Everett Hughes (sociologist)

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Everett Cherrington Hughes (November 30, 1897 – January 4, 1983) was an American sociologist best known for his work on ethnic relations, work and occupations and the methodology of fieldwork. His take on sociology was, however, very broad. In recent scholarship, his theoretical contribution to sociology has been discussed as interpretive institutional ecology, forming a theoretical frame of reference that combines elements of the classical ecological theory of class (human ecology, functionalism, Georg Simmel, aspects of a Max Weber-inspired analysis of class, status and political power), and elements of a proto-dependency analysis of Quebec's industrialization in the 1930s (Helmes-Hayes 2000).

The efforts to look for a broader theoretical framework in Hughes's work have also been criticized as anachronistic search for coherent theoretical core when Hughes is more easily associated with a methodological orientation (Chapoulie 1996, see also Helmes-Hayes 1998, 2000 on critiques of his attempts to analyze Hughes's theoretical contribution). Hughes's pathbreaking contribution to the development of fieldwork as a sociological method is, however, unquestionable (see Chapoulie 2002).