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Lighting is increasingly recognized as a significant social intervention by both lighting professionals and academic social scientists. However, what counts as 'the social' is diverse and contested, with consequences for what kind of 'social' is performed or invented. Based on a long‐term research programme, we argue that collaboration between sociologists and lighting professionals requires negotiating discourses and practices of 'the social'. This paper explores the quality and kinds of spaces made for 'the social' in professional practices and academic collaborations, focusing on two case studies of urban lighting that demonstrate how the space of 'the social' is constrained and impoverished by an institutionalized division between technical and aesthetic lighting. We consider the potential role of sociologists in making more productive spaces for 'the social' in urban design, as part of the central sociological task of 'inventing the social' (Marres, Guggenheim and Wilkie 2018) in the process of studying it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Focus is made on two aspects of Burawoy's arguments which would be inaccurate if they were directed to the international community of sociologists: the division of social labor or functional differentiation among the four sociologies; and the nature of the friction among them. Thus, while Michael Burawoy's challenge to sociologists to think constructively and critically about sociology is timely and welcome, his ideas should be discussed in the context of the geographical breadth of the discipline.

This article points out that Michael Burawoy's call for a renewal of commitment to a public sociology has had a massive impact. Writing in the tradition of C. Wright Mills's clarion call, Burawoy seeks to defend the critical and reflexive role of the sociologist through his or her autonomous engagement in the public sphere of political decision. His argument has had a mixed reception in the United States. For the most part his views have been welcomed as re-emphasizing an important dimension of sociological activity that has, perhaps, been lost or submerged in the current political and financial climate of conservatism and retrenchment. Within the universities, many have found it easier to keep their heads down and get on with purely academic work, lest political involvement bring unwanted attention. Burawoy has been seen as re-asserting the political legitimacy of public participation. In some quarters, however, his views have met with a more negative reaction and have been seen as a scarcely concealed attempt to abandon impartiality and to advocate a leftist radicalism. This mixed reception was, perhaps, inevitable, given the political context in which Burawoy has intervened. He is, necessarily, critical of sociologists, other social scientists, the universities and the other institutions for which sociologists work, and also the wider structures of power in which these are enmeshed.

In this essay I want to address two question marks which arose during my reading of Michael Burawoy's inspiring piece. First, sharing his spirit of recreating the sociological enlightenment by differentiating between different types of public sociologies, I do not share his optimism that sociology can easily become an integral part of public discourse and practice. Second, I don’t think that mainstream sociology is really prepared for this adventure. My argument points in the opposite direction: all the different forms of public and non-public sociology are in danger of becoming museum pieces. Thus, sociology not only needs a public voice, it also needs to be reinvented first – in order to have a public voice at all! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Burawoy makes a compelling case that these four types of sociology can learn much from one another and that scholars who are simultaneously public, policy or critical sociologists as they are professional sociologists make special contributions to that end. Michael Burawoy's way of thinking about the disciplines is far from completely categorical, yet tends to the categorical at the level of "standpoints": economics studies the world from the standpoint of the market, political science from the standpoint of the state, sociology from the standpoint of civil society.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." The author has some criticism with Burawoy's call for public sociology but only over conceptual categories and matters of tactics. He is in accord with the broad purposes. Burawoy's call for more public sociology is important and timely. Some differences in approach are urged but like all sociologists seeking at once the ever-greater intellectual vitality for the field and a richer public life informed by sociology, the author is in his debt.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." While the author agrees with much of Burawoy's analysis, he addresses two concerns. First, he takes issue with Burawoy's claim that there are four sociologies, each associated with a distinct type of knowledge: professional, critical, policy and public. It is argued that these four types of knowledge are not discrete in the way he contends, and that all four are embedded in any sociological analysis. Second, Burawoy's article and wider research program concern the institutionalization of sociology and its communicative relations with other institutions. It is argued that his research should address the discrepant criteria of relevance and communication logics of different institutions and their implications for the sociological voice. Sociology does not translate easily into the discourses and practices of other institutions, for example the mass media, government inquiries, or the requirements of evidence in law. Sociological communication in these other public arenas may sometimes be impossible. When it is possible, there is often loss of sociological autonomy and influence as the analysis translates into the criteria of relevance and communication logic of the institution concerned.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Michael Burawoy deserves much credit for bringing the role of public sociology back to the discipline's attention. Public sociologists have always been called for. However, it is hard to recall a time in which they have been more needed but less in evidence than the present day. Burawoy's four-fold typology of sociology is quite useful. A few observations concerning engaging in public sociology are hereby presented. First, one cannot be a public sociologist, and arguably a sociologist of any other kind, without taking a normative position. Second, to be public is to be in politics. And anyone who is or who is contemplating becoming a public sociologist must decide how far along the action chain he or she is willing to proceed. It is then argued that to provide a stronger foundation for public sociology, we need to add policy research to basic research. Finally, what is called for if we are to train and foster more public sociologists is discussed.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Contrary to Burawoy, it is not that it is necessary to provincialize U.S. sociology but, rather, to recognize its "provincialism" and to pursue strategies which may open and expand it to other forms of sociological knowledge with mutual benefit to sociologists and their publics in the United States and elsewhere. The task is not an easy one and has many other dimensions which cannot be developed here. However, as he rightly notes, it is those with power who are best placed to develop strategies to further this process. Already initiatives involving groups such as the International Sociological Association, as well as the American Sociological Association, have commenced with the intention of strengthening the ability of sociology to address the major social needs of our time. The hope now is that these can be enhanced and extended.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Michael Burawoy has presented 11 theses on public sociology. Some of his main claims can be summarized in three statements: public sociology is part of a four-fold bundle of disciplinary activities; public sociology is important and should be made stronger and developed as an integrated part of the discipline; and public sociology requires well functioning publics. Comments are made on: academic institutions as bundles of activities; the nature of public sociology; and why and how dissemination and public discourse should be made stronger.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." The goal to convert the discipline into "a new policy science" of the Mertonian sort is likely to be subverted by the very complexities of the worlds we analyze. Advances in this direction will be more craft than science, made on a case by case basis. But in making these advances, professional sociology, with its rigorous methods, cumulative knowledge base, theories and concepts, insights, and legitimacy, is indisputably central to both public and policy sociology.

