Books by Howard S. Becker

Serves as a sociological examination of art which explores the cooperative network of suppliers, performers, dealers, critics, and consumers who - along with the artist - 'produce' a work of art. This book looks at the conventions essential to this operation and, prospectively, at the extent to which art is shaped by this collective activity.

Now regarded as a classic, Boys in White is of vital interest to medical educators and sociologists.By daily interviews and observations in classes, wards, laboratories, and operating theaters, the team of sociologists who carried out this firsthand research have not only captured the worries, cynicism, and basic idealism of medical students.

Based on three years of detailed anthropological observation, this account of undergraduate culture portrays students' academic relations to faculty and administration as one of subjection

Based on three years of detailed anthropological observation, this account of undergraduate culture portrays students' academic relations to faculty and administration as one of subjection

Draws on a lifetime of sociological research and wisdom to show, in helpful detail, how to use a variety of kinds of cases to build sociological knowledge. The author provides a guide that researchers can use to produce general sociological knowledge through case studies.

Recognizing that the humanities have engaged many of the important intellectual currents of the last twenty-five years in ways that sociology has not, the contributors to this volume fully acknowledge that the boundary between the social sciences and the humanities has begun to dissolve. This challenging volume explores that border area.

Explores the unconventional ways we communicate what we know about society to others. This book explores the many ways knowledge about society can be shared and interpreted through different forms of telling such as fiction, films, photographs, maps, mathematical models - many of which remain outside the boundaries of conventional social science.

This guide to research methods covers four areas of social science: the creation of "imagery" to guide research; methods of "sampling" to generate maximum variety in the data; the development of "concepts" to organize findings; and "logical" methods of exploring the implications of the findings.