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Created: January 21, 2003
Latest Update: January 21, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

A Review Plan for Theory

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, January 2003..
"Fair use" encouraged.

Welcome to theory review. This series of files is provided to help clarify points you may have had to miss in lectures, and to guide you in your review of classical sociological theory and its reinterpretation in the Twenty-First Century. This is a data bank of links and summaries of theories and theorists with whom a sociologist should have at least minimal acquaintance. Use it as a reference. Because I have undertaken to provide it for a broad range of students, many of whom have very different settings and applications in mind, this series is limited to basic ideas. If you are planning deeper study, please consult more extensive resources. And the whole series reflects my and Susan Takata's approach to theory. Bear that in mind, and be sure to note when we explain our particular biases, such as the interpretation we use of postmodernism.

As in everything else, you need to make your own decisions as to which theorist or critic best suits your own need for a framework for understanding sociology or psychology or criminology or social justice. We try to provide here at least some solid groundwork for doing that. For both of us sociology is the basic approach to which we are committed. We're both sociologists. Susan is a criminologist; jeanne is a lawyer. So our sociology has a strong bent towards understanding and applying our theoretical and practical skills to the criminal justice system. But we are also feminists, which colors our thinking. Critical legal theory and critical race theory concern us because of our many ties to the infrastructure of gender and race. And in our concern for global peace and for combatting the effects of colonialism, we recognize and include the role of religion today.

I am basing this review on Jonathan Turner's The Structure of Sociological Theory, (6th edition), Wadsworth, 1998. and on James Farganis (ed.), Readings in Social Theory : The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism. (3rd edition). McGraw-Hill, 2000. And I'll roughly follow the syllabus that Prof. Garrett at Marshall University posted, because it seems to offer a reasonable framework on which we can build. Sociological Perspectives Syllabus of Dr. Richard Garrett at Marshall University in West Virginia. Backup.

Resources and References and Links

• Ph.D. qualifying exam questions: theory3.pdf