Dorothy E. Smith

Who is Dorothy E. Smith?

Dorothy Edith Smith is a Canadian sociologist with research interests, besides in sociology, in many disciplines including women's studies, psychology, and educational studies, as well as sub-fields of sociology including feminist theory, family studies, and methodology. She also founded the sociological sub-disciplines of feminist Standpoint theory and Institutional Ethnography.

Smith was born in Northallerton, Yorkshire England to Dorothy F. Place and Tom Place, into a family including three brothers. One of her brothers, Ullin Place, is well known for his work on consciousness as a process of the brain, another is a recognized British poet, Milner Place.

Smith did her undergraduate work at the London School of Economics, earning her B.Sc in Sociology with a Major in Social Anthropology in 1955. She then married William Reid Smith, whom she had met while attending LSE, and they moved to the United States. They both attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her Ph.D in Sociology in 1963, nine months after the birth of their second child. Not long afterwards she and her husband were divorced; she retained custody of the children.