Journal of Classical Sociology

http://jcs.sagepub.com/

From Durkheim to the Chicago school: Against the 'variables sociology'

paradigm
Patricia Snell
Journal of Classical Sociology 2010 10: 51
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X09352557

The online version of this article can be found at:

http://jcs.sagepub.com/content/10/1/51

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Journal of Classical Sociology can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Subscriptions: http://jcs.sagepub.com/subscriptions

Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

Citations: http://jcs.sagepub.com/content/10/1/51.refs.html

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Article
Journal of Classical Sociology

From Durkheim to the

10(1) 5167
The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission: http://www.
Chicago school: Against sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermission.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X09352557
the variables sociology http://jcs.sagepub.com

paradigm

Patricia Snell
University of Notre Dame, USA

Abstract
mile Durkheim is often thought of, at least within many North American interpretations,
as closely associated with variables sociology, a tradition commonly understood to be
in opposition to the Chicago school of sociology, which is commonly thought of as more
qualitatively focused. Upon closer examination, it is apparent that Durkheim and the Chicago
school share a great deal more points of connection than are commonly acknowledged. These
similarities have been blurred due to (1) a lack of distinction between the later, qualitatively
focused Chicago school of sociology researchers with the more quantitatively-based work of
the original school and (2) a pervasive misunderstanding of what Durkheim meant by treating
a social fact as a thing. A more accurate account reveals that the two research traditions are
both heavily empirical, pragmatic, contextually based approaches to studying non-individualized,
collective behavior.These points of convergence show that the Chicago school of sociology, and
American sociology in general, constructed many of the same solutions to similar theoretical
problems as did Durkheim.

Keywords
Chicago school of sociology, community studies, Durkheim, symbolic interactionism,
variables sociology

If a science of societies exists, one must certainly not expect it to consist of a mere
paraphrase of traditional prejudices. It should rather cause us to see things in a
different way from the ordinary man, for the purpose of any science is to make
discoveries, and all such discoveries more or less upset accepted opinions.
(Durkheim, 1982: 31)

Corresponding author:
Patricia Snell, Center for the Study of Religion & Society, University of Notre Dame, 811 Flanner Hall, Notre
Dame, IN 46556, USA.
E-mail: psnell@nd.edu

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

52 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

Durkheim is considered one of the most influential figures in, if not one of the founding
fathers of, sociology as an academic discipline (for example, Levine, 1995; Morrison,
1995; Schmaus, 1994; Stedman Jones, 2001). Like any classic social theorist, Durkheims
work has had staying power through the persistence of the impact of his writings, and the
postulates therein, on the nature and definition of sociological research. But far beyond
the other canons, his efforts to create the field of sociology as a respectable pursuit in its
own right, with its own department of study, is the primary root of the modern concep-
tion of sociology found in nearly any university today. With the founding of the French
school of sociology, Durkheim and his collaborative team of colleagues institutionalized
sociological study (Besnard, 1983). For many modern sociologists, the postulates of
Durkheims work no longer need explicit explanation or justification, as they have
become taken-for-granted principles upon which many rest the foundation of their socio-
logical pursuits (Rothenbuhler, 1990).
Countless Durkheim scholars have interpreted and reinterpreted the meanings of his
work and its relation to what sociology is and ought to be studying. His work has been
explored, commented on, reacted to, and rejected by sociologists who view it through a
myriad of lenses, including some typically thought to be in opposition to one another,
such as structuralist and cultural, conservative and radical (for example, Gieryn, 2006).
Despite this variance in interpretation and application, there is a general consensus that
Durkheims work is nearly synonymous with the empirical study of social facts (for
example, Jones, 1999), so much so that, at least within North American interpretations
(Platt, 1995), to be Durkhemian is to be considered positivistic, even deterministic, in
approach. Through his advocating of the irreducible nature of social phenomena,
Durkheim revived a Comtean search for predetermining conditions of social facts
(Levine, 1995). However, he differed from Comte in his assertion of the necessity for a
scientific study of sociology similar to the natural sciences in its isolation of causal
claims. His relatively novel summation of the goal of sociological study was the propo-
sition which states that social facts must be treated as things which explain, and are
explained by, other social facts (Durkheim, 1982: 35). Thus, modern statistical research
methods are seen as largely attributable to his work.
mile Durkheim is crucial to a firm understanding of current and historical socio-
logical theory. He is traditionally thought of as encapsulating what some have called
variables sociology in so far as his work is seen as the foundation for quantification and
empirical investigation of social phenomena (for example, Abbott, 1988; Hassard 1993;
Ragin and Zaret, 1983). Durkheims association with non-interpretive, positivist sociol-
ogy is also evident in the fact that the title New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive
Critique of Interpretative Sociologies (Giddens, 1993) contains an inherent reference to
Durkheims Rules of Sociological Method (1982). Because of this conception of the
implications of his work, and the view that variables sociology is opposed to a type of
study typically associated with the Chicago school of sociology, Durkheim is not popu-
larly understood as having a similar orientation to the work of Chicago school sociolo-
gists. However, this is largely due to some misunderstandings regarding what actually
constituted the work of the Chicago school, as well as semi-prevalent misconceptions
regarding what Durkheim meant by some of his core postulates (Stedman Jones, 1995;

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 53

S. Turner, 1996; for some exceptions to this trend, see, for example, Bellah, 1975; Lukes,
1973; Porter, 1986).
Upon closer examination, it is apparent that Durkheim and the Chicago school
share a great deal more points of convergence than are commonly acknowledged.
Their methodological assumptions, which take for granted a certain way of knowing
about and measuring social phenomena, are in fact quite similar. Of course, there are
many points of divergence as well, but these differences do not provide enough jus-
tification for conceptualizing the two schools of thought as fundamentally opposed
to one another. It is therefore necessary to upset some opinions and dispel some
unfortunate prejudices within the field in order to recognize their general points of
convergence as important to a more accurate representation of the history of socio-
logical thought.

