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Kingsley Davis, a grand-nephew of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University studying with Talcott Parsons, Pitrim Sorokin, W. Lloyd Warner, and Carle Zimmerman. As one of the most influential and eminent sociologists of the twentieth century, he made major contributions to sociology, anthropology, and demography. A pioneer of sociological theory as it emerged during the 1930s and 1940s, he published prominent papers on the social and normative foundations of legitimate and illicit sexual behavior, marriage, and divorce in contemporary societies, intermarriage in caste societies, and the place of children in the family and the broader social structure. Writing on issues central to the structure and functioning of society, and therefore ideologically, morally, and emotionally charged, Davis’s analyses were illuminating, but often, perforce, subject to extensive debate and controversy, sometimes the focus of challenge from conservatives and other times confounding liberals.
Beyond his contributions to family sociology during the 1940s, Davis published (with Wilbert Moore in 1945) the most systematic and fully developed functional theory of social stratification, explaining the inequality found across social positions in all societies as the necessary consequence of their diverse positive contributions to the survival of the larger social system. Fierce debate followed as some critics took the theory to be an attack on the value position that equality is a virtue. Important subsequent contributions advancing theoretical sociology were his lucid synthesis in Human Society (1949) of fundamental sociological concepts and principles using ethnographic data, and his controversial Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association (1959) arguing that sociological analysis cannot be distinguished from functional analysis.
Davis’s creativity and the breadth of his influence in academia, in the Washington policy community, and the discourse of the general public are reflected in the terms demographic transition, population explosion, and zero population growth which he coined, and in the honor bestowed upon him as the first sociologist to be elected to the US National Academy of Sciences. As one of the giants among twentieth-century social scientists, Kingsley Davis’s legacy to scholarly and public discourse will endure for generations to come.
Bibliography:
- Davis, K. (1963) The theory of change and response in modern demographic history. Population Index 29 (4): 345-66.
- Heer, D.M. (2004) Kingsley Davis: A Biography and Selections from his Writings. Transaction Publishers, London.
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