Andrew Abbott (sociologist)
Andrew Delano Abbott | |
|---|---|
| Born | Template:Birth year and age |
| Occupation(s) | Sociologist, social theorist |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Known for | Establishing the field of sequence analysis; editor of American Journal of Sociology (2000–2016) |
| Notable work | The System of Professions; Time Matters; Department and Discipline; Chaos of Disciplines; Methods of Discovery; Digital Paper; Processual Sociology |
Andrew Delano Abbott (born November 1948) is a distinguished American sociologist and social theorist affiliated with the University of Chicago. He occupies the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professorship within the Department of Sociology. Abbott's scholarly interests encompass occupations, professions, methodological philosophy, the history of academic disciplines, and the sociology of knowledge. He is credited with establishing the field of sequence analysis and served as editor of the American Journal of Sociology from 2000 until 2016.
Education and career
Abbott completed his early education at Phillips Academy before earning an undergraduate degree in history and literature at Harvard University, where he also contributed as a research assistant at the Harvard Center for Population Studies between 1967 and 1971.
He pursued graduate studies in Sociology at the University of Chicago from 1971 to 1982, producing a dissertation on psychiatry’s professionalization under the supervision of Morris Janowitz. During 1973 to 1978, Abbott was employed in the Research and Evaluation Department at Manteno State Hospital.
Joining the faculty at Rutgers University in 1978, Abbott progressed from instructor to associate professor by 1986. He returned to the University of Chicago in 1991 as a professor of sociology, later receiving the Ralph Lewis Professorship in 1997. His administrative roles included serving as master of the Social Science Division (1993–1996) and chairing the Sociology Department (1999–2002). Abbott also led the university’s library board, playing a pivotal role in developing the innovative Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, which enhanced researchers’ access to print collections.
Prior to his editorship at the American Journal of Sociology (2000–2016), he edited Work and Occupations from 1991 to 1994. In 2001, Abbott was honored with the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professorship in Sociology.
Prizes and awards
Abbott has been recognized with numerous honors, including multiple awards from the American Sociological Association. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the University of Versailles - Saint Quentin (France) in 2011. His affiliations include a research position at University of Surrey’s Norman Chester Research Centre (1990) and a fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford since 1997. Abbott has secured various grants such as NSF funding for projects including "Optimal Matching with Cultural Data," "Dynamic Sequencing Methods for Studying Turning Points in Criminal Careers," as well as several NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Grants.
In addition, he was awarded the Médaille de la ville de Grenoble in 2011 and received the prestigious Quantrell Award in 2017.
Research areas
Professions
Abbott is widely recognized for his influential work on professions and social status. His seminal 1988 publication, The System of Professions, earned the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Scholarly Book award in 1991. The book offers a comprehensive theory explaining how professions evolve through comparative historical analyses across nineteenth- and twentieth-century England, France, and America. Notable contributions include:
- Conceptualizing professional change through an ecological framework.
- Emphasizing jurisdictions—defined as contested occupational domains.
- Treating professions as interconnected systems.
- Highlighting professional competition within workplaces, cultural arenas, public opinion, and legal contexts.
- Stressing competence and theoretical knowledge as essential for sustaining core jurisdictional monopolies.
The volume presents three historical case studies: conflicts over “information” jurisdiction involving librarians versus programmers; comparative legal professional dynamics in the US and England; and shifts in personal-problems jurisdiction illustrating clergy decline alongside psychiatry’s ascendancy. While some critics point out subjectivity within Abbott’s model involving ‘diagnosis, inference, and treatment,’ his perspectives complement existing theories on professionalization. Furthermore, his ecological approach encourages empirical investigation into organizational-professional interdependencies.
Methods and epistemology
Abbott pioneered computational methods such as optimal matching analysis to quantitatively examine career trajectories within social science research. His 2001 work Time Matters synthesizes his theoretical stance on temporality, processes, and methodology, significantly impacting social sequence analysis. He promotes an event-centered “narrative” methodology in sociology that initiated foundational discussions published in Sociological Methods and Research (2000).
Academic disciplines and knowledge production
In his books Department and Discipline (1999) and Chaos of Discipline (2001), Abbott explores intellectual development within academic disciplines, challenging linear progress narratives by revealing cyclical patterns prevalent in social sciences. His texts Methods of Discovery (2004) and Digital Paper (2014) function as comprehensive guides on heuristics for social science inquiry utilizing digital resources and library materials. The latter outlines seven concurrent research activities: design, search, scanning/browsing, reading, analysis, filing, and writing.
Processualism
A processual perspective forms the foundation of Abbott’s scholarship as an alternative framework for analyzing society, elaborated upon in his 2016 essay collection titled Processual Sociology.
Reviews as Barbara Celarent
For many years, essays critiquing significant sociological works appeared under the pseudonym Barbara Celarent in the American Journal of Sociology, purportedly authored from the year 2049. These reviews established elevated standards for depth and rigor within sociological criticism.
Bibliography
- The emergence of American psychiatry, 1880-1930, 1982.
- The system of professions : an essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988
- Department and discipline: Chicago sociology at one hundred. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999
- Chaos of disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000
- Time matters: on theory and method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001
- Methods of discovery: heuristics for the social sciences. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004
- Digital paper: a manual for research and writing with library and internet materials. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014
- Processual Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016
External links
- Abbott's official University of Chicago profile [1]
- Barbara Celarent's personal webpage [2]
- Biography of Andrew Abbott