Durkheim and Variables Sociology

The quantitative methodology that dominates much of current sociological research,
sometimes referred to as variables sociology (for example, Abbott, 1988; Blumer,
1956), rests on a host of assumptions about the way that social life operates. The most
common assumptions of this method discussed in the statistical literature are those that
need to be made in order for the mathematics to be sound. These largely concern postu-
lates about the way in which the data relate to one another. Lieberson (1987), for example,
points out that many of the typical assumptions of inferential statistical sociology may in
fact be regularly violated. As he explains, claims regarding random sampling, inferences
about causal direction, employed control variables, and misinterpretation of variance are
separate problematic premises used in isolation or in combination throughout the literature
employing typical linear regression models.
Though there are a number of questions regarding whether these assumptions can be
adequately made about the way the data relate to one another, there is a larger question
with the fundamental assumption of this approach. The assumption concerns the under-
lying way in which social reality is characterized into discrete variables that are said to
abstractly represent social phenomena such that they can be thought of as being capable
of formalization by means of mathematical equations under very restrictive assumptions
regarding how social phenomena relate to one another (that is, linear and additive). This
variables sociology assumes that data about social occurrences can be conceptualized as
independent variables which have an effect on dependent variables in such a way that
can be measured by the application of mathematical procedures made commonly avail-
able through advances in statistical software programs (Esser, 1996). Nearly any social
phenomenon, virtually without limitation in type or definition, can be designated as mea-
surable in a variable form (Blumer, 1956). A successful model is one in which the inde-
pendent variable, typically thought of as some sort of demographic characteristic, can be
shown to be an adequate explanation of an increase or decrease in the size of the depen-
dent variable coefficient when its effects are held constant. And the task of sociological
study is then one in which direction and strength of pathways are measured and reported
as indications of causal processes.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

54 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

Variables sociology clearly has some roots in Durkheims work, both in his theoretical
definition of sociological research methods and in his application of these methods in his
own research. His primary application of variables sociology was in Suicide: A Study in
Sociology, in which he made statements such as:

Every proved specific difference between causes therefore implies a similar difference
between effects. Consequently, we shall be able to determine the social types of suicide by
classifying them not directly by their preliminarily described characteristics, but by the causes
which produce them.
(Durkheim, 1951: 146)

He made determinations of the ways in which suicide rates varied with measurements of
various types of degrees of integration, differentiation, and pathological degrees of
regulation (J.H. Turner, 1990), as well as a host of demographic characteristics, including
religious affiliation as the primary variable of interest. From this causal analysis, Durkheim
confidently asserted that the causes of suffering that result in suicide are therefore a result
of a deficit in solidarity rather than any sort of economic or psychological cause.
This research method couples with his theoretical definition of what sociology should
be to form the basis of the claim that Durkhemian sociology is in essence a variables
sociology. In The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim described social facts as
capable of exercising a coercive influence on the consciousness of individuals (1982: 43).
These facts he considered external to individuals, as opposed to psychological matters,
and he argued that they must be treated as things which can be examined and measured
similar to the way a biologist or chemist isolates certain causal processes in the explanation
of their cumulative effect. Social facts explain the occurrences of other social facts
and can be isolated to explain causal direction. Durkheim postulated the generalizability
of these social facts to an understanding of the external, societal constraints imposed on
individual behavior. The goal of the sociologist is then to remove oneself, to the extent
possible, from these constraints to make objective observations of their effects. Thus,
variables sociology through statistical analysis appears upon first glance to be the perfect
method of employing what can be understood as Durkheims empirical and positivist
style of sociology.

Durkheim and the Chicago School of Sociology

This understanding of a variables approach to sociology appears to be in fundamental
opposition to a type of study that has been most commonly associated with the Chicago
school of sociology, due to its focus on temporality and relations rather than sub-
stances and properties (Abbott, 1997). As explained by Bulmer (1984), this school is
thought to be in opposition to variables sociology due to its contribution of qualitative
methodologies and subjectivist theoretical orientations. Fine refers to the school as hav-
ing an interactionist, interpretivist, qualitative central tendency (1995: 4), which
rejected mimicking the techniques of the natural sciences in the study of society. From
this perspective, symbolic interactionism has been identified as conveying the character

