Public sociology
Encyclopedia
Public sociology is an approach to the discipline
which seeks to transcend the academy and engage wider audiences. Rather than being defined by a particular method, theory
, or set of political
values, public sociology may be seen as a style of sociology
, a way of writing and a form of intellectual engagement. Michael Burawoy
has contrasted it with professional sociology, a form of academic sociology that is concerned primarily with addressing other professional sociologists.
Burawoy and other promoters of public sociology have sought to encourage the discipline to engage in explicitly public and political ways with issues stimulated by debates over public policy, political activism
, the purposes of social movements, and the institutions of civil society
. If there has been a "movement" associated with public sociology, then, it is one that has sought to revitalize the discipline of sociology by leveraging its empirical
methods and theoretical insights to engage in debates not just about what is or what has been in society, but about what society might yet be. Thus, many versions of public sociology have had an undeniably normative
and political character--a fact that has led a significant number of sociologists to oppose the approach.
. Public sociology raises questions about what sociology is and what its goals ought to (or even could) be. Such debates - over science and political advocacy, scholarship and public commitment - have a long history in American sociology and in American social science more generally. Historian Mark C. Smith, for instance, has investigated earlier debates over the purpose of social science in his book, Social Science in the Crucible: The American Debate over Objectivity and Purpose,1918-1941 (Duke University Press, 1994). And Stephen Park Turner and Jonathan H. Turner showed how the discipline's search for a purpose, through dependence on external publics, has limited Sociology's potential in their book, The Impossible Science: An Institutional Analysis of American Sociology (Sage, 1990).
The term "public sociology" was first introduced by Herbert Gans, in a 1988 address entitled "Sociology in America: The Discipline and the Public." For Gans, primary examples of public sociologists included David Riesman
, author of The Lonely Crowd, one of the best-selling books of sociology ever to be written, and Robert Bellah, the lead author of another best-selling work, Habits of the Heart. In 2000, sociologist Ben Agger wrote a book entitled Public Sociology: From Social Facts to Literary Acts which called for a sociology that addressed major public issues. Since Michael Burawoy's 2004 Presidency of the American Sociological Association
on a public sociology platform the phrase has received a great deal of attention and debate.
elections provides a succinct summary of his position: "As mirror and conscience of society, sociology must define, promote and inform public debate about deepening class
and racial inequalities, new gender regimes, environmental degradation, market fundamentalism
, state and non-state violence. I believe that the world needs public sociology - a sociology that transcends the academy - more than ever. Our potential publics are multiple, ranging from media
audiences to policy makers, from silenced minorities to social movements. They are local, global, and national. As public sociology stimulates debate in all these contexts, it inspires and revitalizes our discipline. In return, theory and research give legitimacy, direction, and substance to public sociology. Teaching is equally central to public sociology: students are our first public for they carry sociology into all walks of life. Finally, the critical imagination, exposing the gap between what is and what could be, infuses values into public sociology to remind us that the world could be different."
Elsewhere, Burawoy has articulated a vision of public sociology that is consonant with the pursuit of democratic socialism
. In Critical Sociology, Burawoy writes: "We might say that critical engagement with real utopias is today an integral part of the project of sociological socialism. It is a vision of socialism that places human society, or social humanity at its organizing center, a vision that was central to Marx
but that was too often lost before it was again picked up by Gramsci and Polanyi (Burawoy, 2003b). If public sociology is to have a progressive impact it will have to hold itself continuously accountable to some such vision of democratic socialism."
In a slightly different vein, Burawoy and Jonathan VanAntwerpen of the University of California, Berkeley
write that their departmental focus on public sociology aims to "turn, as C. Wright Mills
would say, private concerns into public issues" . The public sociology produced at Berkeley is an attempt to intervene in ongoing public debates over issues such as class and gender disparities and global inequality. Some of this work consists of attempts to refute high profile public scholarship in other fields (such as Herrnstein
and Murray
's The Bell Curve
) and reclaim from non-sociologists the debate and explanation of sociological problems.
