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During the 1973 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the author attended a roundtable discussion chaired by Professor Robert Friedrichs. The whole meeting was devoted to discussing the possibility of sociologist B.F. Skinner's influence emerging in the U.S. sociology, a topic that Friedrichs had explored in a paper he delivered earlier at one of the ASA sessions. In reference to the Skinnerian influence on sociology, the author criticizes sociologist Donald Tarter's article published in the November 1973 issue of the periodical "The American Sociologist," which stated that Friedrichs' eminence in the discipline of sociology and the Skinnerian influence is justified. The author's intention is to point out that Tarter's article is at best naive as regards his misunderstanding of sociology and that the presuppositions underlying his argument suggest an ideological position that can only be repugnant to anyone committed to a society that is as free and open as possible. The author substantiates his indictments by first commenting on what he believes to be Tarter's sociological naivety on the basis of a passage in which Tarter writes "Behavioral complexities never before thought possible have emerged in the form of pigeons playing ping-pong or chimps breaking through the communication barrier to man."

Sociological production is a situated and embodied activity carried out by individuals inserted in actual social relations. Considering that this feature has an influence upon the content of scholarly literature and that it can be revealed in the scientific text itself, I propound a new interpretation of the writing process of Robert E. Park's "The City," the famous paper he published initially in 1915. Customarily depicted as a manifesto for an autonomous urban sociology, I argue on the contrary that its general economy has to be linked to Park's biographical background. When he affiliated with the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago, Park was brought to teach a course on the social survey. "The City" was to be the academic expression of his point of view on the topic. Park's biographical encounters with some active promoters of the social survey approach are evidenced and their influence on his 1915 essay is carefully analyzed, showing notably that curious intellectual omissions in "The City" can be traced back to these previous encounters. Park's latter texts, and the 1925 revised version of "The City" in particular, are shown to provide the interwar sociologists with a peculiar narrative about the history of sociology: Park's predecessors are deliberately confined in a pre-scientific stage of the discipline and Park's original essay is presented as a seminal research program destined to be later fulfilled by the newly established urban sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the revanchist ideology that often passes under the rubric of sociobiology, a perspective that insists on the learned nature of social behavior is welcome. Undoubtedly, a search for the causes and careers of human behavior is a legitimate enterprise in sociology, but in the context of Molm's paper, a different question must be raised regarding behaviorist sociology. The root criticism of behavioral sociology, it seems to me, is the one she attributes to symbolic interactionism. The view that human emit behavior, Molm contends, is not a mechanistic theory at all because operant behaviors are not automatically elicited by any prior stimulus, they simply occur not elicited by a stimulus. If something that is yet to happen is the cause of the behavior that is about to be emitted, then surely it is the anticipation of receiving the reinforcement that is causing the behavior. I am sure Molm is correct that the argument about behavioral sociology is really about behavioral sociology is really about the goals and aims of science.

Each moment of the sociological enterprise may be rightly regarded as a turning point, that is, a place of choosing among options that have consequences for the field. The papers in the September, 2003 issue of the journal "American Sociologist" share a theme of revisiting for the sake of new departures. Sociologist Neil J. Smelser begins with a broad overview of a century's travels that affirms the value of the sociological endeavor and looks optimistically ahead to new developments. Sociologists Douglas Hartmann, Paul R. Croll and Katja Guenther focus on past definitions of the race-relations problematic in order to articulate emergent understandings. Sociologist Michael DeCesare reconsiders the relationship between earlier choices of theoretical orientation and later pedagogical practices. Sociologists Joel Best and David Schweingruber cast a critical eye toward the established terminology in sociological textbooks, asking whether one should continue this way of teaching the profession's language. Sociologist Patrick D. Nolan offers a similar reflection on standardized stories and rhetorical strategies in the textbooks that represent the field to most undergraduates.

This article presents a commentary on an article about the protection of human subjects in field social science research. The paper raises some important questions regarding limitations place on field researchers in the form of policies concerning the protection of human subjects. Most social scientists would agree that field research strategies occupy an important role in attempts to explain and predict human behavior. The paper does little to enlighten readers about the reality of any such threats by such policies regarding human subjects protection in general, and policies concerning approval of field studies in particular. One common misconception held by many sociologists is that researchers must routinely obtain signed statements of informed consent. Alternatively, the requirement of informed consent may be waived when the existence of a signed consent document would be the only record linking the subject and the research and that the only significant risk would be potential harm resulting from breach of confidentiality. The protection of human subjects is a difficult and complex task. However, the importance of such issue for the discipline requires a careful examination of the facts and acquaintance with various procedures on a first-hand-basis.

Major features of the thought of Pitirim A. Sorokin are related to Michael Burawoy's four forms of sociology. The article develops the theme that Sorokin's system of sociology makes major contributions to identifying standards of excellence for professional, critical, policy, and public sociology and for their interrelationships. Sorokin's integral ontology and epistemology are described and identified as sources of the distinctive characteristics of his system of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses "public sociology" as defined by Michael Burawoy, in relationship to the author's own personal experiences. It discusses her journeys in public sociology, examining five aspects: what brought her to this approach, what she have tried to do in terms of research, some of her efforts to teach public sociology, some of the difficulties one confronts, and why she thinks that public sociology contributes to the discipline. She also discusses Burawoy's distinction between "organic" and "traditional" public sociology.