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 55

of the Chicago school (Lewis and Smith, 1980; Rock, 1979). Mead, Dewey, and Blumer,
all based out of the University of Chicago, are often referenced as primary thinkers of
this methodological approach, which focused particular emphasis on the meanings of
social interactions. The meaning of a thing for a person grows out of the ways in which
other persons act toward the person with regard to the thing (Blumer, 1969: 4). For
these scholars, understanding and appreciating the role of meaning in social interac-
tions highlights the importance of rejecting deterministic, overly simplifying assump-
tions of traditional sociological methodologies in substituting the researchers point of
view of the world for the particular, subjectivist views of the social actor(s) (Colomy
and Brown, 1995).
With this view of the Chicago school of sociology, it seems apparent that it is in con-
trast with both variables sociology and the interpretation of Durkheim explained above.
However, this conclusion is largely based on a pervasive misconception of what consti-
tuted the fundamental approach of the original Chicago school, which did not place as
much emphasis on meaning, interpretation, and qualitative methodologies as did the
second wave of scholars in the school. Popular confusions of the methodological devel-
opments and arguments that came after the original school of thought have blurred the
line between the original school and its later succession. According to Bulmer (1984),
the first usage of the term Chicago school occurred in an article by Bernard in the
1930s. The term was developed with the intention of referring to the school of thinking
that arose around 1915 and encapsulated the work and publications of the faculty and
graduate students at the University of Chicago until about 19305 (Abbott, 2007;
Tucker, 2006). During this period, these scholars defined an approach to the study of
society that dramatically influenced the nature of American sociology. But rather than
being fundamentally qualitative and symbolic interactionist in nature, the school was
characterized by a specifically empirical approach to studying society that took the form
of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies (Hutchinson, 2007). The confusion
with the later second Chicago school is likely in part a result of this timing of the
origination of the term in that the label Chicago school of sociology began to be used
in 1930 to refer to the previous period, while simultaneously the new, interpretivist
school of thought was arising.
From a closer inspection of the work of the early (191530) Chicago school research-
ers, it is clear that this approach to sociology did not emphasize a focus on meaning and
interpretation and was not limited to one particular set of methodologies but rather
encompassed qualitative and quantitative studies. This is evidenced by the fact that one
of the most prominent approaches to reporting data during the time was mapping the
representations of data spatially (Faris, 1967). This plotting of rates of occurrence of
social phenomena is fundamentally a quantitative frequency measurement that is repre-
sented geographically rather than in tables and charts. And the seminal works of the
period often involved a mixture of methods that did rely on interview data but also com-
piled statistics such as income, cost of rent, property value, and so forth (Bulmer, 1984).
In fact, much of the work carried out through the Local Community Research Committee
was quantitatively oriented, and the early Chicago school was heavily involved in the
census data made available during the period. Burgess himself stated that quantitative

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

56 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

data were collected to create a comparison, so far as possible statistically, of the play of
social forces and trends in the different local communities of the city (1929: 137). Thus
it is apparent that while meaning and interpretation, gathered through qualitative meth-
odologies, were important, so too were the contributions of numerical data.
Many methods were employed toward the pursuit of scientific social inquiry. Viewed
in a larger perspective, developments at Chicago between 1915 and 1930 were part of a
trend in the early twentieth century toward more rigorous methods and a more scien-
tific self-conception on the part of American social scientists (Bulmer, 1984: 64). The
primary focus of many of the researchers at that period was to establish social research
as a legitimate area of study through invoking the respect of natural science methods.
The particularly empirical character of projects undertaken at the school led to a focus on
fieldwork as the primary activity of sociological scholarly work. The intensive research
conducted by faculty and graduate students created much of the foundation for the
modern American academic department as an establishment of predominantly research-
oriented activities aimed at discovering truths of social reality through investigation
rather than postulation. Levine stated that the most distinctive feature of the American
sociological tradition may be its resolutely empirical character (1995: 251).
In fact, it is this empirical orientation that has caused some to criticize the Chicago
school, as well as American sociology in general, as being atheoretical and essentially
not worthy of inclusion within the history of sociological thought (Joas, 1993). But in
many ways, there are more points of convergence between the practices of the original
Chicago school and the ideals of one of the disciplines major theoretical founders than
have previously been recognized. The aforementioned critique of the Chicago school
clearly ignores the placement of the school within the broader framework of traditionally
understood Durkheimian sociology. In The Rules of Sociological Method, for example,
Durkheim states critically that rather than viewing social occurrences as external to us,
and observing, describing, and comparing things, we are content to reflect upon our
ideas, analyzing and combining them. Instead of a science which deals with realities, we
carry out no more than an ideological analysis (1982: 60). Common interpretations of
Durkheim characterize him as taking a positivistic, mechanical approach to the study of
sociology (Fournier, 2005), which highlights the need to discover social facts and their
causal explanations (Jones, 2000). But a similar fundamental proposition can be seen in
the early Chicago schools pragmatist approach.
One reason why analysts have failed to make more of a connection between Durkheim
and the Chicago school, however, has also been due to a semi-pervasive misunderstand-
ing of Durkheim, in part due to a misleading conceptualization of what he meant by treat-
ing social facts as things. This claim is largely what has led to the majority of his readers
conceptualization of him as positivistic. Much of this misunderstanding lies in the fact
that many people ignored or overlooked The Rules of Sociological Method as a primary
text until very recently and are now primarily reading it as promoting objectivist social
facts (J.H. Turner, 1990; S. Turner, 1995). A more careful examination of the text shows
that this is an over-simplification of Durkheims main points, and that instead he is advo-
cating a version of sociology in opposition to the type of armchair philosophizing that had
previously occurred (Brooks, 1996). His description of social facts as things is meant to

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 57

put forward the idea that they are not penetrable by the mind, as ideas in philosophy are,
and must rather be studied within the context in which they can be observed in the world
(for example, Schmaus, 1994; Stedman Jones 1996).

