Herbert J. Gans
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Herbert J. Gans (born May 7, 1927) is a
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
-born American sociologist who taught at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
from 1971 to 2007. One of the most prolific and influential sociologists of his generation, Gans came to America in 1940 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and has sometimes described his scholarly work as an immigrant's attempt to understand America. He trained in sociology at the University of Chicago, where he studied with
David Riesman David Riesman (September 22, 1909 – May 10, 2002) was an American sociologist, educator, and best-selling commentator on American society. Career Born to a wealthy German Jewish family, he attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 1931 ...
and Everett Hughes, among others, and in social planning at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, where his dissertation was supervised by
Martin Meyerson Martin Meyerson (November 14, 1922 – June 2, 2007) was an American city planner and academic leader best known for serving as the President of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) from 1970 to 1981. Meyerson, through his research, mentorship, ...
. Herbert J. Gans served as the 79th President of the American Sociological Association.


Biography

Herbert J. Gans was born in
Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
on May 7, 1927. Gans arrived in the United States in 1940, becoming a citizen in 1945. Gans studied at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, receiving a M.A. in 1950. He went on to receive a PhD in Sociology and Planning from the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in 1957. Gans moved to
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1971, serving as the
Robert S. Lynd Robert Staughton Lynd (September 26, 1892 – November 1, 1970) was an American sociologist and professor at Columbia University, New York City. He is best known for conducting the first Middletown studies of Muncie, Indiana, with his wife, He ...
Professor of Sociology in 1985. Gans married Louise Gruner in 1967. Their son is David Herman Gans.


Sociological research

Although Gans views his career as spanning six fields of research,arjournals.annualreviews.org
/ref> he initially made his reputation as a critic of
urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...
in the early 1960s. His first book, ''The Urban Villagers'' (1962), described Boston's diverse West End neighborhood, where he mainly studied its Italian-American
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
community. The book is also well known for its critical analysis of the area's clearance as an alleged "slum" and the West Enders' displacement from their neighborhood. One of the hallmarks of Gans's work is his willingness to challenge
conventional wisdom The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. In religion, this is known as orthodoxy. Etymology The term is often credited to the economist John ...
. His 1967 book ''The Levittowners'' was based on several years of participant-observation in New Jersey's Levitt-built suburb in
Willingboro Willingboro Township is a township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is a suburb of Philadelphia and part of the state's South Jersey region. As of the 2020 census, the population was 31,889, an increase o ...
, observing how a set of new homeowners came together to establish the community's formal and informal organizations. Demonstrating the inaccuracy of the popular depiction of the post-war suburbs as homogeneous, conformist and
anomic In sociology, anomie () is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown ...
, Gans showed that Levittown was in many ways a typical
lower middle class In developed nations around the world, the lower middle class is a subdivision of the greater middle class. Universally, the term refers to the group of middle class households or individuals who have not attained the status of the upper middle ...
suburb, the residents' class and other differences structuring the social and political life of the community.


Studies in news media

Gans's third major participant-observation study, of the national news media, was conducted in the newsrooms of NBC and CBS and the editorial offices of ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' and ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
''. The major theme of the work is reflected in its title, ''Deciding What's News''. He has published several other studies of the news media and the entertainment media, the best known being ''Popular Culture and High Culture'' (1974, 1999). In it, he challenged the conventional wisdom that
high culture High culture is a subculture that emphasizes and encompasses the cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteem as exemplary art, and the intellectual works of philosophy, history, art, and literature that a society con ...
aesthetic standards were universal, arguing instead that cultural tastes reflect educational levels and other aspects of class. His work on the media, like his community studies, has a populist theme, aiming to look at American society from the perspective of the country's working and lower middle class majority.


Public policy

Like some other sociologists who began their careers in the mid-twentieth century, Gans has been active both as a scholar and advocate, advising urban planning, antipoverty and other public policy agencies. He served as a consultant to the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) and drafted Chapter Nine of the Kerner Report. In his writings on poverty, Gans offered rigorous, often scathing criticism of the weaknesses of such concepts as "the culture of poverty," and the "underclass," most notably in ''The War Against the Poor'' (1995). However, "The Positive Functions of Poverty" (1972), his most widely reprinted article, catalogued the benefits the more affluent classes derived from the existence of poverty and the poor.
George Ritzer George Ritzer (born October 14, 1940) is an American sociologist, professor, and author who has mainly studied globalization, metatheory, patterns of consumption, and modern/postmodern social theory. His concept of McDonaldization draws upon M ...
reports "It has been said that he wrote this article, at least in part, as a parody of erton's
structural-functional analysis Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability". This approach looks at society through a macro-level ...
, .. butwhatever his motivations, Gans produced an excellent illustration of how structural-functional analysis can be used." Gans also continued to write critically about what he called the fallacy of "
architectural determinism Architectural determinism (also sometimes referred to as environmental determinism though that term has a broader meaning) is a theory employed in urbanism, sociology and environmental psychology which claims the built environment is the chief or ev ...
," namely the belief that urban planning and architecture could solve the problems of poverty and low civic engagement. His two collections of planning and social policy essays, ''People and Plans'' (1968) and ''People, Plans and Policies'' (1992) offered his most sustained criticism of spatial planning as a vehicle for significant social reform. In his address as the 1988 president of the American Sociological Association, Gans urged the discipline to become more useful to and relevant for the general public. In it, he used the term "
public sociology Public sociology is a subfield of the wider sociological discipline that emphasizes expanding the disciplinary boundaries of sociology in order to engage with non-academic audiences. It is perhaps best understood as a ''style'' of sociology rath ...
," which twenty years later became the centerpiece of a reform movement within the discipline. He also published a trio of articles on the sociology of sociology, later reprinted in his ''Making Sense of America'' (1999). Still active as an emeritus professor, an adjunct professor, and a writer, in 2008 Gans published a new book on public policy and politics, ''Imagining America in 2033''. "The book describes the policies and political processes by which America overcame the economic, military and other disasters of the century's first decade and began to turn into a more democratic, egalitarian, peaceful and human society." He has publicly opposed ROTC as being “in part a leadership training program for the killing of other people and the destruction of their societies.”


Publications

*''The Balanced community (1961) * * *''People and Plans'' (1968) *''More Equality'' (1973) *''Popular Culture and High Culture'' (1974) *''Deciding What's News: A study of CBS evening news, NBC nightly news, Newsweek, and Time'' (1979) *''Middle American Individualism'' (1988) *''People, Plans, and Policies'' (1991) *''The War Against The Poor'' (1992) *''Making Sense of America'' (1999) *''Democracy and the News'' (2003) *
Imagining America in 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together After Bush
'
University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including ...
, Ann Arbor, 2009. *


Terms coined

* Symbolic ethnicity * Symbolic religiosity


References


External links


Herbert Gans' biography at Columbia University

Herbert J. Gans Award Statement
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20191006041113/http://herbertgans.org/ Herbert J. Gans Online {{DEFAULTSORT:Gans, Herbert J. 1927 births Living people American sociologists Presidents of the American Sociological Association German emigrants to the United States Columbia University faculty University of Chicago alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni