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This book offers a journey through the problems and the progress of the discipline of sociology in the UK and Europe throughout the second half of the twentieth century via an exploration of seven social settings from the life of a now eminent sociologist. It conceptualises the complex relation that exists between being and knowing, and between the personal knowledge that comes from lived experience and the essentially impersonal knowledge that any science seeks to pursue. The seven - very contrasting - settings are described in detail, together with reference to some of their leading personalities, such as David Glass, Karl Popper, Norbert Elias, Sebastian Sprott, Richard Hoggart, Noel Annan, E. M. Forster, Gösta Rehn, Chelly Halsey, Fred Hirsch and Jürgen Habermas. In each case, the author shows how his lived experience within these settings formed a substratum of his sociology and how he navigated the line between personal knowledge as a creative resource and personal knowledge as potential bias using methodological discipline. It will ultimately appeal to those with interests in sociology, philosophy of science, sociological histories, and biographical methods.
Sommario
Introduction
1. Village and Family
2. School, Sport and the Mexborough
3. From Yorkshire to London, from History to Sociology
4. Leicester: Europe in England
5. King's, Cambridge: College Life, Sociology and Politics
6. Nuffield, Oxford and British Sociology
7. European Sociology
Envoi: The Sociologist Made
Info autore
John H. Goldthorpe is Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.
Riassunto
This book offers a journey through the problems and the progress of the discipline of sociology in the UK and Europe throughout the second half of the twentieth century via an exploration of seven social settings from the life of a now eminent sociologist.
Relazione
"The book is an interesting and stimulating read, and a reminder of the great contributions Goldthorpe has made to sociological research, in particular with his work on social mobility and stratification, in conceptualising and elaborating on the distinction between class and status, and in developing the notion of relative and absolute mobility [...]. In summary, this is an illuminating and insightful book. In addition to providing an account of the making of this sociologist, Goldthorpe's own life history illustrates how life courses are a product of serendipity and chance as well as conscious decisions. To what extent and in what way these decisions are shaped by the social context in which they take place is a topic of ongoing interest to all sociologists." - Judith Glaesser, Sociology
"What is the relationship between a person's research interests and their personal biography? This question lies at the heart of John H. Goldthorpe's latest book. One of the most influential British sociologists of the post-war era, Goldthorpe has shaped the study of social stratification, class, and mobility. In this work, he offers not a conventional autobiography but a sociological one, in the sense of a reflection on the development of contemporary sociology through the lens of his own life." - Filippo Barbera, European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie
