Even though Merton grew up fairly poor, however, he believed that he had been afforded many opportunities. The father later became a carpenter's assistant to support the family. Merton's family lived in straitened circumstances after his father's uninsured dairy-product shop in South Philadelphia burned down. His father was Aaron Schkolnickoff, a tailor who had officially been registered at his United States port of entry as "Harrie Skolnick". His mother was Ida Rasovskaya, an "unsynagogued" socialist who had freethinking radical sympathies. Merton was born on 4 July 1910 in Philadelphia as Meyer Robert Schkolnick into a family of Yiddish-speaking Russian Jews who had immigrated to the United States in 1904. 2.5 Unanticipated consequences and manifest and latent functions.Merton emphasized that, rather than a person assuming one role and one status, they have a status set in the social structure that has, attached to it, a whole set of expected behaviors. Social roles were central to Merton's theory of social groups. The term grew from his theory of the reference group, the group to which individuals compare themselves but to which they do not necessarily belong. Merton's work on the "role model" first appeared in a study on the socialization of medical students at Columbia University. Defined by Merton, "The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior, which makes the originally false conception come true." A central element in modern sociological, political, and economic theory, a self-fulfilling prophecy is one type of process through which a belief or expectation affects the outcome of a situation or the way a person or group will behave. Merton developed notable concepts such as " unintended consequences", the "reference group", and "role strain", but is perhaps best known for the terms " role model" and " self-fulfilling prophecy". He is considered a founding father of modern sociology while also gaining a status for the work he contributed to criminology. In 1994 he was awarded the National Medal of Science for his contributions to the field and for having founded the sociology of science. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor. Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick 4 July 1910 – 23 February 2003) was an American sociologist.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |