Harold Garfinkel
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
Harold Garfinkel made fundamental contributions to twentieth-century sociology and beyond. He created a new and unique field of inquiry, ‘ethnomethodology,’ to study the everyday methods of practical action and practical reasoning used by members of society to make sense and produce order in their daily lives. Garfinkel and his students dissolved the supposed chasm between common sense and scientific/professional reasoning, unpacked the taken-for-granted existence of society, developed detailed descriptions of commonplace and specialized organizations of practice, and specified how society members assemble and sustain the sense that they live, act, and mean in a shared orderly world. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Repository Citation
Burns, Stacy L. 2015. "Garfinkel, Harold (1917–2011)." Pp. 598-604 in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), edited by James D. Wright. Oxford: Elsevier. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.61203-5.