Likewise, the sociology department at the University of Minnesota
also advocates claiming a larger role in public life: "Although good sociological research is often difficult to reduce to a sound-bite, sociologists have an important part to play in providing useful, accurate, and scientifically rigorous information to policy makers and community leaders."
Indeed, sociologists have not been alone in debating the "public role" of social science. Similar debates have occurred recently in the disciplines of economics
, political science
, anthropology
, geography
and history
, and various subdisciplines including political ecology
. In an effort to move these various disciplines "toward a more public social science," Craig Calhoun
, the President of the Social Science Research Council
, has encouraged sociologists and other social scientists to "ask better social science questions about what encourages scientific innovation, what makes knowledge
useful, and how to pursue both these agendas, with attention to both immediate needs and longterm capacities http://www.ssrc.org/programs/calhoun/. Calhoun has also entered the debate about public sociology, critically evaluating the project of public sociology while acknowledging its specific "promise," and arguing that "how sociology matters in the public sphere is vital to the future of the field" .
In the 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential Address for public sociology Burawoy stipulates that the original passions such as, social justice, economic equality, human rights, political freedom or simply a better world to live in; that drives so many of us toward the discipline of sociology, is actually channelled into the pursuit of academic credentials. Also in this work, Burawoy maps out why he feels the appeal of public sociology is so important at this time. He feels that over the last half of the century the political stance of Sociology has drifted inone critical direction whilst the world it studies has moved in the opposite direction. Burawoy proposes that the radicalism of the 1960s diffused itself through the profession and consequently in however dilute form resulted in the increased presence and participation of racial minorities and women. This marked a significant drift in the 1960s that is felt to be echoed in the content of sociology at that time. Thus through this Burawoy marks some examples of this shift in the nature of the way sociology was being approached.
There are many examples of this shift for Burawoy, the study of the sociology of work had turned from processes of adaptation to the study of domination and labour movements. Also in a more general sense the concepts of stratification theory had shifted from the study of mobility within a hierarchy of occupational prestige to the examination of changing structures of social and economic inequality-class, race and gender. Race theory moved from theories of assimilation to the political economy to the study of racial formations. Social theory had allowed, and introduced more radical interpretations of main figurehead writers such as Weber and Durkheim, and also the incorporation of Marx's theory had become a feature; from this standpoint it was also felt that feminism had a both substantial and dramatic impact in certain fields of the subject.
This interpretation of the changes in ideology where sociology is concerned is said to be pulling in the opposite direction in terms of the world changing according to Burawoy. Whilst sociologists reiterate their jargon concerning the ever deepening crisis of inequality and domination; we as the public are flooded with the influx of rhetoric promoting equality and freedom. Burawoy highlights the concerns of a significant drift between the agenda of sociology and the progression of society itself when he acknowledges that over the last 25 years there may well have been gains in economic security and civil rights. However these gains have been heavily counter-acted and reversed by huge market expansion. From this perspective it is felt that the combination of market and state has served to be wielded as a mechanism working against humanity in the shape of what we should term neoliberalism.
There is the criticism that sociologists have become much more sensitive in their approach and focused negatively sometimes, although however, much of the evidence collected does suggest a certain amount of regression in several arenas. Much of these ideas are to be held together by the fabric and fundamental ethos that is hostile towards the idea of 'society'. This idea has antisociological implications in its self. A picture of public sociology versus privatisation begins to emerge through this discourse. Is the market the only solution? Burawoy's fundamental drive is fuelled by his desire to see the concept of public reignited in some way, and not allowed to be another casualty in the storm that has become progression. So for Burawoy the political era of the 1960s saw a shift in direction for the subject of sociology that was to conflict that of the changing nature of the world. Globalization and Privatisation seemed to play a key role in sociology losing its public voice. Burawoy wanted young academics taking on sociology as an interest, or in the shape of academia to use it in their everyday lives; thus fulfilling a certain criteria of pushing sociology's boundaries into the public realm. Burawoy has resonance of talking about public sociology that could be used a revolutionary force for understanding social change.
