Robert J. Sampson: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen

Ziel des “Chicago Collective Civic Participation Project” (CCCP) ist die Entwicklung eines neuen theoretischen Ansatzes und einer neuartigen empirischen Strategie zur Bearbeitung fundamentaler Fragen des Wandels im öffentlichen Leben der modernen Großstadt. In einer Kombination der Stärken sozialer Bewegungen einerseits und stadtsoziologischer Paradigmen andererseits werden "non-routine events not initiated by the State or political professionals, but by collectivities motivated by a particular issue to act together in public (i.e., civic) space" analysiert. Die Untersuchung von nicht weniger als 4,000 solcher "events" in Chicago zwischen 1970 und 2000 fand heraus, dass "civic engagement is by far the dominant form of collective action and is durable over time. Although 'sixties style' protest declines, we also uncover the growth of a largely overlooked hybrid that combines public claims-making with civic forms of behavior—what we call 'blended social action.' Furthermore, we show that dense social ties, group memberships, and neighborly exchange do not predict a greater propensity for collective action at the community level in the city of Chicago. The density of community nonprofit organizations matters instead, suggesting that declines in many forms of traditional social capital may not be as consequential for civic capacity as commonly thought.

Sampson, Robert J., Doug McAdam, Heather MacIndoe, and Simon Weffer. 2005. "Civil Society Reconsidered: The Durable Nature and Community Structure of Collective Civic Action." American Journal of Sociology 111: 673-714.

Sampson, Robert J., 2006. Commentary: "'Bowling Alone?': Civil Society May Not be in Such Bad Shape" in Stanford Social Innovation Review (Summer 2006).

Another aim of the CCCP is to argue that the disproportionate attention accorded the struggles of the sixties has created a stylized image of social movements that threatens to distort our understanding of popular contention, not only in earlier periods and in non-democratic contexts, but also in the contemporary U.S. This stylized view tends to equate movements with (a) disruptive protest in public settings, (b) loosely coordinated national struggles over political issues, (c) urban and/or campus based protest activities, and (d) claims-making by disadvantaged minorities. Drawing on nearly 1,000 protest events between 1970-2000 collected in the Chicago Chicago Civic Participation Study, we find the data do not support the common imagery of social movements. Since 1980 there has been a marked transformation of the movement form to the point where public protest is now largely peaceful, routine, suburban, local in nature, and initiated by the advantaged. We discuss the implications of these findings for the rise of a "movement society" in the U.S. and suggest directions for future research.

McAdam, Doug, Robert Sampson, Simon Weffer, and Heather MacIndoe. 2005. "There Will Be Fighting in the Streets: The Distorting Lens of Social Movement Theory." Mobilization 10:1-18.

Professor Sampson is engaged in a longitudinal study from birth to death of 1,000 disadvantaged men born in Boston during the Great Depression era. His first book from this project (Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life, Harvard University Press, 1993), written with John Laub, received the outstanding book award in 1994 from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Crime, Law, and Deviance Section of the American Sociological Association. A second book from this project, Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70, was published in December 2003, also from Harvard University Press. This follow-up study integrates narrative life-histories with the quantitative analysis of life-course trajectories across seven decades in the lives of formerly incarcerated and troubled adolescents. Shared Beginnings received the outstanding book award from the American Society of Criminology (2004), the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (2005), and the Crime, Law, and Deviance Section of the American Sociological Association (2005). Other selected articles and volumes related to this project:

Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 2005. "A General Age-Graded Theory of Crime: Lessons Learned and the Future of Life-Course Criminology." In Advances in Criminological Theory, Volume 13: Testing Integrated Developmental/Life Course Theories of Offending, edited by David Farrington.

Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 2003. "Life-Course Desisters? Trajectories of Crime among Delinquent Boys Followed to Age 70." Criminology 41: 319-339.

Harvard University Department of Sociology profile

Melissa Marino. "Profile of Robert J. Sampson". PNAS. Retrieved 6 January 2009.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Sampson"