Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons (1902 ? 1979) was the best-known sociologist in the United States, and one of the best-known in the world for many years. His work was enormously influential through the 1950s and well into the 1960s, particularly in America, but fell gradually out of favour from that time on. The most prominent attempt to revive Parsonian thinking, under the rubric "neofunctionalism," has been made by the sociologist Jeffrey Alexander, now at Yale University.

Related Topics:
Sociologist - United States - 1950s - 1960s - Neofunctionalism - Jeffrey Alexander - Yale University

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Parsons worked at the faculty of Harvard University from 1927-1973. A central figure in Harvard's Department of Social Relations, he produced a general theoretical system for the analysis of society: this came to be called structural functionalism. It was, which he developed in his major publications:

Related Topics:
Harvard University - 1927 - 1973

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• The Structure of Social Action (1937),
• The Social System (1951),
• Structure and Process in Modern Societies (1960),
• Sociological Theory and Modern Society (1968),
• Politics and Social Structure (1969).
 
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