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Book No. – 25 (Sociology)
Book Name – Masters of Sociological Thought
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1. THE WORK
1.1. COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL CONTROL
1.2. FOUR MAJOR SOCIAL PROCESSES
1.3. SOCIAL DISTANCE
1.4. SOCIAL CHANGE
1.5. THE BIOTIC ORDER AND THE SOCIAL ORDER
1.6. THE SELF AND THE SOCIAL ROLE
2. THE MAN
2.1. PARK-A NEWSPAPERMAN AND STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY
2.2. PARK-AN ACTIVIST
2.3. PARK’S ACADEMIC CAREER
3. THE INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT
3.1. PARK’S DEBT TO GERMAN SOCIAL SCIENCE
3.2. PARK’S DEBT TO EVOLUTIONISM AND TO CONTINENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
4. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
4.1. CHICAGO SOCIOLOGY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY
4.2. UNIVERSITY CAREER
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LANGUAGE
Robert E. Park
Chapter – 10
Table of Contents
THE WORK
- Robert E. Park is often associated with research rather than theory, but he considered his major contribution to be the development of concepts for systematic classification and analysis of social data.
- Park’s self-assessment was that sociology had much theory but lacked working concepts.
- He frequently asked questions like, “What is a gang? What is a public? What is a nationality?” to better define what students wanted to study.
- Park believed that scientific research in sociology required a system of classification and a frame of reference to categorize and describe social phenomena.
- Park and Burgess’ Introduction was an early attempt to sketch a classification system for social research.
- Park viewed his contribution to sociology as theoretically guided research, not what he initially intended, but what he needed to explore the social world systematically.
- Although Park did not aim to form a system, he was fundamentally a systematic sociologist.
- As a systematic sociologist, Park’s work remains influential and warrants attention despite his modesty about his theoretical contributions.
COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL CONTROL
- Park defined sociology as “the science of collective behavior,” emphasizing the study of fluid social processes rather than static social structures.
- Society, according to Park, is best understood as the product of interactions between individuals, controlled by traditions and norms that emerge from these interactions.
- Social control is considered by Park to be “the central fact and the central problem of society.”
- Society functions as a control organization, aiming to organize, integrate, and direct the energies of individuals within it.
- Sociology, for Park, is a point of view and method to investigate the processes by which individuals cooperate and become part of society.
- Social control encompasses mechanisms that organize, contain, and channel collective behavior, including conflictand competition.
- Social control serves to regulate competition, compromise conflict, and ensure individuals comply with the requirements of social order.
- Although social control can regulate antagonisms, it cannot achieve a permanent equilibrium in society; antagonisms are not eradicated but made latent or channeled into socially accepted forms.
- Every society represents an organization of elements that may be antagonistic, yet united by an arrangement defining reciprocal relations and spheres of action.
- An accommodation between groups or individuals may be temporary or transitory, depending on the type of society (e.g., caste-based vs. class-based).
- For Park, a stable social order is one where social control mechanisms have contained antagonistic forces, but this stability is not permanent in modern society due to the emergence of new groups and individuals seeking their share of scarce values.
FOUR MAJOR SOCIAL PROCESSES
- Park distinguished four major social processes: competition, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation.
- Competition is a universal phenomenon, first described by biologists and defined as the “struggle for existence.”
- Competition is the fundamental and elementary form of social interaction that occurs without contact between individuals, such as organisms competing for resources or humans vying for prized goods.
- Social contact only occurs when minds meet, when the meaning in one mind is communicated to another, turning unconscious competition into conscious conflict where rivals or enemies are identified.
- Competition is as universal in human society as in nature and plays a key role in assigning positions in both the division of labor and the ecological order.
- Conflict is intermittent and personal, contrasting with competition, which is a struggle for position in the ecological and economic order.
- Conflict determines an individual’s or group’s position in society, while competition determines their position in the ecological community.
- Accommodation refers to the cessation of conflict when the allocation of status and power between superordinates and subordinates is temporarily fixed and controlled by laws and mores.
- In accommodation, conflict disappears as overt action but remains latent as a potential force, able to be reactivated if the situation changes.
- Accommodation and social order are fragile and easily disrupted by latent conflicts that could undermine the previous order.
- Assimilation is the process of interpenetration and fusion where individuals or groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of others, forming a common culture.
- Park associates assimilation with the sociology of culture, particularly the incorporation of ethnic groups or racesinto a wider society through shared cultural heritage.
- Achieving assimilation does not erase individual differences or eliminate competition and conflict but creates a community of purpose and action through a shared cultural experience.