References.
Burawoy, M. 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential address: For public sociology. 2005 Volume 56, Issue 2.
at which public sociology was introduced and subsequently discussed, there has continued to be interest in the topic. In the last couple of years, three books have appeared in public sociology: The "Public Sociologies Reader", edited by Judith Blau and Keri Iyall Smith; "Public Sociology: The Contemporary Debate", edited by Larry Nichols; and "Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century", edited by Dan Clawson, et al. The ASA meeting in New York City in 2007 likewise contained many facets of public sociology.
, which put the theme of public sociology in the limelight, the project of public sociology has been vigorously debated on the web, in conversations among sociologists, and in a variety of academic journals.
Specifically, Burawoy's vision of public sociology has been critiqued both by "critical
" sociologists and by representatives of academic sociology. These various discussions of public sociology have been included in forums devoted to the subject in academic journal
s such as Social Problems, Social Forces, Critical Sociology, and the British Journal of Sociology
http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/BURAWOY/workingpapers.htm. Public sociology faces fierce criticism on the grounds of both of its logic and its goals. Its critics claim that it is based on a false premise
of consensus in the sociological community, arguing that "it greatly overestimates the uniformity of the moral and political agenda of sociologists." They question the possibility and the desirability of such moral agreement, pointing out that "almost every social issue involves moral dilemmas, not moral clarity. What is or is not 'just' is almost never unambiguous." . Others argue that public sociology is based on an uncritical and overly idealistic perception of the public sphere.
Even stronger critiques come from academics who believe that the program of public sociology will unduly politicise the discipline and thus endanger the legitimacy sociology has in the public dialog. These critics argue that the project of building a reliable body of knowledge about society is fundamentally incompatible with the goals of public sociology: "To the extent that we orient our work around moral principles, we are less likely to attend to theoretical issues. The greater the extent to which we favor particular outcomes, the less able are we to design our work to actually access such outcomes. And the more ideologically oriented our objectives, the less the chance that we can recognize or assimilate contrary evidence. In other words, rather than good professional sociology being mutually interactive with public sociology, I believe that public sociology gets in the way of good professional sociology."
One of the most outspoken critics of public sociology was sociologist Mathieu Deflem of the University of South Carolina
. Deflem argued that public sociology “is neither public nor sociology. Public sociology is not a plea to make sociology more relevant to the many publics in society nor to connect sociology democratically to political activity. Of course sociologists should be public intellectuals. But they should be and can only be public intellectuals as practitioners of the science they practice, not as activists left or right. Yet public sociology instead is a quest to subsume sociology under politics, a politics of a specific kind, not in order to foster sociological activism but to narrow down the sociological discipline to activist sociology.” (Deflem, Letter to the Editor, The Chronicle Review, 2004). In opposition to the advent of public sociology, Deflem also maintained the website SaveSociology.org.
using sociological knowledge in an applied setting. Applied sociologists work in a wide variety of settings including universities, government, and private practice, using sociological methods to help communities solve everyday problems, such as improving community policing and crime prevention, evaluating and improving drug courts, assessing the needs of inner city neighborhoods, developing the capacity of an educational system, or promoting the development of housing and related resources for aging populations.
Sociological practice is different from pure academic sociology in which sociologists work in an academic setting such as a university with a teaching and pure research orientation. Although there are some common origins, sociological practice is entirely distinct from social work
. An increasing number of universities are attempting to gear curricula toward practical sociology in this way. Clinical sociology courses give students the skills to be able to work effectively with clients, teach basic counseling skills, give knowledge that is useful for careers such as victims assisting and drug rehabilitation, and teach the student how to integrate sociological knowledge with other fields they may go into such as marriage and family therapy, and clinical social work.
Academic departments
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
which seeks to transcend the academy and engage wider audiences. Rather than being defined by a particular method, theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
, or set of political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
values, public sociology may be seen as a style of sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, a way of writing and a form of intellectual engagement. Michael Burawoy
Michael Burawoy
Michael Burawoy is a British, sociological Marxist, best known as author of Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalisma study on work and organizations that has been translated into a number of languagesand as the leading proponent of public sociology...
has contrasted it with professional sociology, a form of academic sociology that is concerned primarily with addressing other professional sociologists.
Burawoy and other promoters of public sociology have sought to encourage the discipline to engage in explicitly public and political ways with issues stimulated by debates over public policy, political activism
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, the purposes of social movements, and the institutions of civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
. If there has been a "movement" associated with public sociology, then, it is one that has sought to revitalize the discipline of sociology by leveraging its empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
methods and theoretical insights to engage in debates not just about what is or what has been in society, but about what society might yet be. Thus, many versions of public sociology have had an undeniably normative
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
and political character--a fact that has led a significant number of sociologists to oppose the approach.
History
Debates over public sociology have rekindled questions concerning the extra-academic purpose of sociologySociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
. Public sociology raises questions about what sociology is and what its goals ought to (or even could) be. Such debates - over science and political advocacy, scholarship and public commitment - have a long history in American sociology and in American social science more generally. Historian Mark C. Smith, for instance, has investigated earlier debates over the purpose of social science in his book, Social Science in the Crucible: The American Debate over Objectivity and Purpose,1918-1941 (Duke University Press, 1994). And Stephen Park Turner and Jonathan H. Turner showed how the discipline's search for a purpose, through dependence on external publics, has limited Sociology's potential in their book, The Impossible Science: An Institutional Analysis of American Sociology (Sage, 1990).
The term "public sociology" was first introduced by Herbert Gans, in a 1988 address entitled "Sociology in America: The Discipline and the Public." For Gans, primary examples of public sociologists included David Riesman
David Riesman
David Riesman , was a sociologist, attorney, and educator....
, author of The Lonely Crowd, one of the best-selling books of sociology ever to be written, and Robert Bellah, the lead author of another best-selling work, Habits of the Heart. In 2000, sociologist Ben Agger wrote a book entitled Public Sociology: From Social Facts to Literary Acts which called for a sociology that addressed major public issues. Since Michael Burawoy's 2004 Presidency of the American Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
on a public sociology platform the phrase has received a great deal of attention and debate.
Public sociology today
While there is no one definition of "public sociology" on which all sociologists agree, the term has come to be widely associated with Burawoy's promotion of it. Burawoy's personal statement for the ASAAmerican Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
elections provides a succinct summary of his position: "As mirror and conscience of society, sociology must define, promote and inform public debate about deepening class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
and racial inequalities, new gender regimes, environmental degradation, market fundamentalism
Market fundamentalism
Market fundamentalism is a pejorative term applied to a strong belief in the ability of laissez-faire or free market economic views or policies to solve economic and social problems....
, state and non-state violence. I believe that the world needs public sociology - a sociology that transcends the academy - more than ever. Our potential publics are multiple, ranging from media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
audiences to policy makers, from silenced minorities to social movements. They are local, global, and national. As public sociology stimulates debate in all these contexts, it inspires and revitalizes our discipline. In return, theory and research give legitimacy, direction, and substance to public sociology. Teaching is equally central to public sociology: students are our first public for they carry sociology into all walks of life. Finally, the critical imagination, exposing the gap between what is and what could be, infuses values into public sociology to remind us that the world could be different."
Elsewhere, Burawoy has articulated a vision of public sociology that is consonant with the pursuit of democratic socialism
Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...
. In Critical Sociology, Burawoy writes: "We might say that critical engagement with real utopias is today an integral part of the project of sociological socialism. It is a vision of socialism that places human society, or social humanity at its organizing center, a vision that was central to Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
but that was too often lost before it was again picked up by Gramsci and Polanyi (Burawoy, 2003b). If public sociology is to have a progressive impact it will have to hold itself continuously accountable to some such vision of democratic socialism."
