PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: sociology
German sociologist
Max Weber was a German sociologist and political economist best known for his thesis of the “Protestant ethic,” relating Protestantism to capitalism, and for his ideas on bureaucracy. Weber was the eldest...
French social scientist
Émile Durkheim was a French social scientist who developed a vigorous methodology combining empirical research with sociological theory. He is widely regarded as the founder of the French school of sociology....
British philosopher
Herbert Spencer was an English sociologist and philosopher, an early advocate of the theory of evolution, who achieved an influential synthesis of knowledge, advocating the preeminence of the individual...
French philosopher
Auguste Comte was a French philosopher known as the founder of sociology and of positivism. Comte gave the science of sociology its name and established the new subject in a systematic fashion. Comte’s...
English sociologist
T.H. Marshall was an English sociologist, renowned for his argument that the development of the Western welfare state in the 20th century introduced a novel form of citizenship—social citizenship—that...
American sociologist and environmental activist
Robert D. Bullard is an American sociologist and environmental activist, often referred to as the father of environmental justice. Bullard was born and raised in Elba, Alabama, a small town in the southeastern...
French sociologist and anthropologist
Bruno Latour was a French sociologist and anthropologist known for his innovative and iconoclastic work in the study of science and technology in society. Latour’s early studies were in philosophy and...
Russian-born sociologist
Mirra Komarovsky was a Russian-born sociologist, one of the first to engage in theory and research on the cultural and structural barriers to women’s equality and to write about problems men and women...
American priest, sociologist, educator, commentator, and author
Andrew Greeley was an American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, educator, commentator, and author who devoted more than 50 years to addressing the teachings of the Catholic faith through nonfiction...
American sociologist and criminologist
Marshall B. Clinard was an American sociologist and criminologist known for his research on the sociology of deviant behaviour, corporate crime, and gang formation. Clinard was one of the first to follow...
Swedish economist and sociologist
Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish economist and sociologist regarded as a major theorist of international relations and developmental economics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 (his cowinner...
American anthropologist
Elsie Clews Parsons was an American sociologist and anthropologist whose studies of the Pueblo and other Native American peoples of the southwestern United States remain standard references. Elsie Clews...
American political activist and author
Todd Gitlin was an American political activist, author, and public intellectual best known as a media analyst and as an internal critic of the American left. Gitlin was born into a liberal Jewish family...
Italian economist and sociologist
Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist and sociologist who is known for his theory on mass and elite interaction as well as for his application of mathematics to economic analysis. After his graduation...
French author and philosopher
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist and cultural theorist whose theoretical ideas of “hyperreality” and “simulacrum” influenced literary theory and philosophy, especially in the United States, and...
Czech Roman Catholic priest and sociologist
Tomáš Halik is a Czech Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, and author who advocated for religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue. In 2014 he was awarded the Templeton Prize, which is considered by some...
American political scientist
Emily Greene Balch was an American sociologist, political scientist, economist, and pacifist, a leader of the women’s movement for peace during and after World War I. She received the Nobel Prize for Peace...
American sociologist
Elihu Katz was an American sociologist who significantly contributed to the study of mass communication. Some of his most notable work included research on such topics as the intersection of mass communication...
American sociologist
James S. Coleman was an American sociologist, a pioneer in mathematical sociology whose studies strongly influenced education policy in the United States. Coleman received a B.S. from Purdue University...
American sociologist
Robert K. Merton was an American sociologist whose diverse interests included the sociology of science and the professions, sociological theory, and mass communication. After receiving a Ph.D. from Harvard...
American sociologist
Mary Parker Follett was an American author and sociologist who was a pioneer in the study of interpersonal relations and personnel management. Follett in 1888 entered the Society for the Collegiate Instruction...
French sociologist
Raymond Aron was a French sociologist, historian, and political commentator known for his skepticism of ideological orthodoxies. The son of a Jewish jurist, Aron obtained his doctorate in 1930 from the...
American sociologist
Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist and scholar whose theory of social action influenced the intellectual bases of several disciplines of modern sociology. His work is concerned with a general...
French sociologist and public intellectual
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist who was a public intellectual in the tradition of Émile Zola and Jean-Paul Sartre. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (socially acquired dispositions) was influential...
French sociologist and anthropologist
Marcel Mauss was a French sociologist and anthropologist whose contributions include a highly original comparative study of the relation between forms of exchange and social structure. His views on the...
