Ernest watson burgess biography

Parkand George Herbert Mead. Thomas urged his students to go out into the city, as he did, to study the behavior of people in actual social situations. Park also insisted that a sociologist study life as it really exists. It was he who virtually opened up the subject of the family as a field of sociological inquiry. His interest in the family began when he was asked to teach a course in the subject at the University of Chicago in In Burgess participated in a study that attempted to predict the success or failure of parole a.

This study led him to focus on the problem of predicting the success or failure of marriages. When he first began his study on this subject, inhe used data obtained from only one spouse. He concluded that the quality of adjustment depended primarily on the homogeneity of attitudes and social characteristics of the husband and wife. Studying the life cycle of the family led Burgess to his concern with the aged.

Burgess had a considerable impact both on the development of sociology in general and on the field of the family in particular. One source of his broad influence on the social sciences was the immensely successful textbook he coauthored with Park It is hard to overestimate the importance of his research and his theories in establishing the sociological study of the family.

While more recent work in this field has devoted somewhat more attention than Burgess did to the family as an element in the larger structure of a society, his objective, toughminded approach raised the study of the family to a high level in the field of sociology. Introduction to the Science of Sociology. Family —9. Springfield, III. National Conference of Social Work — Publications, Vol.

Predicting Success or Failure in Marriage. New York : Prentice-Hall. The Family: From Institution to Companionship. New York : American Book Co. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Courtship, Engagement and Marriage. Burgess and Paul Wallin. Chicago: The Council. Burgess and Sidney Spector. Chicago: Science Research Associates. Dentler, Robert A.

Please ernest watson burgess biography to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. July Learn how and when to remove this message. This article is about the sociologist. For the priest, see Ernest Burges. Canadian-American sociologist. Tilbury, OntarioCanada. ChicagoIllinoisUnited States. Albert J. Reiss Anselm Strauss. Early life [ edit ].

Scholarly work [ edit ]. Introductory sociology textbook [ edit ]. Concentric zone model [ edit ]. Commuter zone. Residential zone. Working class zone. Zone of transition. Factory zone. Burgess method of unit-weighted regression [ edit ]. Family and marriage [ edit ].

Ernest watson burgess biography

Aging [ edit ]. Accomplishments [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. W, eds. The City 1st ed. The City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN American Sociological Review. ISSN External links [ edit ]. Wikiquote has quotations related to Ernest Burgess. Presidents of the American Sociological Association. Blackmar James Q. Dealey Edward C.

Hayes James P. Lichtenberger Ulysses G. Weatherly Charles A. Ellwood Robert E. Park John Lewis Gillin W. Inhe wrote: "Prediction is the aim of the social sciences as it is of the physical sciences. Burgess devised different statistical and analytical tools to improve that prediction. He believed in qualitative research methods, like interviews and the examination of personal documents.

With that, he argued, a scientist can approach the human side of a person, understanding the background of a social phenomenon. Burgess' groundbreaking work in social ecology, in conjunction with his colleague Robert E. Parkprovided the foundation for the Chicago school of sociology. In their other book, The CityBurgess and Park conceptualized the city into concentric zones, including the central business district, transitional industrialdeteriorating housing, etc.

They viewed cities as something that experiences evolution and change, governed by the same forces of Darwinian evolution that can be seen in nature. The central force among all is competition. People struggle for land and other urban resources, which lead toward formation of groups and areas within the city that are based on certain interests.

Those areas spread in concentric circles from the center of the city outwards. Burgess and Park's model of urban growth is thus often known as the concentric zone theory. Burgess also spent a considerable amount of time in studying the institutions of family and marriage. He was interested in developing a scientific measure that would predict success in a marriage.

In his book Predicting Success or Failure in Marriageco-authored with Leonard Cottrell, he theorized that harmony in marriage requires a certain amount of adjustment in attitudes and social behavior by both husband and wife. He developed a chart for predicting marital success, in which he associated different variables that he claimed affect marital stability.

Burgess was, however, often criticized for this work, since he attempted to measure marriage without actually including any component of love or affection, something that is central to ernest watson burgess biography. Burgess also studied elderly people, especially the effects of retirement. He collaborated with the government in researching the success of government programs for the elderly, the results of which were published in in his book Aging in Western Societies.

Burgess' contribution to the development of modern sociology was considerable.