Michael Burawoy's call for a public sociology disciplined by professional and policy sociology, on the one side, and driven by critical sociology, on the other, exposes the ideological biases of sociology to publics. In so doing, public sociology will thwart non-ideological efforts for sociology to exert influence on broader publics and on political decision-makers. In order for sociology to be able to influence public opinion and the decisions of key players in the political and economic arenas, it will need to earn respect through a long evolutionary process of careful research and explanation without ideological fervor. To expose the ideological biases of sociology will thwart this evolutionary process. In contrast, sociology would be much better to develop an engineering mentality in addressing issues, problems, and concerns of publics in present-day societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colin Sumner has declared that the sociology of deviance as a research specialty was “dead” by 1975; later influential studies on norm-violating behavior appeared only in the specific area of criminology. We subjected this argument to empirical test through an analysis of the most-cited scholars and works in 263 textbooks, articles, and research notes appearing in the sociology of deviance from 1993 to 1999. We found some support for Sumner's claims: The majority of the most-cited scholars in deviance today conduct research in other areas, primarily in criminology. Furthermore, among the 31 most-cited works in our analysis, only two of 15 studies classified in the sociology of deviance appeared after 1975. We conclude with some thoughts about the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of research specializations in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims at reexamining the origins and character of economic sociology by comparison with rational choice within the history of economic and social ideas, particularly neoclassical economic and classical sociological theory. Some suggestions for a rational choice approach to economic sociology are particularly curious in that they tend to conflate the distinct characters and origins of these two disciplines throughout this history and have in turn provided an impetus for this reexamination. Modern rational choice theorists display a predilection for reducing economic (and, all) sociology into an economic approach to human behavior, with many economic sociologists evincing some degree of lenience or benevolence vis-à-vis such tendencies. Both tendencies do not seem justified in light of the different nature and origin of economic sociology and rational choice in the history of social and economic ideas. Since the current literature lacks coherent attempts at specifying the nature and historical roots of economic sociology versus those of rational choice, the article contributes toward filling in this hole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This autobiographical sketch is divided into five major sections. A first indicates how participation in certain sectors of institutional life in a small industrial community (in central PA between World Wars I and II) might be conducive to non-conformity. A third shows how early personal experiences could commit one to religious dissent, involving a C.O. position, entering civilian public (rather than military) service, and volunteering as a subject in a semi-starvation experiment in a laboratory at a major Midwestern university, which simultaneously permitted work on an M.A. in sociology. A fourth (after discharge from service) brought a return to normal civilian life, marriage, and completion of sociology doctorates (by both spouses). The fifth summarizes the pursuit of a career specializing in sociological theory (especially history of American theory) and development of a classificatory-periodizing scheme considerably at variance with the conventional approach in the history of theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This inquiry examines comparative trends in collaboration among scholars, both over several decades and for several scientific disciplines. Findings suggest that in sociology specifically and science generally the trend is toward greater collaborative scholarship. At the turn of the twentieth century, better than 90 percent of the articles appearing in major periodicals in physics, biochemistry, biology, and chemistry were sole authored. Today, over 95 percent of such articles are collaboratively published. Disciplines affiliated with the social and mathematical sciences have experienced similar monotonic increases in collaborative activity, albeit, at a slower rate. A discussion of plausible explanations is offered for this observed growth in scientific collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses theory of behaviorism. Like all theories of life, behaviorism makes a fundamental assumption as to the nature of life and that assumption is that the whole world, or universe, is one continuous mechanism, as it were; that everything in human life and civilization can be explained on this basis without introducing the separate agency of any force not obeying the same natural laws as those we know. In psycho-analysis we have a comparatively recent phase of the science of human behavior. The essence of the theory, after it has been stripped of Freud's strong emphasis on sex, which is not essential to our purpose and of some of its mentalistic traits, is that the behavior reactions of the individual are organized into interrelated groups of ideas, or complexes. These complexes are gradually built up by the association of more or less closely related ideas so that a reference to one idea will bring out a large number of those closely associated with it. The psycho-analysts then conceive that complexes are built up which are in more or less direct conflict at some point at which they come in contact. Since the complexes are built up around one central idea it is natural that they should not always be in complete harmony with all sides of a group of ideas built up around a totally different central idea. This conflict of complexes will cause a more or less complete dissociation of the personality of the individual which the individual attempts to overcome either by harmonizing the conflict, or by the repression of one complex or the other.

As a discipline, sociology has had to confront criticism of the nature and ends of sociological research and ethnical dilemmas in the study of social problems and people. Over time guidelines have appeared to aid in protecting subjects and colleagues (e.g., the ASA Code of Ethics) and to guarantee research standards (e.g., the peer-reviewed proposal process, human subjects committees). However, guidelines tend not to address the challenges sociologists face in international research. This results in unpleasant experiences and potentially endangers research and researcher alike. This articles responds to the gap in the literature on ethical issues in international research. It draws on writings by social scientists and from the author's experience in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]