Kenneth D. Bailey (sociologist)

Kenneth D. Bailey (born 1943) is an American sociologist, systems scientist and professor of sociology at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Biography

Bailey studied at the University of Texas at Austin. He got there a B.S. in mathematics in 1963, a M.A. in sociology in 1966 and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1968. The last four years he got an N.D.E.A. Fellowships. Summer 1967 he participated in a Workshop in mathematical sociology at the Johns Hopkins University.

Since 1968 he worked at the University of California, Los Angeles at the department of sociology as assistant Professor. From 1971 to 1974 he worked there as director of a Population Research Program, a Survey Research Center at the University. From 1974 to 1989 he was associate professor and since then professor.

In between he was a scholar and visiting associate professor at the department of sociology at the Tulane University from 1981 to 1983. Since 1984 he is also a senior research fellow at the International Systems Science institute in La Jolla.

Bailey is a member of the American Sociological Association, the International Society for the Systems Sciences, where he was president in 2003, and the International Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

Bailey participated in scientific reviews as American Sociological Review from 1974 to 1976, Systems Practice from 1987 to 1989, Behavioral Science from 1993 to 1997 and Systems Research and Behavioral Science since 1997. He also refereed in some dozen other magazines and books.

Work

He works in the field of research methods, systems theory and environmental demography and ecology.

Publications

Bailey wrote several books, articles and papers. A selection:

• 1978. Methods of Social Research. New York: Free Press, 1978
• 1985. Systems Inquiring: Applications. With Bela H. Banathy et al. (ed.), Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society for General Systems Research International Conference. Seaside, CA: Intersystems Publications.
• 1990. Social Entropy Theory. Albany, New York: State University of New York (SUNY) Press.
• 1994. Sociology and the new systems theory: Toward a theoretical synthesis. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
• 1994. Typologies and Taxonomies: An Introduction to Classification Techniques. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1994.
• 1997. Systems Thinking, Globalization of Knowledge, and Communitarian Ethics. Edited with Yong Pil Rhee. Proceedings of the International Society for the Systems Sciences International Conference. Seoul, Korea, 1997

Articles — a selection

• 1998. "Structure, Structuration, and Autopoiesis: The Emerging. Significance of Recursive Theory." In: Current Perspectives in Social Theory 18 (1998), pp. 131–154
• 2001. "Systems Theory". In: Jonathan Turner (ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory'.
• 2006. "Living systems theory and social entropy theory". In: Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 23, 291-300.

See also

• Living systems theory
• Social entropy
• Taxonomy

External links

• Website of Kenneth D. Bailey.
• CV of Bailey.