Sammelbandbeitrag

Erschienen in: International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences

Herausgeberliste: Smelser, NJ; Baltes, PB

Jahr der Veröffentlichung: 2002

Seiten: 6297-6301

ISBN: 978-0-08-043076-8

Abstract: 

Erving Goffman (1922–1982) is considered to be one of the most important
sociologists of the latter half of the twentieth century. He began his
academic career at the University of Toronto and completed his sociology
studies at the University of Chicago, where he primarily studied under
Everett C. Hughes and W. Lloyd Warner. From 1962 Goffman was a Full
Professor at Berkeley. In 1968 he accepted the Benjamin Franklin
Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where
he wrote his chef d'oeuvre ‘Frame Analysis’ (1974). Goffman's
main theme was the forms of immediate social interaction, ‘face-to-face’
encounters. He saw in them a specific type of social system and a
sociological field in its own right. Goffman focused on tiny moments of
people's behavior, which they themselves find more or less natural and
are unaware of: fleeting glances, physical contact, apologies,
greetings, compliments, silence, etc. All of Goffman's works, 11 books
in total, are consistently oriented towards this empirical reality, but
from the start Goffman also coined or redefined concepts and models
(dramaturgy, role, identity, stigma, ritual, total institution,
strategic interaction, frame, etc.). Goffman left behind a series of
studies that are still relevant and influential today, and a network of
concepts that is both highly complex and highly integrated.

Harvard-Zitierstil: Willems, H. (2002) Erving Goffman, in Smelser, N. and Baltes, P. (eds.) International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences. Amsterdam: Pergamon, pp. 6297-6301

APA-Zitierstil: Willems, H. (2002). Erving Goffman. In Smelser, N., & Baltes, P. (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 6297-6301). Pergamon.