Howard S. Becker

Howard Saul Becker (18 April 1928 – 16 August 2023) was an American sociologist who taught at Northwestern University. Becker made contributions to the sociology of deviance, sociology of art, and sociology of music. Becker also wrote extensively on sociological writing styles and methodologies. Becker's 1963 book Outsiders provided the foundations for labeling theory. Becker was often called a symbolic interactionist or social constructionist, although he did not align himself with either method. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Becker was considered part of the second Chicago School of Sociology, which also includes Erving Goffman and Anselm Strauss.

Works

Books (selection)

• with Blanche Geer, Everett C. Hughes and Anselm Strauss, Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961; 1977; 1992.

• Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, New York: The Free Press, 1963.
  • Outsiders. Etudes de sociologie de la déviance, Paris: Métalié, 1985 [1]. (French)
  • Outsiders: estudos de sociologia do desvio, trans. Maria Luiza X. de A. Borges, Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2009. (Brazilian Portuguese)
  • Außenseiter. Zur Soziologie abweichenden Verhaltens, trans. Cori A. Mackrodt and Stefanie Loyal, Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 2014; 3rd ed., 2019. (German)
  • Hariciler - Outsiders: Bir Sapkınlık Sosyolojisi Çalışması, Heretik Yayınları, 2015, 249 pp. (Turkish)
  • Outsiders. Studi di sociologia della devianza, Meltemi, 2017, 240 pp. (Italian)

• Art Worlds, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982; 25th anniv. ed., upd. & exp., 2008.
  • Los mundos del arte: sociología del trabajo artístico, trans. Joaquin Ibarburu, Bernal: Universidad National de Quilmes, 2008. (Spanish)
  • Sanat Dünyaları, trans. Evren Yilmaz, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları, 2013, 445 pp. (Turkish)

• Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986; 2nd ed., 2007.

• with Michal M. McCall (ed.), Symbolic Interaction and Cultural Studies, University of Chicago Press, 1990.

• with Robert R. Faulkner, Do You Know...? The Jazz Repertoire in Action, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Articles (selection)

• "Notes on the Concept of Commitment", The American Journal of Sociology 66:1 (1960), pp 32-40. (French)
• "Photography and Sociology", Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 1 (1974), pp 3-26.
• "Art Photography in America", Journal of Communication 25 (Winter 1975), pp 74-84.
• "Photographic strategies", Society 14:2 (1977), pp 85-87.
• "Visual sociology, documentary photography, and photojournalism: It's (almost) all a matter of context", Visual Studies 10:1 (1995), pp 5-14.
• "Categories and Comparisons: How We Find Meaning in Photographs", Visual Anthropology 14:2 (1998), pp 3-10.

Literature

• Alain Pessin, The Sociology of Howard S. Becker: Theory with a Wide Horizon, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

• Dagmar Danko, Zur Aktualität von Howard S. Becker: Einleitung in sein Werk, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2015, 191 pp. (German)

• Jean Peneff, Howard S. Becker: Sociology and Music in the Chicago School, Routledge, 2018.

Links

• Website
• Wikipedia