Howard S. Becker

Biography

Early life and education Howard Saul Becker was born into a Jewish family on April 18, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Allan Becker (April 2, 1902 – March 27, 1988) and Donna Becker (born Bertha Goldberg; December 31, 1904 – 1997). According to Becker, he was able to work semi-professionally because of World War II and the fact that most musicians over the age of 18 were drafted. While in school, Becker continued to play piano semi-professionally. According to Becker, he viewed music as his career and sociology as a hobby.

The Chicago School of Sociology focused heavily on qualitative data analysis and worked with the city of Chicago as a laboratory. He also spent three to four months out of the year in Europe, mostly in Paris.

In 2004, Un sociologue en liberté: Lecture d'Howard S. Becker by French sociologist Alain Pessin was released in France. In the book, Pessin examines Becker's work and contributions to the field of sociology.

Contributions

Sociology of deviance and labeling theory Although Becker did not claim to be a deviancy specialist, his work on the subject is often cited by sociologists and criminologists studying deviance. A compilation of early essays on the subject, Outsiders outlines Becker's theories of deviance through two deviant groups; marijuana users and dance musicians. In the book, Becker defines deviance as "not a quality of a bad person but the result of someone defining someone's activity as bad." The first of the articles, "Becoming a Marihuana User", outlines how social interaction plays a role in learning to use and enjoy the effects of the drug. Labeling theory is based on the idea that a social deviant is not an inherently deviant individual, rather they become deviant because they are labeled as such.

One of Becker's main contributions to the field was the idea of art as a product of collective action. In Writing for Social Scientists (1986), Becker offers advice to individuals interested in social science writing. In an interview, Becker states "bad sociological writing cannot be separated from the theoretical problems of the discipline." Furthermore, Becker promotes systematic data collection and rigorous analysis as a way to make sense of social world.

In Telling About Society, considered the third installment in Becker's series of writing guides,