Ernest Burgess

Ernest Watson Burgess ( born May 16, 1886 in Tilbury, Ontario, † December 27, 1966 ) was a Canadian sociologist. He represented the social ecologically oriented Chicago school of sociology that developed in the 1920s, the "Urban Sociology " in the United States. He was 24th President of the American Sociological Association.

Research

Burgess and RD McKenzie developed from its socio-ecological urban research ideas, as structures of plant and animal ecology can be transferred to human societies. They do this out of an absolutist concept of space, in which the space constituted a separate act of human greatness. The basic idea was that humans had to adapt to its natural environment. This is being done within specific social communities in limited territories, such as neighborhoods or districts. The design of the areas or territories based on - caused by pressure to conform - formation of homogeneous communities that are affected by, among other things Social class and ethnicity. Louis Wirth city concept is based largely on Burgess ' research.

Based on his studies Burgess developed together with his colleague Robert E. Park 1925, the zone model / ring model. This city model is to illustrate the social structure of a city on the example of Chicago.

Works

• Ernest W. Burgess, Robert E. Park: Introduction to Science of the Sociology. 1921, ISBN 0-8371-2356-9 ( Internet Archive ).
• Ernest W. Burgess, Robert E. Park, Roderick D. McKenzie (ed.): The City. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1925, ISBN 0-226-64611-4.