American criminologist
Gresham M. Sykes was an American criminologist known for his contributions to the study of delinquency and prisons. After attending Princeton University (A.B., 1950), Sykes studied sociology at Northwestern...
American sociologist
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist whose views on race and urban poverty helped shape U.S. public policy and academic discourse. Wilson was educated at Wilberforce University (B.A., 1958)...
American sociologist
David Riesman was an American sociologist and author most noted for The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (with Reuel Denney and Nathan Glazer, 1950), a work dealing primarily with...
Iranian intellectual
ʿAli Shariʿati was an Iranian intellectual and critic of the regime of the shah (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi). Shariʿati developed a new perspective on the history and sociology of Islam and gave highly...
German sociologist
Theodor Julius Geiger was a German sociologist and the first professor of sociology in Denmark, whose most important studies concerned social stratification and social mobility. Geiger served in World...
German sociologist
Ferdinand Tönnies was a German sociologist whose theory reconciled the organic and social-contract conceptions of society. A teacher at the University of Kiel from 1881, Tönnies was best known for Gemeinschaft...
American sociologist
W. Lloyd Warner was an influential American sociologist and anthropologist who was noted for his studies on class structure. Warner studied at the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in anthropology....
American sociologist
Robert E. Park was an American sociologist noted for his work on ethnic minority groups, particularly African Americans, and on human ecology, a term he is credited with coining. One of the leading figures...
American social scientist
Rosabeth Moss Kanter is an American social scientist and writer whose interests centre on the dynamics of corporate culture, management approaches, and corporate change. Kanter graduated from Bryn Mawr...
American sociologist and political scientist
Seymour Martin Lipset was an American sociologist and political scientist, whose work in social structures, comparative politics, labour unions, and public opinion brought him international renown. After...
German ethnologist
Richard Thurnwald was a German anthropologist and sociologist known for his comparative studies of social institutions. Thurnwald’s views on social anthropology grew out of his intimate knowledge of various...
American sociologist
E. Franklin Frazier was an American sociologist whose work on African American social structure provided insights into many of the problems affecting the black community. Frazier received his A.B. from...
Tunisian novelist
Albert Memmi was a French-language Tunisian novelist and author of numerous sociological studies treating the subject of human oppression. Memmi was the product of a poor Jewish section of the capital...
Brazilian sociologist
Gilberto Freyre was a Brazilian sociologist who is considered the 20th-century pioneer in the sociology of northeastern Brazil. Freyre received a B.A. from Baylor University, Waco, Texas, and his M.A....
Polish-born sociologist
Zygmunt Bauman was a Polish-born sociologist who was one of the most influential intellectuals in Europe, known for works that examine broad changes in the nature of contemporary society and their effects...
American sociologist
Paul Felix Lazarsfeld was an Austrian-born American sociologist whose studies of the mass media’s influence on society became classics in his field. Lazarsfeld was educated at the University of Vienna...
Austrian scholar
Ludwig Gumplowicz was a sociologist and legal philosopher who was known for his disbelief in the permanence of social progress and for his theory that the state originates through inevitable conflict rather...
American sociologist
C. Wright Mills was an American sociologist who, with Hans H. Gerth, applied and popularized Max Weber’s theories in the United States. He also applied Karl Mannheim’s theories on the sociology of knowledge...
British journalist
Henry Mayhew was an English journalist and sociologist, a founder of the magazine Punch (1841), who was a vivid and voluminous writer best known for London Labour and the London Poor, 4 vol. (1851–62)....
French sociologist
Frédéric Le Play was a French mining engineer and sociologist who developed techniques for systematic research on the family. Le Play was engineer in chief and a professor of metallurgy at the École des...
American sociologist
Daniel Bell was an American sociologist and journalist who used sociological theory to reconcile what he believed were the inherent contradictions of capitalist societies. Bell was educated at City College...
British sociologist
Charles Booth was an English shipowner and sociologist whose Life and Labour of the People in London, 17 vol. (1889–91, 1892–97, 1902), contributed to the knowledge of social problems and to the methodology...
American sociologist
Kingsley Davis was an American sociologist and demographer who coined the terms population explosion and zero population growth. His specific studies of American society led him to work on a general science...
French sociologist
Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist and criminologist who was one of the most versatile social scientists of his time. His theory of social interaction (“intermental activity”) emphasized the individual...
Finnish sociologist
Edward Westermarck was a Finnish sociologist, philosopher, and anthropologist who denied the widely held view that early humans had lived in a state of promiscuity and instead theorized that the original...
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