Garfinkel, Harold (1917– )

US sociologist. He pioneered the now internationally influential field of ethnomethodology, the study of methods used by ordinary people to describe and analyse their own activities, publishing several works, including Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967). He was born in Newark, New Jersey. He studied for his BA at the University College, Newark (a part of Rutgers University) and gained his MA at the University of North Carolina in 1942. After serving with the US Army in World War II, he returned to the academic world, gaining his PhD from Harvard University in 1952. He taught at several universities but spent most of his career at the University of California, Los Angeles (1954–87) and was also affiliated to the US Public Health Service (1957–66).