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Sixty years after Erving Goffman's book The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life was published (1959), this article reconstructs its biography by adapting the perspective of Robert Darnton (the original, as well as the revisited one on the history of books). Original texts by Goffman in Brazilian translations are used, along with bibliographical studies, critical articles, reviews, collections, and interviews and information that are part of the Erving Goffman Archives. The goal is to follow this author's trajectory, emphasizing the importance and impact of his text, with quantitative and qualitative data that extend beyond academia in terms of importance.

This article analyzes Boys in white: student culture in medical schoolby Howard S. Becker, Blanche Geer, Everett C. Hughes and Anselm Strauss, considered a model of qualitative research in sociology. The analysis investigates the trajectories of the authors, the book, qualitative analysis, and the medical students, emphasizing their importance in the origins of medical sociology and the sociology of medical education. In the trajectory of the authors, bibliographical information is given. The trajectory of qualitative research focuses on how this methodology influences the construction of the field. The investigation of the students' trajectory shows how they progress through their first years at medical school to build their own student culture.

As a journalist, Henry Mayhew recorded daily life in London in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His approach remains of interest to historians and social scientists today in that it foreshadowed qualitative research. The article highlights methodological aspects of Mayhew's investigations and analyzes two of his reports, one on a cholera outbreak and the other on a female street vendor. It also addresses some analyses that have critiqued his work.

This article examines the book Social class and mental illness: a community study by A.B. Hollingshead and F.C. Redlich as it marks the fifty year of its publication. It highlights the role of these researchers who, with distinct educational backgrounds (sociology and psychiatry), were part of the pioneering group in the 1950s that initiated the construction of medical sociology. Their careful methodological work and the fact that they approached an unprecedented topic ensured the originality of their project. The article analyzes the research and its importance for sociology and psychiatry, with emphasis on the studies regarding social classes, using the bibliographies as the main sources, critical analyses made of the work and related studies.

The article is about the main contributions of the North-American sociologist Robert King Merton (1910-2003), particularly those related to the field of medical sociology. Merton was first to conduct research on medical education, and the working team he formed was fundamental for the introduction of social thought in the medicine field (Patrícia Kendall, Renée Fox, Samuel Bloom and others). Of particular importance are Merton's vocation for sociology and the unique trajectory of his research, which was marked by studies on subjects that were not common in the early XX century, particularly the relationships between science, technology, and society. We provide the most important theoretical ad conceptual contribution brought by the author, as well as the expressions he created and which were soon adopted by researchers, such as 'focused interview', 'Matthew effects, 'Pygmalion effect', 'nonplanned consequences of social actions', 'manifest function', and 'latent function'. The highlight in the field of medical sociology is his work on the socialization process of the student of medicine.

This article analyzes the history of the course in social sciences applied to the field of medicine, offered at Unicamp's Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas for 25 years (1965-90). It shows how this particular course was influenced by the international seminars that defined new directions in medical education during the 1950s. It also explores the role played by the Pan-American Health Organization and by Brazilian institutions in posing health care as a social issue. This history is divided into three periods: initial experiences, from 1965 to 1969; construction of a social health-care project in the 1970s; and the 1980s consolidation of this project. The various teaching approaches always sought to incorporate the social dimension and its dynamics in order to gain a better understanding of the health-sickness process and the organization of health practices.