Merton’s Sociology 215-216 Course

Abstract

For many years, Robert K. Merton taught a famous, year-long graduate course at Columbia called The Analysis of Social Structures. His lectures have been recalled for their dazzling intellectual effects by those who took the course, but none of these former students has described what Merton actually said in specific lectures. I do this now, using my extensive lecture notes from 1952–53 when I took it for credit, and from later years when I sat in on the course. The core of the course at that time was Merton’s Paradigm for Functional Analysis in Sociology. Each concept in the paradigm—subjective dispositions, objective consequences, functional requirements, structural constraints, etc.—was elaborated in its relationship to a wide variety of sociological problems in the published theoretical and empirical literature. I also recount how Merton’s relationship to Talcott Parsons appeared to us in the course.

Appendix: Requirements for the Course Paper

The kind of paper Merton asked us to write for the Fall term, 1952–53 in Sociology 215 is a good indication of the type of conceptual/empirical work in which he himself excelled. His instructions were as follows. Select one of the concepts described in his paradigm for functional analysis. Refer to empirical studies of social behavior, not to theoretical discussions of the topic chosen. Don’t confine yourself to one kind of study; use community studies, historical studies, surveys, experiments, etc. Inspect closely the data in the studies. Elaborate the key concept in the study: what attributes are included within the concept? What does the concept point to? Progressively clarify what the concept points to by examining empirical studies where the concept seems to be implied look not just for the word for the concept you are focusing on, e.g., “dysfunction”, but for other terms the writers use, which you believe refer to the attributes in which you are interested. Work out what the subtypes of your concept should be, e.g., types of “structural constraints”.

Identify the kinds of sociological problems in connection with which this concept has been used, explicitly or implicitly. Remember that all problems are questions, but not all questions are problems. For example, “were there more Protestant than Catholic entrepreneurs in the seventeenth century?” is only a question, with a yes or no answer. It misses the problem of why economic and religious motivation and behavior get intertwined. Finally, after reviewing your answers to the foregoing questions, look for the ways in which the concept you have selected relates to the other concepts in the functionalist paradigm.