Abstract
The long-standing divide between sociology as an activist discipline vs. sociology as a science is examined in light of the current trend for American sociology focus on a limited set of justice issues resulting from inequalities and discrimination against certain categories of persons. Increasingly, this trend is pushing sociology toward become an activist discipline and, as a result, an ideologically-oriented discipline in its teaching and research activities. The outcome of this trend is the growing marginalization of those committed to sociology as a science in departments and academic meetings, resulting in demoralization of sociology’s scientists and their escalating concern over their fate in a discipline increasingly mimicking a social movement organization. Even more damaging to sociology will be a loss of respect inside academia and a loss of relevance among publics not sharing American sociology’s political biases. Furthermore, the chance for sociology to use its vast store of knowledge to help clients of all types solve their organizational problems will be lost if sociology is defined as a political rather than scientific enterprise. Sociology will thus willingly leave the vast resource niche for applications of social science knowledge to disciplines that know little about social organization (i.e., economics and psychology). Sociology will endure, of course, but it will not realize its enormous potential for reshaping societies.
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Notes
For example, here are the themes for some recent meetings: “Power, Inequality, and Resistance at Work” (2020), “Engaging social justice for a better social world” (2019), “Feeling race: an invitation to explore racialized emotions” (2018), “Culture, inequalities, and social inclusion across the globe” (2017); “Sexualities in the social world” (2015); “Hard times: the impact of inequality on families and individuals” (2014); “Interrogating Inequality: Linking Micro and Macro” (2013). For one meeting, any one of these themes would be interesting, but these represent a recent pattern over the last decade or so to focus on inequality, although the 2010, 2009, and 2005 meetings had more generic titles and were not focused on inequalities. Still, the trend it clear.
An issue that is at the core of the 2019 and 2020 ASA meetings and, thus, is still very much a part of sociology.
Sociological research has often been used this way, as was evident in the landmark Supreme Court decision on school segregation and up to the present where sociological data can be used to document inequalities for those seeking justice in courts.
Some of the titles of these textbooks of early founders reveal the surface appeal to Comte’s and Spencer’s views of sociology as a science: Principles of Sociology (Ross), Social Change (Ogburn), The Science of Society (Sumner and Keller), Social Processes (Cooley), Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Park and Burgess).
The intolerance is actually more pervasive because sociology does not like other disciplines, such as history and economics, have conservatives and liberal wings. Conservatives hardly exist in American sociology departments; and while more may exist than is known, these conservatives have learned to keep quiet. Thus, there is high dogmatism among sociologists, even those who are hard scientists, historical sociologists, and other areas of inquiry where conservative and liberal debates are part of the discipline. Such is not the case in sociology, which is an irony given the push for “inclusiveness” within the discipline. But this inclusiveness is high conditional.
I am grateful to Karen Edwards and, in particular, Nancy Kidd at ASA who provided me with useful tables from which the following generalizations are drawn here and elsewhere where numbers are used. Also, thanks to William Kalkhoff for informing me to the availability of the data and for his interpretations of what they denote.
A number of universities have either MA or PhD programs that seek to apply sociological knowledge—e.g., Baylor, UMass at Boston, and U. of Maryland, Baltimore. These programs, however, tend to be somewhat specialized and scattered in their emphasis; and thus, they do not present a coherent program that can lead to standardized credentials and certification.
A useful comparison is the field of public history, which is the application of historical expertise to local community histories. This has been an enormously successful application of historical methods, and it is somz`ething that sociology could emulate by having the expertise to solve what are very typical and chronic problems in American communities of all sizes and types. There would be jobs for such “public sociologists”; and these would job that could become careers if the sociologist could provide solutions for the problems that inevitably emerge in cities and urban areas.
The Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology has developed a procedure for certifying applied sociologists and clinical sociologists. Yet, such certifications are ex post facto, rather than tied to a coherent national program of education. What sociology needs is much more rigorous and standardized criteria of expertise for certifying sociologists. Some more like what psychology does for clinical psychology or that any engineering school or medical school does in preparing its graduates to take standardized examinations that lead to certification.
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Acknowledgements
My thanks to Stephen F. Steele for making many useful suggestions for the manuscript as well as for providing me with information on existing applied sociology programs and efforts to certify sociologists engaged in various forms of sociological practice. See his and coauthors useful books. Also, thanks to my academic daughter, Patricia Turner, for making suggestions to tone down my polemics.
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Turner, J.H. The More American Sociology Seeks to Become a Politically-Relevant Discipline, the More Irrelevant it Becomes to Solving Societal Problems. Am Soc 50, 456–487 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-019-09420-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-019-09420-5