A thing is an object of knowledge which is not naturally penetrable by the understanding. It is

all that which we cannot conceptualize adequately as an idea by the simple process of
intellectual analysis. It is all that which the mind cannot understand by going outside itself,
proceeding progressively by way of observation and experimentation from those features
which are the most external and the most immediately accessible to those which are the least
visible and the most profound.
(Durkheim, 1982: 36)

This demonstrates that for Durkheim a thing is meant not in the typical ontological
sense, denoting a substance in the external world, but rather in the methodological sense
as an object of knowledge that cannot be understood by internal intellectual analysis
alone. Many non-material social phenomena, such as culture, symbols, practices, and
rituals, qualify as things under this definition as well (for example, Stedman Jones, 1996,
2001). Thus, though Durkheim does have a strongly empirically oriented theory, his
work is not reducible to popular interpretations of deterministic forces existing in the
world to merely push around social actors. Rather, external constraints for Durkheim are
only the effects that social facts have on individuals (Schmaus, 1994: 45). Instead of a
reductionistic understanding of people as social actors, he appreciated the contributions
of psychological understandings of the social world and drew on methodological inspira-
tion from late nineteenth-century German psychologists who demonstrated that immate-
rial, mental phenomena could be treated as things worthy of objective research
investigations. Having respect for this method, he wanted to additionally contribute a
similar approach to studying the aspects of social behavior which are external to the
individual, namely social facts.
In this way, Durkheim shares additional similarities to the work of the early Chicago
school. The seemingly overlooked aspect of Durkheims concept of social facts as things
is the need for action in the study of society. In fact, in the literal French translation, his
use of social facts can just as easily understood as social actions (Porter, 1995). The
implication is that researchers must go out into the world to collect observations about
social reality rather than only philosophize about them. And that social science, as con-
ceived of by Durkheim, should be conducted in order to help ameliorate social problems.
Many of the early Chicago school sociologists reached similar conclusions. They linked
thought and action, positing that ideas and attitudes are tied to the social and historical
conditions in which they arise and are situated (Tucker, 2006: 59). The pragmatic ele-
ment of their work emphasized the link between theory and action. Similar to the natural
sciences, their research was based on the idea that a scientific study of society should
have theoretical postulates which are applied, analyzed, and refined via empirical study
of the social reality (Bulmer, 1984). Thus, Durkheim and the early Chicago school
researchers shared the idea that, in addition to a theoretical understanding of sociology,
the scientific study of society necessitates an active examination and measurement of

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

58 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

social occurrences. This similarity likely developed as a result of their mutual position-
ing of the study of society as a respectable pursuit. Both the original Chicago school and
Durkheim were advocating their methodological approaches as defining the value in
having a science of society, and therefore they shared a convergence upon the need to
describe their research as investigating a level of phenomena not already covered under
the other established academic disciplines.
Perhaps more significant than the connection in the premise that theory and active
sociological research should be combined into theoretically grounded empirical investi-
gation, Durkheim and the Chicago school of sociology additionally share a specifically
contextually based approach to understanding the social world. Abbott (1988) asserted
that the Chicago school of sociology scholars viewed social actors as having subjective
and contextually based perspectives not characterized in quantitative measurement.
Despite the primary association of that statement with the second Chicago school, it is
also true that a characteristic component of the original schools approach to studying
sociology was spatial locatedness. Though the department cannot be viewed as having a
unified school of thought, the most distinctive and most widely known development in
the Chicago department in the 1920s was the unprecedented surge of highly original
research in urban ecology (Faris, 1967: 51). Referred to as urban sociology, social or
urban ecology, human ecology, or community (Faris, 1967; Hutchinson, 2007; Plummer,
1997; Tomasi, 1998, respectively), this geographically based understanding of social
phenomena pervaded the studies of the early Chicago school.
With a specific focus on the industrializing city of Chicago, the studies of the school
investigated the relations between spatial distributions and social phenomenon. Therefore,
maps were a central component of the vast majority of their research projects (Faris, 1967).
Park, Burgess, Ellsworth, Thomas, Faris, and Ogburn all authored studies which essentially
utilized the city as a social laboratory to examine immigrant peasants, homeless, the urban
ghetto, social change, and so forth, within their particular context (Hutchinson, 2007;
Tucker, 2006). Through fieldwork in neighborhoods and communities, they examined the
arrangements of residences, businesses, organizations, and so on, within a particular area to
explore their connection to social processes. This form of methodological pursuit, poten-
tially inadvertently, caused their study of society to parallel an important theoretical stance
of Durkheims work in which social actors are recognized as part of a larger whole.
Park stated that out of all this I gained, among other things, a conception of the city,
the community, and the region, not as a geographical phenomenon merely but as a kind
of social organism (1950: viii). And so the ecological position of social actors was
recognized as having its own effect on social phenomena that necessitated sociology to
examine social occurrences within the context in which they existed. This use of a social
organism metaphor is yet another point of convergence that the Chicago school shares
with Durkheim (Levine, 1994). Both versions of sociology speak of societies or com-
munities as being a larger component than the humans who compose them, with the
power to exert an influence upon the component parts. They both seek to categorize and
classify types of collectivities as biology classifies different organisms, and they both
study the organism properties as indications of its healthiness in the form of cohesion,
mobility, crime and delinquency, and so forth.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 59

The specific assumption underlying this approach is that society could not be under-
stood as composed of individuals but rather needed to be additionally seen as aggregated
groups operating within located contexts. Its researchers did assume that individuals
could not be studied in isolation from one another and were influenced by the groups that
encompassed them, and that social change developed through the interaction of indi-
viduals and groups with one another (Tucker, 2006: 59). Park stated:

Just as psychology may be regarded as an account of the manner in which the individual
organism, as a whole, exercises control over its parts or rather of the manner in which the parts
co-operate together to carry on the corporate existence of the whole, so sociology, speaking
strictly, is a point of view and a method for investigating the processes by which individuals
are inducted into and induced to co-operate in some sort of permanent corporate existence
which we call society.
(1921: 20)

