Research Catalog

Title

Constructing the social system / Bernard Barber.

Author

Barber, Bernard

Publication

• New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S.A : Transaction Publishers, [1993]
• ©1993

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 503 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

Sociologists normally focus on a specific area of study much as medicine, family, education or organization. Bernard Barber's sociological work reflects a different approach. He constructs a provisional, generalized, substantive theory of the social system, which he uses as the starting point and focus of his specialized researches. In this collection of his major writings in social system theory, Barber shows how he has used and developed such a framework over the last fifty years. Constructing the Social System covers the following major areas of sociological work: social, biology, physical space, social structure, culture, personality, deviance and social change. Barber demonstrates the application of social system theory and its contribution to these areas. He encourages his colleagues to be more open to such an approach. Although his chief inspiration was Talcott Parsons, Barber has considered the usefulness of many diverse sociologists and various analysts including Harold Garfinkel in ethnomethodology, Peter Blau in exchange theory, James Coleman in rational choice theory, and Ronald Burt in network theory. Constructing the Social System aims to provide a foundation of the concrete application for further research of this kind. Barber shows the benefits of social system theory in research design. His book will inspire other social scientists to try this approach.

Subject

• Social systems
• Social structure
• social structure
• Soziales System
• Sociale structuur
• Sociale stelsels

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction : Purpose and organization -- Part I : A brief proposal for a provisional and substantive theory and model of the social system. Neofunctionalism and the theory of the social system -- Part II : Society, biology, and physical space. Place, symbol, and utilitarian function in war memorials -- The three human females : biologic-psychologic-sociologic -- Part III : Social structure. Participation and mass apathy in associations -- Bureaucratic organization and the volunteer -- "Fashion" in science -- "Fashion" in women's clothes and the American social system / with Lyle S. Lobel -- Family status, local-community status, and social stratification : three types of social ranking -- Inequality and occupational presitge : theory, research, and social policy -- Social mobility in Hindu India -- The absolutization of the market : some notes on how we got from there to here -- Control and responsibility in the powerful professions -- Some "new men of power" : the case of biomedical research scientists -- Is American business becoming professionalized? analysis of a social ideology -- Part IV : Cultural structure. On the relation between "culture" and "social structure" -- Is the structure of culture hierarchical? the "high and low" problem -- Tension and accommodations between science and humanism -- Function, variability, and change in ideological systems -- Part V : Personality. Compassion in medicine : toward new definitions and new institutions -- "The compassionate physician" : frequency and social determinants of physician-investigator concern for human subjects / with John J. Lally -- Part VI : Social deviance. The ethics of experimentation with human subjects -- Professions, professional autonomy, and professional deviance -- Doing well by doing good? should professionals advertise? -- Part VII : Social change. Acculturation and messianic movements -- Professors, authority and change.

ISBN

• 156000102X
• 9781560001027

LCCN

92043850

OCLC

• ocm27172949
• 27172949
• SCSB-8790754

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library