In a slightly different vein, Burawoy and Jonathan VanAntwerpen of the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
write that their departmental focus on public sociology aims to "turn, as C. Wright Mills
C. Wright Mills
Charles Wright Mills was an American sociologist. Mills is best remembered for his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination in which he lays out a view of the proper relationship between biography and history, theory and method in sociological scholarship...
would say, private concerns into public issues" . The public sociology produced at Berkeley is an attempt to intervene in ongoing public debates over issues such as class and gender disparities and global inequality. Some of this work consists of attempts to refute high profile public scholarship in other fields (such as Herrnstein
Richard Herrnstein
Richard J. Herrnstein was an American researcher in animal learning in the Skinnerian tradition. He was one of the founders of quantitative analysis of behavior....
and Murray
Charles Murray (author)
Charles Alan Murray is an American libertarian political scientist, author, columnist, and pundit working as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC...
's The Bell Curve
The Bell Curve
The Bell Curve is a best-selling and controversial 1994 book by the Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray...
) and reclaim from non-sociologists the debate and explanation of sociological problems.
Likewise, the sociology department at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
also advocates claiming a larger role in public life: "Although good sociological research is often difficult to reduce to a sound-bite, sociologists have an important part to play in providing useful, accurate, and scientifically rigorous information to policy makers and community leaders."
Indeed, sociologists have not been alone in debating the "public role" of social science. Similar debates have occurred recently in the disciplines of economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, and various subdisciplines including political ecology
Political ecology
Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena....
. In an effort to move these various disciplines "toward a more public social science," Craig Calhoun
Craig Calhoun
Craig Calhoun is an American sociologist and an advocate of using social science to address issues of public concern. He is president of the Social Science Research Council, University Professor of the Social Sciences at New York University and Director of NYU's...
, the President of the Social Science Research Council
Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council is a U.S.-based independent nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines...
, has encouraged sociologists and other social scientists to "ask better social science questions about what encourages scientific innovation, what makes knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
useful, and how to pursue both these agendas, with attention to both immediate needs and longterm capacities http://www.ssrc.org/programs/calhoun/. Calhoun has also entered the debate about public sociology, critically evaluating the project of public sociology while acknowledging its specific "promise," and arguing that "how sociology matters in the public sphere is vital to the future of the field" .
In the 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential Address for public sociology Burawoy stipulates that the original passions such as, social justice, economic equality, human rights, political freedom or simply a better world to live in; that drives so many of us toward the discipline of sociology, is actually channelled into the pursuit of academic credentials. Also in this work, Burawoy maps out why he feels the appeal of public sociology is so important at this time. He feels that over the last half of the century the political stance of Sociology has drifted inone critical direction whilst the world it studies has moved in the opposite direction. Burawoy proposes that the radicalism of the 1960s diffused itself through the profession and consequently in however dilute form resulted in the increased presence and participation of racial minorities and women. This marked a significant drift in the 1960s that is felt to be echoed in the content of sociology at that time. Thus through this Burawoy marks some examples of this shift in the nature of the way sociology was being approached.
There are many examples of this shift for Burawoy, the study of the sociology of work had turned from processes of adaptation to the study of domination and labour movements. Also in a more general sense the concepts of stratification theory had shifted from the study of mobility within a hierarchy of occupational prestige to the examination of changing structures of social and economic inequality-class, race and gender. Race theory moved from theories of assimilation to the political economy to the study of racial formations. Social theory had allowed, and introduced more radical interpretations of main figurehead writers such as Weber and Durkheim, and also the incorporation of Marx's theory had become a feature; from this standpoint it was also felt that feminism had a both substantial and dramatic impact in certain fields of the subject.
