Constructing Social Theories presents to the reader a range of strategies for constructing theories, and in a clear, rigorous, and imaginative manner, illustrates how they can be applied. Arthur L. Stinchcombe argues that theories should not be invented in the abstract—or applied a priori to a problem—but should be dictated by the nature of the data to be explained. This work was awarded the Sorokin prize by the American Sociological Association as the book that made an outstanding contribution to the progress of sociology in 1970.

A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.

Constructing Social Theory discusses the nature of social theory and theoretical orientations. Organized by forty-three theoretical orientations in seven domains--exchange, power, adaptation/reinforcement, social bond, altruism, functionalism, and identity--the text includes a tutorial on how to identify an appropriate theoretical orientation and create a theory given a particular research question. Bell separates the theoretical orientation of causal logic from theory itself, illuminating the mechanisms of scientific revolutions where new theoretical orientations are created, and the procedures of normal science, in which theories are developed using the logic of existing theoretical orientations.

A study of the work of German sociologist, Max Weber, including a brief biography and an exploration in Weberian social theory.

Constructing Social Theory discusses the nature of social theory and theoretical orientations. Organized by forty-three theoretical orientations in seven domains--exchange, power, adaptation/reinforcement, social bond, altruism, functionalism, and identity--the text includes a tutorial on how to identify an appropriate theoretical orientation and create a theory given a particular research question. Bell separates the theoretical orientation of causal logic from theory itself, illuminating the mechanisms of scientific revolutions where new theoretical orientations are created, and the procedures of normal science, in which theories are developed using the logic of existing theoretical orientations.

There is no adequate definition of social problems within sociology, and there is not and never has been a sociology of social problems. That observation is the point of departure of this book. The authors aim to provide such a definition and to prepare the ground for the empirical study of social problems. They are aware that their objective will strike many fellow sociologists as ambitious, perhaps even arrogant. Their work challenges sociologists who have, over a period of fifty years, written treatises on social problems, produced textbooks cataloguing the nature, distribution, and causes of these problems, and taught many sociology courses. It is only natural that the authors' work will be viewed as controversial in light of the large literature which has established a "sociology of" a wide range of social problems-the sociology of race relations, prostitution, poverty, crime, mental illness, and so forth. In the 1970s when the authors were preparing for a seminar on the sociology of social problems, their review of the "literature" revealed the absence of any systematic, coherent statement of theory or method in the study of social problems. For many years the subject was listed and offered by university departments of sociology as a "service course" to present undergraduates with what they should know about the various "social pathologies" that exist in their society. This conception of social problems for several decades has been reflected in the substance and quality of the literature dominated by textbooks. In 'Constructing Social Problems', the authors propose that social problems be conceived as the claims-making activities of individuals or groups regarding social conditions they consider unjust, immoral, or harmful and that should be addressed. This perspective, as the authors have formulated it, conceives of social problems as a process of interaction that produces social problems as social facts in society. The authors further propose that this process and the social facts it produces are the data to be researched for the sociology of social problems. This volume will be of interest to those concerned with the discipline of sociology, especially its current theoretical development and growth.

Making Sense of Social Theory opens by carefully exploring what it means to follow the scientific method in a field like sociology. The author goes on to analyze sociology as a genuine science with a body of explanatory insights. It does this by (a) considering the major insights of key thinkers (including Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Mead, among others), (b) distinguishing different analytical frameworks (especially exchange, symbolic interactionism, conflict, and structural-functionalism) in terms of their underlying assumptions, and (c) revealing compelling social science explanatory insights in the form of predictive principles that can be applied in understanding processes of change at work in the social world (from face-to-face encounters to major historical trends). Sociological theory is applied in ways that make its relevance and power apparent. In reading this book, theory no longer stands divorced from real-world research or practice. Making Sense of Social Theory clearly establishes the pertinence of sociology's great theoretical insights for all social science researches and practitioners. Book jacket.