The Chicago School and Qualitative Sociology: Towards the Innovation of Fieldwork and the Recognition of Personal Documents and Biographies.

Abstract

The present article begins with a central objective: clarifying the socio-methodological premises of the Chicago School, and how this school distinguished itself through the qualitative studies of its founders and subsequent students. This study reflects an important stage in the development of qualitative sociology in the United States. Accordingly, this analytical study focuses on highlighting the factors that paved the way for the emergence of the Chicago School, as well as the methodological foundations for addressing sociological phenomena within the framework of field studies conducted by its pioneers. It also examines how this school relied on qualitative tools such as the analysis of personal letters and autobiographies, participant observation, and open-ended interviews. This study was theoretical, and through it, we reached a general conclusion: according to this school, sociological knowledge is based on the analysis of social reality using qualitative and field-based methodologies. This is what we will seek to clarify in this scholarly article.