美国当代社会学理论及其方法论

Contemporary Sociological Theories and Methodes in America

当代西方社会学发展的中心在美国。社会学思潮大多在这里发源、激荡、鼎盛并波及到西欧各国，以至更多的国家和地区。因而，要了解当代西方社会学首先要了解美国当代社会学。 美国当代社会学理论的定向与构架不一，流派很多。美国社会学家P·李德塞尔认为，六十至七十年代如下一些社会学流派在美国影响为大：（一）结构功能主义，（二）集成理论，（三）冲突理论，（四）交换理论，（五）符号相互作用论。

The past thirty years have seen many changes and developments in the contemporary American sociological studies. This article presents a brief survey of the American sociological theories of different new trends in observing the social life and social reality today. Among its many sociological schools, there are five important ones, namely, strueturalfunetionalism （Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton）, exchange theory （George Co Homans, Peter Mo Blau）, conflict theory （Lewis A. Coser, David Reisman）, symbolic interactionalism （Herbert Blumer, Irving Goffman） and criticism （Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse and Wright Co Mills）. Each of them has some reasonable points of view and something new to us, which we should pay attention to and make a study of. However, that doesn＇t mean these theories have disclosed the internal irreconciable social contradictions of the capitalist system, and have found solutions to those contradictions.