Elijah Anderson
Author of Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City
About the Author
Elijah Anderson is Charles & William L. Day Professor of the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Philadelphia with his family. (Bowker Author Biography)
Works by Elijah Anderson
Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male (The City in the Twenty-First Century) (2008) 14 copies
The Study of African American Problems: W.E.B. Du Bois's Agenda, Then and Now (The ANNALS of the American Academy… (2000) 3 copies
Bringing Fieldwork Back In: Contemporary Urban Ethnographic Research (The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political… (2012) 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1947 (estimate)
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Education
- Indiana University (BA | 1969)
University of Chicago (MA | 1972)
Northwestern University (PhD | 1976) - Occupations
- Professor of Sociology
sociologist
ethnographer
cultural theorist - Relationships
- Becker, Howard S. (mentor)
- Organizations
- Yale University
University of Pennsylvania
Wharton School
Swarthmore College
American Academy of Political and Social Science
American Sociological Association (show all 8)
National Research Council
Eastern Sociological Society - Awards and honors
- Komarovsky Award (2000)
Robert E. Park Award
Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching
Robin M. Williams, Jr., Distinguished Lecturer (1999-2000)
Members
Reviews
Lists
BLM (1)
Awards
You May Also Like
Statistics
- Works
- 12
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 687
- Popularity
- #36,816
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 4
- ISBNs
- 28
The richness of the text is in Anderson's ability to explain the theory without being a "theory book." So often people read and enjoy theory but what they do is really relatively empty because they don't recognize applied theory. Ethnographic and sociological research in particular means nothing if not taken from real life (what some so-called theorists call anecdotes but what is really qualitative research) and then, once analyzed, applied back to real life. If you are familiar with the theory you will see it on every page yet it is not front and center. The actual world, with all of its nuance, is presented. Explanations are kept largely jargon-free so this can be appreciated by anyone open to understanding.
I will say that it took a while for me to appreciate the writing style, it is so readable that I almost let some of the subtlety of the delivery detract from the power of the observations. Once I gained an awareness of how well Anderson is making this material accessible I found myself learning so much more than what just reading the research as anecdotes would have allowed. But don't be fooled, accessible does not equate to dumbed down or theory-free.
I would recommend this to any "white" reader who wants to better understand the world around them and to any reader of color who might sometimes feel like they are isolated in their experiences. All readers should read this with an eye toward doing more than understanding, but rather to use that understanding to make society better.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (more)