Individuals could not be separated from the social structures, institutions, and geograph-
ical locations of which they were a part (Tucker, 2006). The observable pattern of clus-
tering throughout the city pointed researchers to the conclusion that what had been
conceived of as personal problems were in reality a sign of social disorganization located
in specific areas (Bulmer, 1984), and that as people moved in or out of these areas their
experience living within their geographies, rather than their individual predispositions,
increased or decreased their involvement in societal ills (Faris, 1967).
This contextualized, non-individualized approach to the study of sociology shares
many similarities with the core tenets of Durkheims work (Godlove, 1996). In fact,
owing to the confusions in his use of the term thing in his concept of social facts, he
later began to use the term collective representations to conceptualize the core focus
of sociology (Schmaus, 1994). In The Rules of Sociological Method, he stated that
the principal effort of the sociologist must therefore be directed towards discovering
the different properties of that environment capable of exerting some influence upon the
course of social phenomena (1982: 136). And in Note on Social Morphology, he
describes the word geography as being insufficient for defining the way in which
social phenomena are located due to the idea that these are rather descriptions of sub-
strata of society.

Moreover, social morphology does not consist in a simple science of observation which
describes these forms without accounting for them. It can and must be explanatory. It does
not, therefore, merely consider the social substratum already established in order to present a
descriptive analysis; it observes it in the process of creation in order to see how it is
constituted.
(Durkheim, 1994: 89)

Compare this to Parks (1921) definition of sociology as the science of collective

behavior, with the explicit statement that sociology, as compared to other disciplines, is
the explanation of the social principles that other areas of study seek to apply.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

60 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

With regards to the non-individualized study of society, Durkheim stated,

society has for its substratum the mass of associated individuals. The system which they
form by uniting together, and which varies according to their geographical disposition and the
nature and number of their channels of communication, is the base from which social life is
raised. The representations which form the network of social life arise from the relations
between the individuals thus combined or the secondary groups that are between the
individuals and the total society.
(Durkheim, 1974: 24)

In one of his most well-known works, The Division of Labor in Society (1984), he
describes organic solidarity as arising in industrial societies comprised of functionally
differentiated units, or individuals, whose individuality is explained as a result of their
place within the labor structure (Mller, 1994). In this sense, it is the group structure of
the society itself that then defines the individual personalities of its members. And in
Individualism and the Intellectuals, Durkheim stated that from another viewpoint, it is
apparent that a society cannot be coherent if there does not exist among its members a
certain intellectual and moral community (1973b: 51).
This view shares many similarities with the Chicago school researchers who exam-
ined community social forces. Park and Burgess stated, Whatever a community might
be, it designates individuals, families, groups or institutions lying in an area, and some or
all of the relations which develop in this common area (1921: 129). In this sense, they
viewed the community as a social fact that formed a social entity worth studying in its
own right. They continued, To conceive of the neighbourhood or the community as
being isolated from the city is tantamount to neglecting the most important elements of
the neighbourhood (1921: 129). This concept of the community can be seen as a sui
generis social fact that both is influenced by and influences other social facts, such as
families, organizations, social class, and so on. Park and Burgess saw the community in
which one lived as exerting an influence upon individuals in such a way as to supersede
the individuals own psychological understandings of themselves. Thus, despite ones
moral convictions and psychological states, moving into a certain area of town would
cause change within peoples actions that would reverse the instant they moved out of
that area into another.
Though this particular reference to communities indicates a more immediately observ-
able influence on the school by Simmel (1950), and Durkheim never mentioned commu-
nity in particular as a social fact, the Chicago school description of community fits well
with Durkheims conception of how social facts operate and are operated on (Birrell,
1981; Wolff, 1970). In addition, this line of thinking is more likely due to a mutual con-
nection of Durkheim and Simmel to Tnnies (1957). In fact, there is a stronger connection
between the work of Durkheim and that of Tnnies, than Simmel and Tnnies, as evi-
denced in Durkheims book review of Tnnies Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (1889). In
addition, the commonly acknowledged Simmelian influence cannot explain either the ear-
lier explicated organismic metaphor usage or the strongly methodological nature of the
school. The society as organism metaphor is more likely a result of a shared influence by
Spencer (Levine, 1994). And Simmel only ever articulated an intuitive-based, informal

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 61

methodological approach, which does not correspond to the methodology articulated and
employed by the original Chicago school.
In fact, a closer read of the work of the original Chicago school scholars suggests that
more than an inadvertent convergence, there may in fact be a direct influence of Durkheim
on the Chicago school. It is true that, as Hinkle (1960) states, only three articles primarily
devoted to analyses of Durkheim were published in America prior to 1917, and Small (1898)
dismisses him early on as a nearly exact replica of Spencer. However, it is clear that
Durkheim began to have more of an influence immediately after this period. Hinkle describes
the points of connection in these early works as including their conceptualizations of the
real existence of the group, the distinction between like (individual) purpose and the
common (social) purpose, and the states that collective representations conventionalize or
symbolize common purposes (1960: 2756). Small begins to cite him as a more important
reference, and is clearly wrestling in general with theories he has obtained from Durkheim
(Small, 1899, 1900, 1901). Park, for example, seems to have adequately comprehended
him. His article, Sociology and the Social Sciences, which constitutes the introductory
chapter of Introduction to the Science of Sociology, contains the first extensive, lucid, per-
ceptive, and sympathetic interpretation of Durkheims place in the history of American
sociological theory (Hinkle, 1960: 275). Even some of the titles of Parks work begin to
suggest Durkheims influence: for example, Sociology and the Social Sciences: The Social
Organism and the Collective Mind (1921) and Human Nature and Collective Behavior
(1927). In these articles, Park cites Durkheim, making statements such as The lower
animals have, in the words of Durkheim, no collective representations (1927: 737) and:

