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Acta Sociologica
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The Continuing Path of Distortion

The Protestant Ethic and Max Weber’s School Enrolment Statistics

George Becker

Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA, george.becker{at}vanderbilt.edu

Things are not always as they seem. A cursory examination of a table of statistics cited in the Weber thesis appears to reveal striking differences in the educational ‘preferences’ of Catholics and Protestants. Careful scrutiny, however, on a number of grounds, especially in light of the importance that Weber attaches to these statistics in the articulation of his thesis, reveals that not only are the statistics seriously compromised by errors and omissions, but they lead to an evolving state of confusion engendered by scholars who, while engaged in the concealment or ostensible correction of these flaws by often dubious means, have published changed and conflicting versions of Weber’s statistics. By examining two recently published new English translations of the Weber thesis, this study resolves and clarifies some of the uncertainties surrounding the proper interpretation of these statistics within the context of Weber ’s theoretical argument and the socio-political climate in which they were produced. The reader is invited to explore how reverential bias in classical scholarship actually emerges.

Key Words: educational preference • reverential bias • sociology of knowledge • vagaries of scholarship • verification research • Weber thesis

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Acta Sociologica, Vol. 52, No. 3, 195-212 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0001699309339796
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