualitative, meticulous in data analysis, and focused on the city as a social laboratory.(1938) One must be aware of the time and place, the most prominent years of the Chicago School were from the end of the First World War till the end of the great depression in 1941.These years signified times of great development and change, along with the sizeable movement of people from the rural, homogenous, agrarian community to the vast, heterogeneous, industrial metropolis. (Ackermann and Lutters) American cities were experiencing an upsurge of growth, none more so than the city of Chicago.In the midst of this urban drive the University of Chicago was founded in 1892, and within it America`s first school of sociology. Critically, the school would be shaped by such talented and respected researcher`s as Albion W. Small, the school provided an invaluable link between German and American sociological schools of thought.W, I,Thomas
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