Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The concept of social control entered the lexicon of academic sociology in the early twentieth century. It was articulated first in the pioneering work of Edward A. Ross, and then, a short time later, by a handful of some of the most distinguished figures in the early history of American sociology, including Ernest Burgess, Charles Horton Cooley, Robert Park, and W. I. Thomas. These scholars took a rather expansive view of the matter, suggesting the study of social control covered the sum total of institutions and practices by which societies regulate themselves. Concerned as it was with the great variety of social mechanisms that maintain social order in the widest sense, the earliest sociological research on social control was sometimes difficult to distinguish from efforts to define modern society as such or to specify the proper subject matter of sociology as a whole. While this broadly encompassing view of the concept's reach has sometimes been criticized, these sociologists cannot be held solely responsible for having cast the concept so generally. For in formulating their arguments regarding the meaning and importance of the concept social control, these early American sociologists were responding to a much more established tradition of European social thought concerning the fundamental causes of social order in modern societies. The conceptual problem of social order is ... log in or subscribe to read full text