Theodor Geiger - Work

Work

Geiger is considered the founder of the concept of social stratification, using the concept of stratification (introduced by Edward Ross) for the analysis of social structures.

According to this view, society is divided into an indefinite number of social levels or groups, defined according to attributes such as profession, education, upbringing, living standard, power, dress, religion, race, political opinion and organisation. This idea is closely connected to that of social mobility and the criteria for an industrial society.

At least in Germany, he is also seen as an important contributor to the sociology of law, by publishing, in 1947, his "Vorstudien zu einer Soziologie des Rechts" (preliminary studies for a sociology of law).

Geiger also worked on the fundamental concepts of sociology, working class education, industrial organisation, class structure, mobility, the origin and functions of the intelligentsia, critics of ideology, and the nature of modern mass-society and democracy. He also spent time studying the nature of revolutionary crowds.

Geiger analysed the institutionalisation of the class struggle, which he called democratisation, and he considered it interconnected with corporativism.

Geiger published more than 160 works, but only a few have been translated to English thus far. The Danish body of Geiger's work has been translated (commented version) to German by Gert J. Fode of the University of Aarhus, edited by Prof. Klaus Rodax (University of Erfurt, Germany).

Read more about this topic:  Theodor Geiger

Famous quotes containing the word work:

    The dominant and most deep-dyed trait of the journalist is his timorousness. Where the novelist fearlessly plunges into the water of self-exposure, the journalist stands trembling on the shore in his beach robe.... The journalist confines himself to the clean, gentlemanly work of exposing the griefs and shames of others.
    Janet Malcolm (b. 1934)

    One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
    Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915)

    I am not describing a distant utopia, but the kind of education which must be the great urgent work of our time. By the end of this decade, unless the work is well along, our opportunity will have slipped by.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)