| Sociologist |
Time Period |
School of Thought |
Most Well-Known Contributions
|
| Comte, Auguste |
1798-1857 |
positivism |
coined the term "Sociology"; founder of positivism; developed the Law of three stages
|
| Durkheim, Émile |
1858-1917 |
structural functionalism; solidarism |
well-known for several books, including: Suicide, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life; The Division of Labour in Society; started the first journal of sociology; also asserted that there are social facts
|
| Marx, Karl |
1818-1883 |
socialism; conflict theory |
explained the origins and functioning of Capitalism; advocated socialism; argued that the history of all societies is rooted in class conflict
|
| Spencer, Herbert |
1820-1903 |
social darwinism |
created a lengthy volume on sociology; applied Darwinian evolution to social life; coined the phrase "survival of the fittest"
|
| Simmel, Georg |
1858-1918 |
|
most well-known for his work on social structure and life in large cities
|
| Veblen, Thorstein |
1857-1929 |
|
most well-known for his book The Theory of the Leisure Class
|
| Cooley, Charles Horton |
1864-1929 |
symbolic interactionism |
most well-known for his concept of the looking-glass self
|
| Mead, George Herbert |
1863-1931 |
symbolic interactionism |
developed symbolic interactionism
|
| Weber, Max |
1864-1920 |
verstehen |
well known for several books, including The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
|
| Parsons, Talcott |
1902-1979 |
structural functionalism |
formalized the theory of structural functionalism
|
| Garfinkel, Harold |
1917-2011 |
ethnomethodology |
developed the methodological and theoretical approach of ethnomethodology
|
| Goffman, Erving |
1922-1982 |
symbolic interactionism |
most well-known for his ideas involving dramaturgy and his books Stigma and The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
|
| Bourdieu, Pierre |
1930-2002 |
|
most well-known for his cultural capital and habitus
|
