Caseorganic: /* Critique of mainstream sociology */

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Critique of mainstream sociology

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	Garfinkel coined the word around 1954 while analyzing tape recordings of jury deliberations at the University of Chicago. He observed that jurors were not applying legal rules so much as reasoning about what would count as adequate grounds for a verdict, and doing so competently without any formal training. The parallel to existing terms such as ethnobotany and ethnomedicine, which name a people's own knowledge of a domain, supplied the construction.		Garfinkel coined the word around 1954 while analyzing tape recordings of jury deliberations at the University of Chicago. He observed that jurors were not applying legal rules so much as reasoning about what would count as adequate grounds for a verdict, and doing so competently without any formal training. The parallel to existing terms such as ethnobotany and ethnomedicine, which name a people's own knowledge of a domain, supplied the construction.

	=== Critique of mainstream sociology ===		=== Garfinkel's Critique of mainstream sociology ===

	Garfinkel's objection was that mainstream sociology treated people as what he called cultural dopes. In that picture, a person absorbs the norms of their society and then acts them out, so their behavior can be predicted from the norms without asking what the person was thinking. Talcott Parsons, under whom Garfinkel studied at Harvard, built the most influential version of this. Garfinkel's response was that people are not doing that. They are constantly working out what a situation calls for, and that work is the thing sociology should be studying rather than the thing it explains away.		Garfinkel's objection was that mainstream sociology treated people as what he called cultural dopes. In that picture, a person absorbs the norms of their society and then acts them out, so their behavior can be predicted from the norms without asking what the person was thinking. Talcott Parsons, under whom Garfinkel studied at Harvard, built the most influential version of this. Garfinkel's response was that people are not doing that. They are constantly working out what a situation calls for, and that work is the thing sociology should be studying rather than the thing it explains away.

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+=== Definition ===
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+Ethnomethodology is a term, literally meaning "people's methods," invented by Harold Garfinkel to describe a branch of sociology which he initiated. In its origins the subject was based on a critique of mainstream sociology.<ref>''The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology''. Penguin Reference.</ref>
-Ethnomethodology is a term, literally meaning ‘people’s methods’ invented by Garfinkel to describe a branch of sociology which he initiated. In its origins the subject was abased on a critique of mainstream sociology… <ref>In the dictionary of Sociology
-Penguin Reference</ref>
+The methods in question belong to ordinary people, not to researchers. Ethnomethodology studies the procedures members of a society use to produce and recognize social order as an ongoing accomplishment, moment by moment. The object of study is the work of making a situation intelligible, which participants perform continuously and almost entirely without noticing.
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Caseorganic at 00:39, 6 November 2011

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	==References==		==References==
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	~~[[Category:Book Pages]]~~
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Caseorganic at 22:20, 5 November 2011

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	===Definition===		===Definition===
			Ethnomethodology is a term, literally meaning ‘people’s methods’ invented by Garfinkel to describe a branch of sociology which he initiated. In its origins the subject was abased on a critique of mainstream sociology… <ref>In the dictionary of Sociology
			Penguin Reference</ref>

	==References==		==References==

Caseorganic at 03:59, 26 September 2011

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Caseorganic at 03:58, 26 September 2011

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	===Definition===		===Definition===




	==References==		==References==
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	[[Category:Book Pages]]		[[Category:Book Pages]]
	[[Category:Unfinished]]		[[Category:Unfinished]]

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===Definition===

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Unfinished]]