Analyzing and Interpreting the City: Theory
and Method
Show what makes urban life particularly different
from life elsewhere
• Present five different theoretical approaches for
interpreting urban life
• To understand the importance of the Chicago
School in the development of urban sociology
theory and methods
• To describe a variety of methods- from census
data to interviews to participant observationsociologists
use to study urban life.
Analyzing and Interpreting the City: Theory
and Method
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Analyzing and Interpreting the City: Theory
and Method
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Analyzing and Interpreting the City: Theory
and Method
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Analyzing and Interpreting the City: Theory
and Method
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Repeated Theme: Three main divisions in urban
sociology
1) Culturalist orientation versus Structuralist orientation 2) spatial versus associational emphasis 3) realist versus constructionist interpretation
Repeated Theme: Three main divisions in urban
sociology
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Repeated Theme: Three main divisions in urban
sociology
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Repeated Theme: Three main divisions in urban
sociology
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Fig 3.1 Key Approaches to the Sociological Study of Cities
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Fig 3.1 Key Approaches to the Sociological Study of Cities
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Fig 3.1 Key Approaches to the Sociological Study of Cities
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Fig 3.1 Key Approaches to the Sociological Study of Cities
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Fig 3.1 Key Approaches to the Sociological Study of Cities
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Fig 3.1 Key Approaches to the Sociological Study of Cities
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
Source of first major body of work in urban sociology
beginning in the 1920s and 1930s.
• Focused on forms of cities, their development, and
the outcomes of people competing for unequal spaces
• Emphasized how human behavior was determined more by
social structure and physical environments, rather than genetic
or personal characteristics
• City functions as a microcosm –the natural environment in
which the community inhabits & shapes human behavior
– “In these great cities, where all the passions, all the energies of
mankind are released, we are in a position to investigate the
process of civilization, as it were, under a microscope.“ Robert
Park (1928)
• Some major researchers include Robert E. Park, Roderick D.
McKenzie, Ernest Burgess, Louis Wirth, among others
Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
Combined theory and ethnographic fieldwork
in studying Chicago
• Originated the symbolic interactionist
approach, social disorganization theory,
subcultural theory, and the methods for
ecological analysis
• Ecological studies
– E.g. making spot maps of place of occurrence of specific
behaviors,including alcoholism, homicides, suicides, psychoses,
and poverty, and then computing rates based on census data. A
visual comparison of the maps could identify the concentration of
certain types of behavior in some areas. Correlations of rates by
areas were not made until later.
Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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Chicago School of Urban Sociology
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