Anselm L. Strauss - Böcker

Should patients be told they are dying? How do families react when one of their members is facing death? Who should reveal that death is imminent? How does hospital staff-doctors, nurses, and attendants-act toward the dying patient and his family?

This book contains a major statement by one of America's most preeminent sociologists on what remains an important problem in American history and social analysis: the nature and extent of movement within American society from one status to another. The most important images of mobility involve self-improvement by changing location (going to the frontier, coming to the big city), and by changing social class (second-generation immigrants). Almost all sociological and historical analysis has been limited to these themes.Strauss extends the concept to a wide range of ideologies, institutional contexts, and social movements; his analysis is based on a formal theory of status passage and develops a partial theory of mobility. Strauss addresses a theme that underscores much of one strand of his work: the changing articulation of individuals with their social structure and institutions.The book follows on from the theoretical presuppositions of Discovery of Grounded Theory and the formal theory presented in Status Passage. Strauss was continually concerned with American social and intellectual life in its historical and contemporary manifestations. No one else has looked at the important phenomenon of mobility in this broad a context and from this point of view. The book remains important to those concerned with the social history of America and with problems of social change.

Reflecting the contributions of M. Brewster Smith to social psychology and personality study, this selection includes not only his best known essays but also previously unpublished material. Professor Smith's consistent striving for a psychology both scientific and humane unifies the collection; it is a valid and valuable overview of the relevance of social psychology to human experience and societal problems by a man at the midstream of his career.An introductory essay traces the major themes in Professor Smith's work. Part I discusses the interdisciplinary relations of social psychology with other behavioral sciences; it shows that social psychology, standing at the crossroads of the social sciences, must articulate its contributions with those of the other disciplines, and it delineates the problems involved in this articulation. Part II presents the author's principal contributions to the social psychology of attitudes and values, a central topic in the field, in which he is a major proponent of the functional approach. Part III is devoted to the broader issues of personality theory, focusing on the "self" as the object of personal attitudes and including a classic paper on the phenomenological approach.Parts IV and V probe human effectiveness and "mental health," consider the social development of personal competence, and examine from a social psychological perspective a variety of social problems -foreign students and cross-cultural education, population growth, ethnic prejudice, and student protest. The final group of essays deals with perennial human concerns: the nature of rationality, the ethics of behavioral research, the psychology of literature, and the problems of evil.

Richard Bernstein expressed the view that pragmatism was ahead of its time; the same has been true of symbolic interactionism. These two closely related perspectives, one philosophical and the other sociological, place human action at the center of their explanatory schemes. It has not mattered what aspect of social or psychological behavior was under scrutiny. Whether selves, minds, or emotions, or institutions, social structures, or social change, all have been conceptualized as forms of human activity. This view is the simple genius of these perspectives. Anselm Strauss always took ideas pertaining to action and process seriously. Here he makes explicit the theory of action that implicitly guided his research for roughly forty years. It is understood that Strauss accepts the proposition that acting (or even better, interacting) causes social structure. He lays the basis for this idea in the nineteen assumptions he articulates early in the book--assumptions that elaborate and make clearer Herbert Blumer's famous premises of symbolic interactionism.The task Strauss put before himself is how to keep the complexity of human group life in front of the researcher/theorist and simultaneously articulate an analytical scheme that clarifies and reveals that complexity. With these two imperfectly related issues before him, Strauss outlines an analytical scheme of society in action. It is a scheme that rests not on logical necessity but on research and observation, and the concepts he uses are proposed because they do a certain amount of analytical work. One would be well advised to take Continual Permutations of Action very seriously.

The French writer Arnold van Gennep first called attention to the phenomena of status passages in his Rites of Passage one hundred years ago. In Status Passage, first published in 1971, the movement of individuals and groups in contemporary society from one status to another is examined in the light of Gennep's original theory. Glaser and Strauss demonstrate that society emerges as a comparative order. In this order, every organized action, collective or individual, can be seen as a form of status passage.From one status to another-from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, from being single to being married, movement from one income group, social class or religion to another-there are passages that entail movement into different parts of a social structure and loss or gain in privileges. Types of status passage are described by their proper ties. The authors present a formal theory of status passage in the form of a running theoretical discussion.The concepts and categories discussed in Status Passage are illuminated by a large number of examples chosen from a wide range of human behavior, and the applicability of the theory to still other examples is made apparent. The result is a stimulating and provocative book that will interest a wide range of sociologists, social psychologists, and other social scientists, and will be useful in a variety of courses.