Durkheim is sometimes referred to, in comparison with other contemporary sociologists, as

a realist. This is a reference to the controversy of the medieval philosophers in regard to the
nature of concepts. Those who thought a concept a mere class-name applied to a group of
objects because of some common characteristics were called nominalists. Those who thought
the concept was real, and the name of a mere collection of individuals, were realists.
They are realist, at any rate, in so far as they think of the members of a society as bound
together in a system of mutual influences which has sufficient character to be described as
a process.
(1921: 13)

Here he demonstrates a far greater understanding of the meaning of Durkheims treating

social facts as things than many of the scholars succeeding him for many decades.
And clearly the methodological orientation to studying communities and mapping
concentrations of social phenomena provides an indication that Park not only understood
Durkheims premise here but also endorsed it as a sound methodological approach.

Context vs. Community, Action vs. Change,

and Mechanism vs. Meaning
Despite these many points of connection, there are in fact some fundamental divergences
between the approaches of the Chicago school and Durkheimian sociology as well.
These points of difference relate to the primary focus of the approaches. As previously

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

62 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

described, a key component to both forms of study is the non-individualistic analysis of

social phenomena. However, a marked difference in the approaches lies in the distinction
between the concepts of context and community. Durkheim clearly saw context as an
important component of sociological study, but his understanding of context had more to
do with the space in which social action occurs than with the community itself as the
locus of study (for example, Godlove, 1996). In this sense, his primary argument is that
social action occurs outside of the individual, existing in a social space created through
the conglomeration of individuals (Harms, 1981), who through collective activity pro-
duce special psychological states within each person which are not derivable from or
reducible to the experiences the individual would experience as an isolated organism
(Durkheim, 1973a). Thus, the focus is on studying the occurrence of social facts inde-
pendently of their individual manifestation in order to abstract general social phenomena
(Jones, 2000).
This differs from the premise of the Chicago school of sociology as focusing on the
community as a spatial occurrence that acts on individuals and groups in such a way as
to inhibit the ability to abstract social phenomena beyond the unique situation in which
they are located. The preference for descriptive material and observation made us suspi-
cious of records and questionnaires of data torn form the context of their creation.
Action was too situated, too contextual to be understood at the high levels of much mac-
roanalysis (Gusfield, 1995: xii). It is true that this type of sociology also moves beyond
the individual as the focus of analysis, but unlike Durkheim this leads not to a general
abstraction of social facts so much as to a refocusing on the community as a unique
manifestation of social phenomena. Park and Burgess stated, Community is the term
which is applied to society and to social groups when they are considered from the point
of view of the geographical distribution of the individuals and the institutions of which
they are composed (1921: 132). Hence they used maps as a primary means of analyzing
society in such a way that the problems of interest are assumed to be non-removable
from their specific location.
Similarly, though both forms of study examine the connection of action and theory,
the Chicago school of sociology studied the community as a dynamic center of social
change. The school

redefined change as a continuous endogenous process of human group life rather than an
episodic result of extraneous facts playing on established structure. Social disorganization
is seen not as a breakdown of existing structure but as an inability to mobilize action effectively
in the face of a given problem.
(Levine, 1995: 267)

This is relatively distinct from Durkheims own accounting of social action as resulting
from the extent of integration or lack of integration with social structures, such as that
accounted for in Suicide. Thus, with some exceptions, the actual process of how social
structures come to be established or changed over time is less often the focus of
Durkheims writings than the postulate that these structures impinge on individual action.
Although he studies both structural change and stasis, the Chicago school approach can

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 63

be conceptualized as more focused on examining the cyclical, dynamically occurring

process of social change.
This distinction is related to another primary point of divergence, which consists of the
focus on mechanism versus meaning. Though Durkheim may not have used the term
mechanism himself, later scholars (for example, Mackert, 2004) have interpreted his
work as indicating it via his concern with the causal forces by which social phenomena
occur. This use of the term is in opposition to more contemporary usages (for example,
Hedstrm and Swedberg, 1998). Durkheim saw the purpose of sociological study to be a
means of isolating and identifying these causal mechanisms. This version of sociology
has come to define the mainstream approaches of current sociological study, through
statistical analysis used to isolate causal mechanisms via variable representations.
Because the Chicago school approach focused primarily on change within a particular
community, the premise of the research is much more on the meaning of peoples lived
experiences, at least for the later version of the Chicago school. This emphasis is what led
to a later Chicago school approach dedicated to qualitative methods, symbolic interac-
tion, and interpretation, which has come to be defined as in opposition to much of main-
stream sociological work. The second school shared with the first an identification with
the less respected, less established elements in the society and a notable dose of skepti-
cism and disrespect for the well-off, the authoritative, and the official (Gusfield, 1995:
xiii). This difference in the way the later extensions of the approaches manifested the
tenets of the earlier roots is at the root of the modern understanding of the two approaches
to sociology as fundamentally different trajectories of social theory, but again it is impor-
tant to separate the approach of the later school with the approach of the first.