This interpretation of the changes in ideology where sociology is concerned is said to be pulling in the opposite direction in terms of the world changing according to Burawoy. Whilst sociologists reiterate their jargon concerning the ever deepening crisis of inequality and domination; we as the public are flooded with the influx of rhetoric promoting equality and freedom. Burawoy highlights the concerns of a significant drift between the agenda of sociology and the progression of society itself when he acknowledges that over the last 25 years there may well have been gains in economic security and civil rights. However these gains have been heavily counter-acted and reversed by huge market expansion. From this perspective it is felt that the combination of market and state has served to be wielded as a mechanism working against humanity in the shape of what we should term neoliberalism.
There is the criticism that sociologists have become much more sensitive in their approach and focused negatively sometimes, although however, much of the evidence collected does suggest a certain amount of regression in several arenas. Much of these ideas are to be held together by the fabric and fundamental ethos that is hostile towards the idea of 'society'. This idea has antisociological implications in its self. A picture of public sociology versus privatisation begins to emerge through this discourse. Is the market the only solution? Burawoy's fundamental drive is fuelled by his desire to see the concept of public reignited in some way, and not allowed to be another casualty in the storm that has become progression. So for Burawoy the political era of the 1960s saw a shift in direction for the subject of sociology that was to conflict that of the changing nature of the world. Globalization and Privatisation seemed to play a key role in sociology losing its public voice. Burawoy wanted young academics taking on sociology as an interest, or in the shape of academia to use it in their everyday lives; thus fulfilling a certain criteria of pushing sociology's boundaries into the public realm. Burawoy has resonance of talking about public sociology that could be used a revolutionary force for understanding social change.
References.
Burawoy, M. 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential address: For public sociology. 2005 Volume 56, Issue 2.
The future of public sociology
Following the 2004 annual meeting of the American Sociological AssociationAmerican Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
at which public sociology was introduced and subsequently discussed, there has continued to be interest in the topic. In the last couple of years, three books have appeared in public sociology: The "Public Sociologies Reader", edited by Judith Blau and Keri Iyall Smith; "Public Sociology: The Contemporary Debate", edited by Larry Nichols; and "Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century", edited by Dan Clawson, et al. The ASA meeting in New York City in 2007 likewise contained many facets of public sociology.
Criticism
A significant number of those who practice sociology either as public intellectuals or as academic professionals do not subscribe to the specific version of "public sociology" defended by Michael Burawoy or to any version of "public sociology" at all. And in the wake of Burawoy's 2004 Presidency of the American Sociological AssociationAmerican Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
, which put the theme of public sociology in the limelight, the project of public sociology has been vigorously debated on the web, in conversations among sociologists, and in a variety of academic journals.
Specifically, Burawoy's vision of public sociology has been critiqued both by "critical
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
" sociologists and by representatives of academic sociology. These various discussions of public sociology have been included in forums devoted to the subject in academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
s such as Social Problems, Social Forces, Critical Sociology, and the British Journal of Sociology
British Journal of Sociology
The British Journal of Sociology is an academic journal, founded in 1950 at the London School of Economics. The main founders were the sociologists Morris Ginsberg and Thomas Humphrey Marshall. Their intended title, "The London Journal of Sociology", seems to have been changed by the publisher...
http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/BURAWOY/workingpapers.htm. Public sociology faces fierce criticism on the grounds of both of its logic and its goals. Its critics claim that it is based on a false premise
False premise
A false premise is an incorrect proposition that forms the basis of a logical syllogism. Since the premise is not correct, the conclusion drawn may be in error...
of consensus in the sociological community, arguing that "it greatly overestimates the uniformity of the moral and political agenda of sociologists." They question the possibility and the desirability of such moral agreement, pointing out that "almost every social issue involves moral dilemmas, not moral clarity. What is or is not 'just' is almost never unambiguous." . Others argue that public sociology is based on an uncritical and overly idealistic perception of the public sphere.