The proposition that social mobility increases with economic development has been widely accepted. However, it is one that can be construed in a number of quite different ways, which call for different kinds of empirical test. The comparative mobility data used in most tests thus fair made have been seriously defective. More recent research, based on data of greater reliability, suggests that the proposition in all its versions should be viewed with some scepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visibility of causal terminology in American sociology, from 1895 to the 1960s, has varied according to changing philosophies of science and patterns of scientific communication. Successive generations differed in their receptivity to the diffusion of causal concepts from traditions other than sociology. After briefly reviewing the status of causality in the pre-sociological period, causal terminology is observed across four successive cohorts of sociologists. The first generation, 1890 to 1910, spoke freely of 'causes' until the second generation, in command of method using English statistics until the 1930s, made talk of causes anathema. Following theorists called for a return to causal interpretations which commenced in the 1950s as new methods attuned to the prevailing philosophy of science were imported to sociology from other disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sociologically explores why the majority of British sociologists have not concerned themselves a great deal with Sigmund Freud's social theory. This contrasts with sociologists in Germany and France, many of whom have shown, both in the past and more recently, considerable interest in Freud. Freud has been more often seen by sociologists, following most psychologists and psychoanalysts, as a personality development theorist and therapist. This applies to those on the right, left and center of the political spectrum. The personality development theory, linked with the therapeutic method, is one part of psychoanalysis but is linked in with the more social process, phylogenesis. The unconscious, for Freud, is in social groups, social relationships, social institutions, and in individuals. Or rather there is no point in the distinction between a psychoanalysis of the collective unconscious and that of the personal. The unconscious is a term used to refer to emotions and feelings of which people are ordinarily unaware, but can be come aware by using their reason. One exception to the failure to treat Freud as a social scientist occurred outside British universities. This was at the Tavistock Institute, which probably has a higher reputation among social scientists abroad than in Great Britain.

This article profiles sociologist David Glass. For some sociologists the unifying principle and ultimate objective lie in the building of an edifice of sociological theory. Although he read widely in sociological literature, Glass did not cultivate an interest in that direction, and he was much less at home in the academic world of sociology. He was extremely critical of some of the products of current trends, whose quality did not come up to his rigorous standards, and it must be admitted that his negative judgments were sometimes disconcertingly swift and uncompromising. Glass was thorough in all he did, including his hobbies. His friends knew they could get expert advice from him on tape recorders, first editions and cameras, because David loved music, books, and photography. He was never content to handle anything which he did not completely understand. The same thoroughness characterized his work. It could be seen in his capacity for organizing and administering, notably ion the case of his two great successes, the Population Investigation Committee and the journal Population Studies. And most conspicuously perhaps in Social Mobility. This work originated in a project to investigate channels and processes of movement from the working to the middle class, especially through educational success and qualifications.

This article explores the use of literary evidence in sociology and in historical sociology. There are many written sources used by social scientists and historians which cannot be called literature in the sense, in which the word will be employed, where the expression high literature ought to be preferred. In fact, all materials other than those which were deliberately created as record go under the general title of literary evidence in ordinary usage. Thus, letters, diaries, autobiographies, sermons, journalism of all kinds, academic and otherwise, even sometimes official documents, especially, explanatory ones, are classed as literary, along with the poetry, the drama, and the novels, most of which fall below the aesthetic standard. The credibility exercise begin with the extreme, or polar, case where all that the social scientist has to go on is indeed literary evidence. Such examples are rather more difficult to find than might be expected. They are family and kinship amongst the Homeric Greeks, and the political and social structure of the ancient Hebrews, both rather loosely considered. The outcome of the credibility test is strongly persuasive, only when it comes to physical attributes.

