Richard A. Cloward

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Andrew Cloward (born December 25, 1926 in Rochester , New York , † August 20, 2001 , Manhattan ) was an American sociologist , criminologist and civil rights activist .

Life

Richard A. Cloward was the son of the radical Baptist preacher Donald Cloward and his wife, an artist who called herself Esther Fleming. From 1944 to 1946 he served (most recently as a lieutenant at sea ) in the United States Navy , after which he studied social work at the University of Rochester until his bachelor's degree in 1949 and then earned his master's degree at Columbia University , School of Social Work . From 1951 to 1954 he was a first lieutenant in the United States Army and was used, among other things, as a social worker in a military prison . In 1954 he returned as an assistant professor to Columbia's School of Social Work , where he received his doctorate in sociology in 1958 and became a professor. He taught at Columbia University for a total of 47 years until his death.

Cloward developed with Lloyd Ohlin the merton'sche Anomietheorie on and linked it with the subculture theory . In their view, the likelihood of crime increases not only because of a lack of legitimate means to achieve common goals. It also depends on the availability of illegitimate means that are more likely to be made available in subcultures. Building on this, Cloward and Ohlin developed a youth mobilization project on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that became a model for many government programs.

Cloward combined academic work with social and political commitment and was an impetus for numerous protest movements, for example in 1966 as a co-founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization . Together with his wife Frances Fox Piven , Cloward published several studies on the situation of the poor in the United States . In 1982 they founded Human SERVE ( Service Employees Registration and Voter Education ), an organization that tried to get people to register for elections. Their activities ultimately led to a law ( Motor Voter Act ) that was introduced by US President Bill Clinton .

Such activities are rare among social scientists , Herbert J. Gans , also a sociologist at Columbia University , assessed the couple's activities: "They actually invented social programs that became social policy" (translated: They actually developed social programs that became social policy ).

Fonts (selection)

  • Delinquency and opportunity. A theory of delinquent gangs. Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois 1960 (with Lloyd Ohlin).
  • Poor people's movements. Why they succeed, how they fail. Pantheon Books, New York 1977 (with Frances Fox Piven ), ISBN 0394488407 .
  • Regulating the poor. The functions of public welfare. 2nd edition, Vintage Books, New York 1993 (with Frances Fox Piven), ISBN 0679745165 .
    • in German regulation of poverty: diepolitik d. public Welfare. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 978-3-518-10872-7 .
  • The breaking of the American social compact , New Press, New York 1997 (with Frances Fox Piven), ISBN 1565843916 .
  • Why Americans still don't vote. And why politicians want it that way. 2nd edition, Boston 2000 (with Frances Fox Piven), ISBN 0807004499 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Stephanie Flanders: Richard Cloward, Welfare Rights Leader, Dies at 74 , obituary in The New York Times, August 23, 2001.
  2. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, biographical information is based on: Columbia Professor Richard Cloward, a Force Behind Motor Voter Law, Dies , Columbia University obituary , August 23, 2001.
  3. ^ Stefanie Eifler : Criminal sociology . Transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3-933127-62-9 , p. 33.
personal data
SURNAME Cloward, Richard A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cloward, Richard Andrew (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sociologist, criminologist, and civil rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Rochester , New York
DATE OF DEATH August 20, 2001
Place of death Manhattan , New York, United States