The teaching of qualitative analysis in the social sciences is rarely undertaken in a structured way. This handbook is designed to remedy that and to present students and researchers with a systematic method for interpreting qualitative data', whether derived from interviews, field notes, or documentary materials. The special emphasis of the book is on how to develop theory through qualitative analysis. The reader is provided with the tools for doing qualitative analysis, such as codes, memos, memo sequences, theoretical sampling and comparative analysis, and diagrams, all of which are abundantly illustrated by actual examples drawn from the author's own varied qualitative research and research consultations, as well as from his research seminars. Many of the procedural discussions are concluded with rules of thumb that can usefully guide the researchers' analytic operations. The difficulties that beginners encounter when doing qualitative analysis and the kinds of persistent questions they raise are also discussed, as is the problem of how to integrate analyses. In addition, there is a chapter on the teaching of qualitative analysis and the giving of useful advice during research consultations, and there is a discussion of the preparation of material for publication. The book has been written not only for sociologists but for all researchers in the social sciences and in such fields as education, public health, nursing, and administration who employ qualitative methods in their work.

Grounded theory methodology and procedure has become one of the most influential modes of carrying out qualitative research when generating theory is a principle aim of the researcher. While there is no shortage of monographs or papers on grounded theory, much of the literature is not accessible for relatively novice researchers.

Grounded Theory in Practice, edited by the late Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin, presents a series of readings that emphasize different aspects of grounded theory methodology and methods. The selections are written by former students of Strauss and have been chosen for their accessibility and range. Strauss and Corbin provide commentaries for each paper that shed additional light and help make the book even more essential for researchers interested in the application of grounded theory.

Professions, Work and Careers addresses some of the central themes that preoccupied the eminent sociologist Anselm Strauss. This collection is directed at sociologists concerned with the development of theory and graduate and undergraduate students in the sociology of work and the sociology of medicine. His approach is both thematic and topical.Straus examines organization, profession, career, and work, in addition to related matters such as socialization, occupational identity, social mobility, and professional relationships, all in a social psychological context. Because medicine is considered by many to be the prototype profession, Strauss effectively illustrates many of the points by allusion to nurses, chemists, hospitals, wards, and terminal care. The progression of ideas in these essays are a befitting source for the study of structure, interaction and process, other themes that occupied Strauss in his other research enterprises.As Irving Louis Horowitz noted at the time of Anselm Strauss's death in 1996: "Anselm was and remained a social psychologist of a special sort. He appreciated that what takes place in the privacy of our minds translates into public consequences for the social fabric. His statements on personal problems are invariably followed in quick succession by intensely sociological essays on close awareness, face-to-face interaction, and structured interactions. The subtext distinguishes sociological from psychiatric conventions, seeing everything from daydreams to visions in interactionist frames rather than as pathology. The implications of his explorations into the medical profession are stated gently, but carry deep ramifications, for the act of people treating each other compassionately, not less than professionally, is also an act of awareness. Treating the human person as a creature of dignity, when generalized, becomes the basis for constructing human society."The late Anselm Strauss was a pioneer in bridging the gap between theory and data in sociology. This collection of his works, available in paperback for the first time, will be a valuable resource for professionals and students interested in grounded social theory.Anselm L. Strauss was professor of sociology and chairman of the graduate program in sociology, University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books including Creating Sociological Awareness and editor of Where Medicine Fails, both published by Transaction.

Originally published in 1961, Images of the American City examines how Americans dealt with the rapid shock of urbanization as it evolved from an agricultural nation. Working from the framework of a social psychologist, Anselm L. Strauss offers a deeper look into the sociological, psychological, and historical perspectives of urban development. He describes how the cultural changes of a space ultimately develop urban imagery by looking towards the urbanization of America from peoples' views of the cities rather than how the cities are themselves. Urban imageries are contrasted with the context of an ideal city and visitors' perspectives of cities.Strauss takes a step back to ask questions about what Americans think and have thought of their cities. How do these cities compare to the image of an ideal city? What are the different perspectives between a city-dweller and a visitor? He contrasts the tension between those within the city and those outside of its urban limits.Strauss describes how space and time are major themes in the symbolic urbanization of a city. He offers a macroscopic view of the city as a whole and shows how urban imageries evolved from changes in lifestyles. He then provides historical breakdowns of different regions of the country and how they were urbanized. This book documents and illustrates the change in American symbolization from the growth of American cities to the union of urbanity and rurality.

