Resumen

AZPURUA, Fernando. La Escuela de Chicago. Sus aportes para la investigación en ciencias sociales. SAPIENS [online]. 2005, vol.6, n.2, pp.25-36. ISSN 1317-5815.

A series of research studies in the field of the social sciences carried out by the professors and students of the University of Chicago, between 1915 and 1940, has come to be known as the School of Chicago. These works on urban sociology cover a series of studies intimately related to the problems confronted by the city of Chicago in a time of delinquency and other serious difficulties faced by a city of disproportionate growth, and inhabited by thousands of inmigrants. The interest to study urban social phenomena based on the participating observation of the researcher will exert an important influence on the development of some original research methods in contemporary sociology. The school of Chicago fosters the use of procedures for scientific means as tools for the interpretation of aspects of social reality in its search for scientific approach. At present, as we come closer to an interpretative paradigm which guides the qualitative research perspective, it is good to investigate the origins of such epistemological proposals. Thus as we tackle some of the ideological principles that influenced the School of Chicago, such as: pragmatism (Dewey) and Symbolic Interactionism (Mead & Blumer) the analysis of their basic precepts allows a better comprehension of the trends that are presently guiding etnosociology.

Palabras clave : School of Chicago; Interpretative Paradigm; Etnosociology.