The publication is devoted to the development of sociology in the post-crisis period of the 1920s to the early 1970s. Within the framework of the general theoretical and stabilization background characterizing this period in the development of sociology, the methodological theories of T. Parsons, P. Sorokin, R. Merton, leading theorists of the Chicago school are analyzed. The authors consider the emergence and development of the main schools of interpretive sociology - symbolic interactionism, phenomenological sociology, ethnomethodology. Particular attention is paid to the formation of various traditions of sociological theorizing in France, England and Germany.