Becker, Howard S.

Howard S. Becker (1928–) is a sociologist known for his work in the sociology of deviance, art, qualitative methods, visual sociology, and the practice of research and writing in the social sciences. He is the author of Art worlds, a seminal book on the sociology of art, Writing for social scientists, and Tricks of the trade. His book, Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance, introduced labeling theory as an approach from his perspective for understanding deviance. He obtained his PhD from the University of Chicago, and in 1965 was appointed Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, where he remained until 1991. After 1991, he taught at a number of universities, including the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of California in Santa Barbara. An accomplished jazz musician, he lives and works in San Francisco, California. Keywords: Art and Music; Labeling Theory; Sociology of Deviance