The authors of this volume point out that what is ordinarily termed the psychiatric hospital's "social structure" is principally derived from three sources: the number and kinds of professionals who work there; the treatment ideologies and professional identities of these professionals; and the relationships of the institution and its professionals to outside communities, both professional and lay. They describe hospitals as sites where ideological battles characterizing the mental health arena are being fought, implemented, critiqued, modified, and transformed.This classic monograph in medical sociology was originally published in the 1960s. The period studied was 1958 through 1963, when somatic and psychotherapeutic ideologies were flourishing—as now—and milieutherapy was just emerging. The research team was multidisciplinary: three sociologists, one psychologist, and one psychiatrist.Three distinct psychiatric environments were researched: two at the Chicago State Hospital—"chronic services" and "treatment services"—and one at a private hospital. What evolved were thoughtful comparative analyses of hospitals, wards, professionals, ideological positions, careers, and organizational and situational placements.

This volume of papers from the distinguished sociologist Anselm Strauss reflects his self-professed lifelong intention to create sociological awareness in his readers and students. As Irving Louis Horowitz notes in his foreword to the book, at the center of Strauss's effort has been the democratization of sociology. He has achieved this goal by making sure that relativities of status, power, and wealth are acknowledged in the conduct of everyday life, and by recognition that all collective life is subject to negotiation, rearrangement and reconstruction.Represented here is some of the work for which Strauss is best known, and the principal themes that have captured his imagination throughout his productive career. These include work, leisure, culture, illness, identity, and policy. All are linked by Strauss's "web of negotiation" by which organizational arrangements can be changed. The volume concludes with a selection of his work in problems of method, consultation, and teaching, affirming Strauss's commitment to passing along the sociological awareness reflected in this volume to a next generation.Squarely in the long tradition of the Chicago School of sociology, the work of Anselm Strauss represents the very best thinking in modem sociological and psychological analysis. Those interested in the development of his major conceptual frameworks, as well as those interested in the development of the specific subject areas to which Anselm Strauss has devoted his career will find this an essential volume. Professionals in the history of sociology, the sociology of knowledge, or medical sociology will find the book of particular interest.

Should patients be told they are dying? How do families react when one of their members is facing death? Who should reveal that death is imminent? How does hospital staff-doctors, nurses, and attendants-act toward the dying patient and his family?

Identity as a concept is as elusive as everyone's sense of his own personal identity. It is connected with appraisals made by oneself and by others. Each person sees himself mirrored in the judgments of others. The masks he presents to the world are fashioned upon his anticipations of judgments. In Mirrors and Masks, Anselm Strauss uses the notion of identity to organize materials and thoughts about certain aspects of problems traditionally intriguing to social psychologists.The problems Strauss considers to be intriguing traditionally are those encountered when studying group membership, motivation, personality development, and social interaction. The topics covered include: the basic importance of language for human action and identity; the perpetual indeterminacy of identities in constantly changing social contexts; the symbolic and developmental character of human interaction; the theme of identity as it affects adult behaviqr; relations between generations and their role in personality development; and the symbolic character of membership in groups.By focusing on symbolic behavior with an emphasis on social organization, Strauss presents a fruitful, systematic perspective from which to view traditional problems of social psychology. He opens up new areas of thought and associates matters that are not ordinarily considered to be related. Strauss believes that psychiatrists* and psychologists underestimate immensely the influence of social organization upon individual behavior and individual structure, and that sociologists, whose major concern is with social organization, should employ some kind of social psychology in their research. Mirrors and Masks shows that the fusion of theoretical approaches benefits the analyses of many scholars. This fascinating work should be read by sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

Originally published in 1989 as Appointment in Vienna, Esther Menaker's Misplaced Loyalties is a fascinating memoir covering five years of student life in Vienna during the early years of the psychoanalytic movement started by Sigmund Freud. It begins in 1930, when, full of high expectations, the author and her husband left their native America and eagerly embarked on an exhilarating journey that would take them to Austria, where they were to become candidates at the Psychoanalytic Institute.