Conclusion
Despite these differences between the two approaches to sociological study, there are far
more points of connection between the two than has commonly been acknowledged. As
Durkheim said, a science of societies needs to move beyond the common prejudices of
accepted opinions in order to make new discoveries (1982: 31), and therefore it is important
that an accurate account of the history of sociological thought not fall into traditional pitfalls
of analysis. Rather it is necessary to examine anew major approaches within the field for
ongoing interpretations of their points of connection, as well as divergence. As shown here,
a more theoretically informed analysis of both Durkheim and the Chicago school of sociol-
ogy leads to a more nuanced understanding of how the approaches relate. Contrary to some
notions of Durkheim and variables sociology as near replica approaches seen in sharp con-
trast to the interpretive, qualitative attributes of the Chicago school, the two indeed share a
great deal more in common than is commonly recognized. This is largely due to the fact that
the later work, or second Chicago school, has blurred a clear understanding of what exactly
constitutes the primary Chicago school of sociology, as well as the fact there is a pervasive
misconception of what Durkheim meant by treating a social fact as thing.
Once these barriers are removed, a more in-depth analysis reveals that there are a
number of common points of convergence between the two approaches and a great deal
of overlap in their methodologies. First, a more accurate historical perspective on the

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

64 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

work of the original Chicago school shows that the work of the school is not nearly as
qualitatively focused as typically thought. Much of it shares quantitative and qualitative
methodologies, especially in the extensive map plots that characterized it. And there is
definitely a spirit of empirical investigation for the purpose of creating a scientifically
sound study of society. These two points strongly tie the school to the principles of
Durkheims approach, especially when considering that his definition of social facts did
not include the strongly deterministic and positivistic elements that have since been
attributed to it. Though his focus was in the investigation of the mechanisms of social
phenomena while the Chicago school, especially in its later period, focused more on
meaning and interpretation, they shared a similar understanding of what constitutes a
social fact and what that means for a study of society. Durkheims social fact shared an
additional similarity to the school via the call to go out into the empirical world to con-
duct studies, instead of making postulations within the confines of the university. This
action element of investigation was an important element of the work of the early
Chicago school, and shared an uncanny likeness to Durkheim. Another fascinating simi-
larity is the contextually based approach to study. Non-individualistic means of gather-
ing data are a foundation of the two approaches, and there is an important shared
underpinning between the two that is often missed.
This analysis shows that elements of the Chicago school of sociology, and American
sociology in general, have many more points of convergence to Durkheim than com-
monly acknowledged. The overlap in their methodological approach is important to
recognize, as it highlights shared key assumptions regarding social phenomena and the
way in which they can be studied and understood. Such connections are missed when we
continue with our traditional prejudices of dividing sociology into two separate realms of
quantitative variables-focused sociology and qualitative meaning-focused sociology.
Thus, if we follow Durkheims own advice to look at our science in a new light, we make
the discovery that the two approaches share at the very least a convergence in their
approach to the study of society, and quite possibly a more direct line of influence that
can be explored in further investigations of their work.

References
Abbott A (1988) Transcending General Linear Reality, Sociological Theory 6(2): 16986.
Abbott A (1997) Of Time and Space: The Contemporary Relevance of the Chicago School,
Social Forces 75(4):1149182.
Abbott A (2007) Chicago School: Social Change, pp. 4458 in G. Ritzer (ed.) The Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Sociology, Vol. II. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bellah RN (1975) mile Durkheim on Morality and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Besnard P (1983) The Sociological Domain, the Durkheimians and the Founding of French
Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Birrell S (1981) Sport as Ritual: Interpretations from Durkheim to Goffman, Social Forces 60(2):
35476.
Blumer H (1956) Sociological Analysis and the Variable, American Sociological Review
21(6): 68390.
Blumer H (1969) Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. University of California Press.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 65

Brooks JI (1996) The Definitions of Sociology and the Sociology of Definition: Durkheims
Rules of Sociological Method and High School Philosophy in France, Journal of the History
of the Behavioral Sciences 32(4): 379407.
Bulmer M (1984) The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of
Sociological Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Burgess EW (1929) Urban Areas, pp. 11338 in Smith TV and White LD (eds) Chicago: An
Experiment in Social Science Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Colomy P and Brown JD (1995) Elaboration, Revision, Polemic, and Progress in the Second
Chicago School, pp. 1781 in Fine GA (ed.) A Second Chicago School? The Development of
a Postwar American Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim (1889) Review of Ferdinand Tnnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, La Revue
Philosophique 27: 41622.
Durkheim (1951) Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: Free Press.
Durkheim (1973a) The Dualism of Human Nature, pp. 15162 in On Morality and Society, ed.
Bellah R. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim (1973b) Individualism and the Intellectuals, pp. 4357 in On Morality and Society,
ed. Bellah R. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim (1974) Individual and Collective Representations, pp. 134 in Sociology and
Philosophy. New York: Free Press.
Durkheim E (1982) The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Free Press.
Durkheim (1984) The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.
Durkheim (1994) Note on Social Morphology, pp. 8892 in On Institutional Analysis, ed.
Traugott M. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Esser H (1996) What is Wrong with Variable Sociology? European Sociological Review 12(2):
15966.
Faris R (1967) Chicago Sociology 19201932. San Francisco: Chandler.
Fine GA (1995) Introduction: A Second Chicago School? The Development of a Postwar
American Sociology, pp. 116 in Fine GA (ed.) A Second Chicago School? The Development
of a Postwar American Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fournier M (2005) Durkheims Life and Context: Something New about Durkheim?, pp. 4169
in Alexander J and Smith P (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Giddens A (1993) New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretive
Sociologies. Cambridge: Polity.
Gieyrn TF (2006) Durkheims Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Journal of the History of the
Behavioral Sciences 18(2): 10729.
Godlove TF (1996) Is Space a Concept? Kant, Durkheim, and French Neo-Kantianism,
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 32(4): 44155.
Gusfield JR (1995) Preface: The Second Chicago School, pp. ixxvi in G.A. Fine (ed.) A Second
Chicago School? The Development of a Postwar American Sociology. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Harms JB (1981) Reason and Social Change in Durkheims Thought: The Changing Relationship
between Individuals and Society. Sociological Perspectives, 24(4): 393-410.
Hassard J (1993) Sociology and Organization Theory: Positivism, Paradigms, and Postmodernity.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