Even stronger critiques come from academics who believe that the program of public sociology will unduly politicise the discipline and thus endanger the legitimacy sociology has in the public dialog. These critics argue that the project of building a reliable body of knowledge about society is fundamentally incompatible with the goals of public sociology: "To the extent that we orient our work around moral principles, we are less likely to attend to theoretical issues. The greater the extent to which we favor particular outcomes, the less able are we to design our work to actually access such outcomes. And the more ideologically oriented our objectives, the less the chance that we can recognize or assimilate contrary evidence. In other words, rather than good professional sociology being mutually interactive with public sociology, I believe that public sociology gets in the way of good professional sociology."
One of the most outspoken critics of public sociology was sociologist Mathieu Deflem of the University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...
. Deflem argued that public sociology “is neither public nor sociology. Public sociology is not a plea to make sociology more relevant to the many publics in society nor to connect sociology democratically to political activity. Of course sociologists should be public intellectuals. But they should be and can only be public intellectuals as practitioners of the science they practice, not as activists left or right. Yet public sociology instead is a quest to subsume sociology under politics, a politics of a specific kind, not in order to foster sociological activism but to narrow down the sociological discipline to activist sociology.” (Deflem, Letter to the Editor, The Chronicle Review, 2004). In opposition to the advent of public sociology, Deflem also maintained the website SaveSociology.org.
Applied sociology
"Applied sociology" and "sociological practice" has come to refer to interventionIntervention (counseling)
An intervention is an orchestrated attempt by one, or often many, people to get someone to seek professional help with an addiction or some kind of traumatic event or crisis, or other serious problem. The term intervention is most often used when the traumatic event involves addiction to drugs...
using sociological knowledge in an applied setting. Applied sociologists work in a wide variety of settings including universities, government, and private practice, using sociological methods to help communities solve everyday problems, such as improving community policing and crime prevention, evaluating and improving drug courts, assessing the needs of inner city neighborhoods, developing the capacity of an educational system, or promoting the development of housing and related resources for aging populations.
Sociological practice is different from pure academic sociology in which sociologists work in an academic setting such as a university with a teaching and pure research orientation. Although there are some common origins, sociological practice is entirely distinct from social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
. An increasing number of universities are attempting to gear curricula toward practical sociology in this way. Clinical sociology courses give students the skills to be able to work effectively with clients, teach basic counseling skills, give knowledge that is useful for careers such as victims assisting and drug rehabilitation, and teach the student how to integrate sociological knowledge with other fields they may go into such as marriage and family therapy, and clinical social work.
Notable applied and clinical sociologists
- Jane AddamsJane AddamsJane Addams was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace...
- John G. Bruhn
- Elizabeth J. Clark
- Jonathan A. Friedman
- Jan M. Fritz
- C. Margaret Hall
- Rand L. Kannenberg
- Roger A. Straus
- Lester F. Ward
See also
- Public anthropologyPublic anthropologyPublic Anthropology, according to Robert Borofsky, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, "demonstrates the ability of anthropology and anthropologists to effectively address problems beyond the discipline - illuminating larger social issues of our times as well as encouraging broad, public...
- Popular psychologyPopular psychologyThe term popular psychology refers to concepts and theories about human mental life and behavior that are purportedly based on psychology and that attain popularity among the general population...
- SociotherapySociotherapySociotherapy is a social science and form of social work, and sociology that involves the study of groups of people, its constituent individuals and their behavior, using learned information in case and care management towards holistic life enrichment or improvement of social and life...
- Sociologists Without BordersSociologists Without BordersFounded in Madrid in 2001, Sociologists without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronteras is a Non-Governmental Organization that advances a cosmopolitan sociology and its activities are considered to be Public sociology. The organization has active chapters in Brazil, Chile, Italy, Spain and the U.S., and...
, international organization
Further reading
- Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven Tipton. 1985. Habits of the HeartHabits of the Heart- References :...
. Berkeley: University of California Press - C. Wright Mills. 1959 (2000). The Sociological ImaginationThe Sociological ImaginationThe Sociological Imagination is a book by American sociologist C. Wright Mills, first published by Oxford University Press in 1959 and still in print....