Professions, Work and Careers addresses some of the central themes that preoccupied the eminent sociologist Anselm Strauss. This collection is directed at sociologists concerned with the development of theory and graduate and undergraduate students in the sociology of work and the sociology of medicine. His approach is both thematic and topical.Straus examines organization, profession, career, and work, in addition to related matters such as socialization, occupational identity, social mobility, and professional relationships, all in a social psychological context. Because medicine is considered by many to be the prototype profession, Strauss effectively illustrates many of the points by allusion to nurses, chemists, hospitals, wards, and terminal care. The progression of ideas in these essays are a befitting source for the study of structure, interaction and process, other themes that occupied Strauss in his other research enterprises.As Irving Louis Horowitz noted at the time of Anselm Strauss's death in 1996: "Anselm was and remained a social psychologist of a special sort. He appreciated that what takes place in the privacy of our minds translates into public consequences for the social fabric. His statements on personal problems are invariably followed in quick succession by intensely sociological essays on close awareness, face-to-face interaction, and structured interactions. The subtext distinguishes sociological from psychiatric conventions, seeing everything from daydreams to visions in interactionist frames rather than as pathology. The implications of his explorations into the medical profession are stated gently, but carry deep ramifications, for the act of people treating each other compassionately, not less than professionally, is also an act of awareness. Treating the human person as a creature of dignity, when generalized, becomes the basis for constructing human society."The late Anselm Strauss was a pioneer in bridging the gap between theory and data in sociology. This collection of his works, available in paperback for the first time, will be a valuable resource for professionals and students interested in grounded social theory.Anselm L. Strauss was professor of sociology and chairman of the graduate program in sociology, University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books including Creating Sociological Awareness and editor of Where Medicine Fails, both published by Transaction.

The authors of this volume point out that what is ordinarily termed the psychiatric hospital's "social structure" is principally derived from three sources: the number and kinds of professionals who work there; the treatment ideologies and professional identities of these professionals; and the relationships of the institution and its professionals to outside communities, both professional and lay. They describe hospitals as sites where ideological battles characterizing the mental health arena are being fought, implemented, critiqued, modified, and transformed.This classic monograph in medical sociology was originally published in the 1960s. The period studied was 1958 through 1963, when somatic and psychotherapeutic ideologies were flourishing as now and milieutherapy was just emerging. The research team was multidisciplinary: three sociologists, one psychologist, and one psychiatrist.Three distinct psychiatric environments were researched: two at the Chicago State Hospital "chronic services" and "treatment services" and one at a private hospital. What evolved were thoughtful comparative analyses of hospitals, wards, professionals, ideological positions, careers, and organizational and situational placements.

Reflecting the contributions of M. Brewster Smith to social psychology and personality study, this selection includes not only his best known essays but also previously unpublished material. Professor Smith's consistent striving for a psychology both scientific and humane unifies the collection; it is a valid and valuable overview of the relevance of social psychology to human experience and societal problems by a man at the midstream of his career.An introductory essay traces the major themes in Professor Smith's work. Part I discusses the interdisciplinary relations of social psychology with other behavioral sciences; it shows that social psychology, standing at the crossroads of the social sciences, must articulate its contributions with those of the other disciplines, and it delineates the problems involved in this articulation. Part II presents the author's principal contributions to the social psychology of attitudes and values, a central topic in the field, in which he is a major proponent of the functional approach. Part III is devoted to the broader issues of personality theory, focusing on the "self" as the object of personal attitudes and including a classic paper on the phenomenological approach.Parts IV and V probe human effectiveness and "mental health," consider the social development of personal competence, and examine from a social psychological perspective a variety of social problems -foreign students and cross-cultural education, population growth, ethnic prejudice, and student protest. The final group of essays deals with perennial human concerns: the nature of rationality, the ethics of behavioral research, the psychology of literature, and the problems of evil.

The French writer Arnold van Gennep first called attention to the phenomena of status passages in his Rites of Passage one hundred years ago. In Status Passage, first published in 1971, the movement of individuals and groups in contemporary society from one status to another is examined in the light of Gennep's original theory. Glaser and Strauss demonstrate that society emerges as a comparative order. In this order, every organized action, collective or individual, can be seen as a form of status passage.From one status to another-from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, from being single to being married, movement from one income group, social class or religion to another-there are passages that entail movement into different parts of a social structure and loss or gain in privileges. Types of status passage are described by their proper ties. The authors present a formal theory of status passage in the form of a running theoretical discussion.The concepts and categories discussed in Status Passage are illuminated by a large number of examples chosen from a wide range of human behavior, and the applicability of the theory to still other examples is made apparent. The result is a stimulating and provocative book that will interest a wide range of sociologists, social psychologists, and other social scientists, and will be useful in a variety of courses.