66 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(1)

Hedstrm P and Swedberg R (eds) (1998) Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social
Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hinkle RC (1960) Durkheim in American Sociology, pp. 26795 in Wolff KH (ed.) Essays on
Sociology and Philosophy by mile Durkheim et. al. New York: Harper & Row.
Hutchinson R (2007) Chicago School, pp. 4425 in Ritzer G (ed.) The Blackwell Encyclopedia
of Sociology, Vol. II. Oxford: Blackwell.
Joas H (1993) Pragmatism in American Sociology, pp. 1454 in Pragmatism and Social Theory.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jones RA (1999) The Development of Durkheims Social Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Jones RA (2000) mile Durkheim, pp. 20548 in Ritzer G (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to
Major Social Theorists. Oxford: Blackwell.
Levine DN (1994) The Organism Metaphor in Sociology, Social Research, 62(2): 23965.
Levine DN (1995) Visions of the Sociological Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lewis JD and Smith RL (1980) American Sociology and Pragmatism. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Lieberson S (1987) Making It Count: The Improvement of Social Research and Theory. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Lukes S (1973) mile Durkheim: His Life and Works: A Historical and Critical Study. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Mackert J (2004) Reorganization and Stabilization: Social Mechanisms in mile Durkheims
Professional Ethics and Civic Morals: A Contribution to the Explanation of Social Processes,
Journal of Classical Sociology 4(3): 31136.
Morrison K (1995) Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern Social Thought. London:
Sage.
Mller HP (1994) Social Differentiation and Organic Solidarity: The Division of Labor Revisited,
Sociological Forum 9(1): 7386.
Park RE (1921) Sociology and the Social Sciences: The Social Organism and the Collective
Mind, The American Journal of Sociology 27(1): 121.
Park RE (1927) Human Nature and Collective Behavior, The American Journal of Sociology
32(5): 73341.
Park RE (1950) An Autobiographical Note, pp. vix in Race and Culture. New York: Free Press.
Park RE and Burgess EW (1921) Introduction to the Science of Sociology. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Platt J (1995) The United States Reception of Durkheims The Rules of Sociological Method,
Sociological Perspectives 38(1): 77105.
Plummer K (1997) The Chicago School: Critical Assessments. New York: Routledge.
Porter TM (1986) The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 18201900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Porter TM (1995) Statistical and Social Facts from Quetelet to Durkheim, Sociological
Perspectives 38(1): 1526.
Ragin C and Zaret D (1983) Theory and Method in Comparative Research: Two Strategies,
Social Forces 61(3): 73154.
Rock P (1979) The Making of Symbolic Interactionism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010

Patricia Snell 67

Rothenbuhler EW (1990) The Liminal Fight: Mass Strikes as Ritual and Interpretation, pp. 6690
in Alexander JC (ed.) Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Schmaus W (1994) Durkheims Philosophy of Science and the Sociology of Knowledge: Creating
an Intellectual Niche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Simmel G (1950) The Stranger, pp. 4028 in The Sociology of George Simmel, ed. Wolff K, New
York: Free Press.
Small AW (1898) The Logic of Sociology, The American Journal of Sociology 4(3): 38094.
Small AW (1899) A Unit in Sociology, Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science 13: 815.
Small AW (1900) The Scope of Sociology VI: Some Incidents of Association, The American
Journal of Sociology 6(3): 32480.
Small AW (1901) The Scope of Sociology VII: Classification of Associations, The American
Journal of Sociology 6(4): 487531.
Stedman JS (1995) Charles Renouvier and mile Durkheim: Les Rgles de la Mthode
Sociologique, Sociological Perspectives 38(1): 2740.
Stedman JS (1996) What Does Durkheim Mean by Thing? Durkheimian Studies 2: 4359.
Stedman JS (2001) Durkheim Reconsidered. Oxford: Blackwell.
Tomasi L (ed.) (1998) The Tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Tnnies F (1957) Community and Society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft) trans. and ed. Loomis
CP. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Tucker K (2006) Chicago School of Sociology, pp. 5962 in Turner B (ed.) The Cambridge
Dictionary of Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Turner JH (1990) mile Durkheims Theory of Social Organization, Social Forces 68: 1089103.
Turner S (1995) Durkheims The Rules of Sociological Method, Sociological Perspectives
38(1): 113.
Turner S (1996) Durkheim among the Statisticians, Journal of the History of the Behavioral
Sciences 32(4): 35478.
Wolff CP (1970) The Durkheim Thesis: Occupational Groups and Moral Integration, Journal for
the Scientific Study of Religion 9(1): 1732.

Author biography
Patricia Snell is Assistant Director in the Center for the Study of Religion & Society and
doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame,
Indiana, USA. Her interests are in religion, urban sociology, community-based research,
and quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by Bruno Machado on September 19, 2010