Harold Garfinkel was an American sociologist who founded ethnomethodology, an approach that studies the ordinary, taken-for-granted methods people use to produce and recognize a sense of orderly social life in everyday interaction. Rather than treating social order as something imposed by external structures, Garfinkel examined how members of society actively and continuously accomplish it through practical reasoning, most famously through breaching experiments that deliberately violated ordinary expectations to reveal the normally invisible work of sustaining them. His major statement, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), established a distinct research tradition that influenced conversation analysis and the sociology of everyday life.
Facts
Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionDeveloped and established ethnomethodology as a field of sociological inquiry, examining how ordinary members produce and make sense of everyday social order. 1 Notable WorkStudies in Ethnomethodology (1967) 1 Connections
Theories Developed
Harold Garfinkel founded ethnomethodology in the 1960s as the study of the common-sense methods ordinary members use to produce and recognize social order.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Harold Garfinkel (Wikipedia)
WikipediaOpening sentence (birth date)
Harold Garfinkel (October 29, 1917, April 21, 2011) was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Opening sentence (birth year)
Harold Garfinkel (October 29, 1917, April 21, 2011) was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Opening sentence (death date)
Harold Garfinkel (October 29, 1917, April 21, 2011) was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Opening sentence (death year)
Harold Garfinkel (October 29, 1917, April 21, 2011) was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Youth and education section, opening sentence
Harold Garfinkel was born in Newark, New Jersey on October 29, 1917, where he grew up in a Jewish family.
Opening sentence (nationality)
Harold Garfinkel (October 29, 1917, April 21, 2011) was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Lead paragraph, second sentence
Having developed and established ethnomethodology as a field of inquiry in sociology, he is probably best known for Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), a collection of articles.
View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.