Emphasizes the interrelationships of folk culture, social structure, and human interaction.
Since sociology is the study of human groups and social organization, it is hard to
imagine any folkloristic research, except perhaps the most formal literary analysis, that is
not in some way sociological. As many disciplines in the humanities now recognize that
human artistic products are inevitably connected to the sociopolitical context in which
they were produced, a sociological perspective to folklore has become essential. In
essence, the sociological approach investigates how biography and history are linked.
There have actually been numerous sociological approaches to folklore, although
relatively few professional sociologists have explicitly addressed folkloric issues.
Folklorists who examine community life (for example, Linda Dégh and Henry Glassie),
the interplay of techno-industrial order and traditional culture (Hermann Bausinger, Lauri
Honko, and Simon J.Bronner), and the role of context and performance features in
creativity (Robert Georges, Roger D.Abrahams, and Richard Bauman) might each be
considered a “sociological folklorist.” Yet, such an approach is so inclusive that one
might merely classify folklore as a corner of the sociological enterprise. In contrast problems also arise from considering in the sociological domain only that which is
published by a trained sociologist, leaving the approach too narrow and idiosyncratic.
Still, one can echo Kenneth Thompson’s surprise that sociology and folklore have not
had closer linkages (Thompson 1980).
While boundaries of truly sociological approaches are inevitably hazy, a sociological
perspective emphasizes the central position of social structure or interaction processes.
The question “What does a text mean?” can only be answered through an examination of
the broader contexts in which narrators and audiences operate. To distinguish a
sociological approach from an anthropological one requires a primary focus on
contemporary, Western, industrial societies, although this is by no means a perfect
division.
Sociological approaches to folklore were not foreign to early folklorists or
sociologists. William Graham Sumner, professor of sociology at Yale University, made
the important distinction between stateways (laws or rules of a social system) and
folkways (traditional ways of doing things). Joseph Jacobs, one of the Victorian English
folklorists, had a distinctly sociological appreciation for the interpersonal dynamics of
diffusion and the role of a folk group as a bounded behavior community, a point later
emphasized by Alan Dundes. Howard W.Odum and his colleagues at the University of
North Carolina, including Guy Benton Johnson and Newbell Niles Puckett, maintained a
vigorous interest in folk culture, and much important collecting of African American
traditions and music arose from this interest (see Odum 1953). Emile Durkheim, one of
the “fathers” of sociology, and his student Marcel Mauss shared a profound interest in
folk culture, particularly in the role of religion in providing a cohesive force for social
order. Indeed, near the turn of the 20th century both sociological and folklore journals
published articles linking the two disciplines.
Subsequently, several empirical areas have generated important studies that might be
labeled a sociological approach to culture: (1) impression management and performance,
(2) group dynamics and the creation of folk groups, (3) social control and social conflict,
and (4) nation building and social change. Each approach produced considerable research
tradition, but can only be summarized briefly here.