Purpose, Meaning, and Action: Control Systems Theories in Sociology

Product Description


Control Systems Theory, a newly developing theoretical perspective, starts from an important insight into human behaviour: that people attempt to control the world around them as they perceive it. This book brings together for the first time the work of prominent sociologists contributing to the development of this wideranging theoretical paradigm.


Review


"Assembling an outstanding line up of established leaders and rising stars, McClelland and Fararo review works from all the major control theoretical approaches in sociology. More than any prior efforts, their research exhibits a remarkable array and depth of empirical applications. Without even a wisp of immodesty, this book shows what can be accomplished by a rigorous scientific approach to sociological theory and research." - Barry Markovsky, University of South Carolina
"Purpose, Meaning, and Action shows that progress can be made, that there can be bridges built between the old and the new and that doing this is difficult work. These seventeen distinguished authors have done an amazing job in adapting the approach of Perceptual Control Theory to a field where data tend to be slippery and guideposts are a long way apart. It looks as if sociology has taken a long step down a new path." - William T. Powers, author of Behavior: The Control of Perception


About the Author


Kent A. McClelland is Professor of Sociology at Grinnell College. His publications include work on sociological theory, racial and sexual harassment, immigration, research methodology, gerontology, and social stratification, as well as pedagogical essays on ways to improve sociological writing. He is a past President of the interdisciplinary Control Systems Group and is currently the Chair of the newly established Peace Studies Program at Grinnell College.
Thomas J. Fararo is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at The University of Pittsburgh, where he has been since 1967. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Mathematical Sociology and he is a past chair of that section. He has served on the editorial boards of a number of professional journals, including "The American Sociological Review," "The American Journal of Sociology," and "Sociological Theory," and is an Associate Editor of "The Journal of Mathematical Sociology. "His most recent books are "Social Action Systems: Foundation and Synthesis in Sociological Theory" (2001) and "Generating Images of Stratification: A Formal Theory" (2003, co-authored with Kenji Kosaka).