Bio: (1915–2002) British sociologist and political activist. Michael Dunlop Young (Lord Young of Dartington) studied economics at the London School of Economics. In 1953, he founded the Institute of Community Studies, a non-profit research institute, and used this institute to conduct his ethnographic and policy research. In 1965, he became the head of the newly established Social Science Research Council. Young and Peter Willmott published  Family and Kinship in East London (1957), an ethnographic study based on interviews and observation of the members of one working-class community. Family and Class in a London Suburb (1960) was the sequel of the previous study, and it dealt with lifes of the individuals and families that moved to the suburbs. His satirical essay The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958) advocated for equal opportunities in education. In works such as The Metronomic Society: Natural Rhythms and Human Timetables (1988), Young showed his interest in the subject of time and human rhythms.

Main works

What is a Socialised Industry? (1947);

Small Man, Big World: A Discussion of Socialist Democracy (1949);

Family and Kinship in East London (1957);

The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958);

Family and Class in a London Suburb (1960);

Forecasting and the Social Sciences [ed.] (1968);

The Symmetrical Family: A Study of Work and Leisure in the London Region (1975);

Mutual Aid in a Selfish Society: A Plea for Strengthening the Co-operative Movement (1979);

Revolution from Within: Cooperatives and Cooperation in British Industry (1983);

The Metronomic Society: Natural Rhythms and Human Timetables (1988);

Rhythms of society (1988).