Franz Uri Boas

(1) Franz Uri Boas: Born July 9, 1858, died December 21, 1942 was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the Father of American Anthropology. He contributed in one of the most popular ideologies of scientific racism, the idea that race is a biological concept and that human behavior is best understood through the typology of biological characteristics which he aground breaking studies of skeletal anatomy he showed that cranial shape and size was highly malleable depending on environmental factors such as health and nutrition.

(2) Ferdinand Tönnies: Born 26 July 1855, died 9 April 1936, was a German sociologist and philosopher. He was a major contributor to sociological theory and field studies, best known for his distinction between two types of social groups, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. He was also a prolific writer and co-founder of the German Society for Sociology, of which he was president from 1909 to 1933

(3) Loïc Wacquant: Born 1960 in Montpellier, France is a sociologist, and has contributed in making people understand urban sociology, urban poverty, racial inequality, the body, social theory and ethnography. Wacquant is currently a Professor of Sociology and Research Associate at the Earl Warren Legal Institute, University of California, Berkeley, where he is also affiliated with the Program in Medical Anthropology and the Center for Urban Ethnography.

(4) Paul Felix Lazarsfeld : Born February 13, 1901, died August 30, 1976 was one of the major figures in 20th-century American sociology. He contributed and he is the founder of Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, he exerted a tremendous influence over the techniques and the organization of social research.

(5) Robert King Merton: Born July 4, 1910, died February 23, 2003 was an American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor. In 1994 Merton won the National Medal of Science for his contributions to the field and for having founded the sociology of science.

(6) Wilhelm Dilthey: Born 19 November 1833 died 1 October 1911was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist and hermeneutic philosopher, who held Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, he contributed in the research involved around questions of scientific methodology, historical evidence and history's status as a science.

(7) Marcel Mauss: Born 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950, was a French sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss's academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology. Today, he is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline. He contributed in the analyses of topics such as magic, sacrifice and gift exchange in different cultures around the world.

(8) Claude Lévi-Strauss: born 28 November 1908, died 30 October 2009, he was a French anthropologist and ethnologist who contributed in the development of the theory of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the Chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982.

(9) Sir James George Fraze: Born 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941, was a Scottish social anthropologist, he contributed in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. He is often considered one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology.

(10) Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown: born Alfred Reginald Brown; 17 January 1881, died 24 October 1955 in London, was an English social anthropologist who developed the theory of Structural functionalism.

(11) Peter Michael Blau: born February 7, 1918, died March 12, 2002, was an American sociologist and theorist. Born in Vienna, Austria, he immigrated to the United States in 1939. He contributed to the theories relating to many aspects of social phenomena, including upward mobility, occupational opportunity, and heterogeneity.

(12) Erving Goffman: born 11 June 1922, died 19 November 1982, a Canadian-born sociologist and writer, was considered "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century. His best-known contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction. This took the form of dramaturgical analysis, beginning with his 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

(13) Anthony Giddens or Baron Giddens: born 8 January 1938, is a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists.

(14) George Casper Homans: born August 11, 1910 , died May 29, 1989, was an American Sociologist, founder of behavioral sociology and the Exchange Theory. He is best known for his research in social behavior and his works including The Human Group, Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms, his Exchange Theory and the many different propositions he enforced to better explain social behavior.

(15) James Gardner March: born 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio, is Jack Steele Parker professor emeritus at Stanford University and the Stanford Graduate School of Education, best known for his research on organizations and organizational decision making. He is highly respected for his broad theoretical perspective and which combined theories from psychology and other behavioural sciences.

(16) James Samuel Coleman: born May 12, 1926, died March 25, 1995) was an American sociologist, theorist, and empirical researcher, based chiefly at the University of Chicago. He was elected president of the American Sociological Association. His main contribution was educational equality.

(17) Herbert Alexander Simon: born June 15, 1916, died February 9, 2001, a Nobel laureate, was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, psychologist, computer scientist, and Richard King Mellon Professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University. He contributed in research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics, management, philosophy of science, sociology, and political science, unified by studies of decision-making.

(18) Raewyn Connell: born 3 January 1944 (also known as R.W. Connell) is an Australian sociologist. She is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney and known for the concept of hegemonic masculinity and southern theory. Her main contributions is based on Gender, class and education.

(19) Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein: born September 28, 1930 is an American sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst. He main contribution is development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his World-System Theory.

(20) Max Ferdinand Scheler: born August 22, 1874, died May 19, 1928, was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Scheler developed further the philosophical method of the founder of phenomenology. His main contribution is love and phenomenology.

(21) Pope John Paul II: born Karol Józef Wojt on 18 May 1920 died 2 April 2005) was pope of the Catholic Church from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005. In Catholicism, since his canonisation, he is referred to as Pope Saint John Paul II. His main contribution was helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe.

(22) Peter Ludwig Berger: born March 17, 1929 is an Austrian-born American sociologist known for his work in the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, study of modernization, and theoretical contributions to sociological theory.

(23) Thomas Luckmann : born October 14, 1927, is an American-Austrian sociologist of Slovene origin who taught mainly in Germany. His main areas of research and contribution are the sociology of communication, sociology of knowledge, sociology of religion, and the philosophy of science.

(24) Michel Foucault: born Paul-Michel Foucault, on 15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984, was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, philologist and literary critic. His contribution and theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions.

(25) Karl Mannheim: Born March 27, 1893, died January 9, 1947, or Károly Mannheim in the original writing of his name, was a Hungarian-born sociologist, influential in the first half of the 20th century and one of the founding fathers of classical sociology as well as a founder of the sociology of knowledge.