. Oxford University Press. - Burawoy, Michael: "For Public Sociology" (American Sociological Review, February 2005
- Burawoy, Michael: "The Return of the Repressed: Recovering the Public Face of U.S. Sociology, One Hundred Years On." (The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 600, July, 2005)
- Burawoy, Michael:"The Critical Turn to Public Sociology" (Critical Sociology, Summer 2005)
- Burawoy, Michael:"Rejoinder: Toward a Critical Public Sociology" (Critical Sociology, Summer 2005)
- Burawoy, Michael:"To Advance, Sociology Must not Retreat."
- Burawoy, Michael:"Public Sociologies: Contradictions, Dilemmas, and Possibilities." (Address to North Carolina Sociological Association, Social Forces, June 2004)
- Burawoy, Michael:"Public Sociologies: A Symposium from Boston College." (Social Problems, February 2004)
- Burawoy, Michael:"The World Needs Public Sociology" (Norwegian journal Sosiologisk tidsskrift, No. 3, 2004)
- Burawoy, Michael:"Public Sociology: South African Dilemmas in a Global Context." (Address to South African Sociological Association, Society in Transition, 2004)
- Burawoy, Michael:"Models of Public Sociology: Hausknecht vs. Burawoy." (Published in Footnotes)
- Burawoy, Michael:"Public Sociologies and the Grassroots." (Address to Sociologists for Women in Society)
- Burawoy, Michael:"Public Sociology at Berkeley: Past, Present and Future." (With Jonathan Van Antwerpen)
- Deflem, Mathieu. That’s in a Name: Concerning the ASA Career Award. ASA Forum Letter. Footnotes, ASA Newsletter, 36(3):8, March 2008.
- Deflem, Mathieu. Public Sociology, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet. The Journal of Professional and Public Sociology, inaugural issue, 2007.
- Deflem, Mathieu. Single-Issue Voting Tactic? Public Forum. Footnotes, ASA Newsletter, 34(5):12, May/June 2006. With comment and response.
- Deflem, Mathieu. Sociologists, One More Effort! A Propos Goodwin. Comparative & Historical Sociology, ASA Section newsletter, 16(2):4-6. With a response by Goodwin.
- Deflem, Mathieu. Comment (on public sociology). Contemporary Sociology 34(1):92-93, January 2005.
- Deflem, Mathieu. Southernizing Social Forces. The Southern Sociologist, Newsletter of the Southern Sociological Society, 36(3):12-15, Winter 2005.
- Deflem, Mathieu. The War in Iraq and the Peace of San Francisco: Breaking the Code of Public Sociology. Peace, War & Social Conflict, Newsletter of the ASA section, November 2004.
- Deflem, Mathieu. Letter to the Editor (The Proper Role of Sociology in the World at Large). The Chronicle Review, October 1, 2004.
- Deflem, Mathieu. There’s the ASA, But Where’s the Sociology? Letter. Footnotes, The ASA Newsletter, 32(6), p. 9, July/August 2004.
External links
- SaveSociology.org - website to promote sociology as an academic discipline
- Public sociology papers by Michael Burawoy
- Related papers by Mathieu Deflem
- Commission on Applied and Clinical Sociology
- Applied sociology & sociological practice
- "What is applied sociology?", Montclair State University
- "What is applied sociology/sociological practice?", Valdosta State University
- Don Arwood has a definition in his "Applied Sociology" class.
- Letter of Recognition in Applied Sociology at Anne Arundel Community College
- Questions and Answers on Applied Sociology and Sociological Practice
- Careers in Clinical Sociology
- Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology (AACS)
- American Sociological Association (ASA)
- Sociological Practice Association (SPA)
- *Using* Sociological Theories of Social Movements
- PublicSociology.com
- Sociology in America (PDF of Herbert Gans' talk which introduced the term, public sociology)
- Open Source Sociology - a project attempting to promote collaborate research, activities and open academic dialogue
Academic departments