DEFINITION OF GUSTISM - THE APPLICABILITY OF THE GENERATION - BASED BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH ON THE BUCHAREST SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY -

Abstract

In the current paper I am going to apply different approaches of the “generation” aspect, in order to determine the belonging of the members of the Bucharest School of Sociology from the biographical analysis perspective. I am particularly interested in the question whether, through the definition of generation, is possible that a group of people, very different in many aspects, could create a homogeneous generation, only because they were adepts of the monographic method and followers of the Professor Dimitie Gusti. To answer the question, I am going to present the main theoretical approaches in the conceptualization of the notion of generation, after which I will apply these definitions to the different categories affiliated with the Bucharest School of Sociology. From this point of view, I will consider the followers of D. Gusti as belonging to a single generation, a generation existent by the above mentioned theoretical points of view. As for this particular generation, it could be affirmed that they formed, in the Manheimian perspective, a generation unit in 1920-1930, and afterwards, beside the existence of a “core” led by the Professor, some representatives of the initial group went on coexisting as a part of the same effective generation, but in different generation units.