“A Dualistic Vision”: Robert Ezra Park and the Classical Ecological Theory of Social Inequality

Abstract

Although struggle, domination, competition, and hierarchy were central concerns of Robert Park and the human ecologists during the 1920s and 1930s, they did not specifically set out to articulate a comprehensive theory of social inequality in their work. Indeed, the period of Chicago school dominance has been portrayed by some analysts as one during which sociologists for the most part ignored the study of social inequality. This article suggests, by contrast, that social inequality was a central focus of the human ecological perspective and outlines the basic assumptions, intellectual origins, components, structure, and logic of the classical ecological account of inequality.