This book contains a major statement by one of America's most preeminent sociologists on what remains an important problem in American history and social analysis: the nature and extent of movement within American society from one status to another. The most important images of mobility involve self-improvement by changing location (going to the frontier, coming to the big city), and by changing social class (second-generation immigrants). Almost all sociological and historical analysis has been limited to these themes.Strauss extends the concept to a wide range of ideologies, institutional contexts, and social movements; his analysis is based on a formal theory of status passage and develops a partial theory of mobility. Strauss addresses a theme that underscores much of one strand of his work: the changing articulation of individuals with their social structure and institutions.The book follows on from the theoretical presuppositions of Discovery of Grounded Theory and the formal theory presented in Status Passage. Strauss was continually concerned with American social and intellectual life in its historical and contemporary manifestations. No one else has looked at the important phenomenon of mobility in this broad a context and from this point of view. The book remains important to those concerned with the social history of America and with problems of social change.

This classic book, available in paperback for the first time, is based on a 1962 study of the American Chemical Society, one of the great U. S. scientific societies. The society has a membership educated in the fundamental scientific field of chemistry, whose knowledge and talents are essential to modem industrial civilization. Without chemistry, we would have neither automobiles, nuclear devices, nor all the varied products essential to our modern way of life.Chemists are caught up in the dynamic changes in our society. The explosive advance of scientific knowledge leads to increasing specialization until experts in one field may have little in common with those in another. Also, as the knowledge and skills of chemistry are incorporated in the workaday world of industry, more and more trained chemists spend their days in routine application and organization of their skills and knowledge.The unique element of this study is its assessment of the role and function of a professional society for its members. Not much is known of how professionals feel about their societies, what they expect of them, or how they function for their members.Such studies assume increasing importance as the trend toward professionalization incorporates more specialized skills and as the members of these professions look increasingly to their societies for assistance in establishing their rights and privileges vis-à-vis the rest of society. This remains a unique effort at professional ethnography.

Originally published in 1961, Images of the American City examines how Americans dealt with the rapid shock of urbanization as it evolved from an agricultural nation. Working from the framework of a social psychologist, Anselm L. Strauss offers a deeper look into the sociological, psychological, and historical perspectives of urban development. He describes how the cultural changes of a space ultimately develop urban imagery by looking towards the urbanization of America from peoples' views of the cities rather than how the cities are themselves. Urban imageries are contrasted with the context of an ideal city and visitors' perspectives of cities.Strauss takes a step back to ask questions about what Americans think and have thought of their cities. How do these cities compare to the image of an ideal city? What are the different perspectives between a city-dweller and a visitor? He contrasts the tension between those within the city and those outside of its urban limits.Strauss describes how space and time are major themes in the symbolic urbanization of a city. He offers a macroscopic view of the city as a whole and shows how urban imageries evolved from changes in lifestyles. He then provides historical breakdowns of different regions of the country and how they were urbanized. This book documents and illustrates the change in American symbolization from the growth of American cities to the union of urbanity and rurality.

In this volume the distinguished sociologist Anselm Strauss reflects on his self-professed, lifelong intention to create sociological awareness in his readers and students. Strauss democratizes sociology by making sure that relativities of status, power, and wealth are acknowledged in the conduct of everyday life, and by recognizing that all collective life is subject to negotiation, rearrangement, and reconstruction.Represented here are some ideas for which Strauss is best known. He addresses work, leisure, culture, illness, identity, and policy. These disparate topics are linked by Strauss' "web of negotiation" by which organizational arrangements can be changed. The volume concludes with discussion about problems of method, consultation, and teaching, affirming Strauss' commitment to passing along the sociological awareness reflected in this volume to a next generation.Squarely in the long tradition of the Chicago School of sociology, the work of Anselm Strauss represents the very best thinking in modern sociological and psychological analysis. Those interested in the origins of his major conceptual frameworks will find this an essential volume.

Originally published in 1989 as Appointment in Vienna, Esther Menaker's Misplaced Loyalties is a fascinating memoir covering five years of student life in Vienna during the early years of the psychoanalytic movement started by Sigmund Freud. It begins in 1930, when, full of high expectations, the author and her husband left their native America and eagerly embarked on an exhilarating journey that would take them to Austria, where they were to become candidates at the Psychoanalytic Institute.