Defending sociologist's right to exist is as old as sociology itself. So it is hardly surprising that it is possible to cite the work of classical figures in its development when rejecting the stringent criticisms of three contemporary British philosophers. Their criticisms are modern variants of the old case against social science. The three philosophers are Peter Winch, A. R. Louch, and Alasdair Maclntyre. Taken together they present three arguments which would, if acceptable, invalidate the basis of sociology. The first contends that sociologists fail to recognize quite how social reality differs from nature. The second, in its extreme form, states that the concept cause is only applicable to the natural world, so that causal accounts of social phenomena are, by definition, the product of conceptual confusion. The third holds that cross-cultural analysis is impossible. The philosopher's most profound mistake is to equate all sociology with accounting for human action qua action, i.e. explaining why actors act as they do. Correspondingly their most serious omission is their failure to consider the meaning of social structure.

This article asserts that the social scientist derives values from his environment which inevitably intrude in some degree into his work, for a person cannot abstract himself from the attitudes and pressures of the society in which he lives. Nor can he prevent them from influencing his choice of a subject to study, the selection and collation of data and the assessment of it. A social scientist cannot be impartial about his subject. He can strive for objectivity through his use of scientific method and by taking into account his own bias, but he can never produce a truly impartial study, whether it be of social, economic, political or historical phenomena. In this article "The History of Trade Unionism," by Sidney and Beatrice Webb is examined as a case study. First, the manner in which the Webb's approached their subject is considered, then an attempt is made to show how this distorted the narration of events the Webb's were endeavoring to record.

This article discusses the kind of pressures, intellectual and social, which have been at work in sociology to produce a vocabulary for the analysis of complex modern societies. It is not directly concerned with the concepts in terms of which social scientists discuss the complex structures of preliterate societies. The structural functional school in social theory borrowed many of its concepts from the social anthropology of anthropologist Radcliffe-Brown. The author tries to show that the language of sociology has evolved in an attempt to discover or map the grounds of social stability and coherence through analogies of emulation with a sister social science in which these concepts have borne a heavy and respected harvest. The author also comments on some trends and problems in theoretical vocabulary.

The article focuses on the contribution of sociologists in the study of industrial problems. Sociology is no stranger to the curriculum of the American schools of business and management, a state of affairs which clearly reflects the high standing of sociology in that country. Indeed, the position of sociology in business and management education in the United States now seems to be such that it has passed beyond the point at which separate reference needs to be made to it in the curriculum. At the highest reaches of all, in institutions like the School of Industrial Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sociology may lose its separate identity in the interdisciplinary examination of "executive behavior"; but the relevance of things social and psychological to management processes is taken for granted. The overall picture of management studies in Great Britain gives little satisfaction to the sociologist who believes that his subject has something to offer to anyone preparing for a career in practical affairs.

The purpose of this short paper is to review the present the position of industrial sociology as an academic discipline as of September 1959. It will focus therefore on its approach, its field of inquiry, the selection of problems for study, methods used and the present provision for its pursuit. The treatment given to the article is analytical rather than descriptive, since it can be assumed that most sociologists will have some knowledge of particular developments and various researches in this field, and only passing reference will therefore be made to them. There is still a tendency to use the term industrial sociology compendiously, to refer to all developments in the study of social relations in industry, in a manner which is reminiscent of the way in which the role of sociology itself was seen at one time simply as synoptic. This tendency of course is indicative of the developmental stage of the subject, but is quite illegitimate and emphasizes the need for clarification of the special position of industrial sociology.

This article discusses issues in the field of sociology as of June 1957. Sociologists are now numbered by hundreds in Europe and by thousands in the U.S. Although it may at first seem that these numbers have been growing in geometrical ratio, the fact is that there are clearly far too few to do the numerous jobs which sociology, partly by theoretic commitment and partly by default of other disciplines, now includes within its province. As the numbers of sociologists have increased, they have become, in accord with the Spencerian thesis, more differentiated. It is now possible to identify some thirty to forty fields of prime specialization in sociology, and it must be supposed that this differentiation will continue. In the aggregate, and contrasted with what has gone before, the proliferation of sociologists and sociological specialities may seem excessive. Functionally, in relation to the work that needs to be done, the field of sociology is still sparsely settled and undermanned. Just as sociology has experienced changes in numbers of personnel, so it has experienced changes in the foci and the methods of inquiry and the character of the tasks which sociological theorists set themselves.

This article discusses, by way of general outline, some of the recent sociological treatments of conflict in industrial relations by U.S. social scientists. Conflict in this paper is measured primarily in the form of the strike. The first text in the field of industrial sociology, Wilbert Moore's Industrial Relations and the Social Order, however, goes beyond the cursory description of the broad environmental factors in industrial conflict. In two chapters devoted to conflict, he outlines the range or types of collective bargaining relations, from extreme conflict, to issue bargaining, to problem bargaining, and to cooperation. There has been, however, an attempt to use a basically human relations approach towards conflict between a union and its management. It is William F. Whyte's Pattern for Industrial Peace. It is a case-study of the union-management relations in a small subsidiary plant of the Inland Steel Company, in Chicago, of less than 1,000 employees. It traces the development of these relations, through the improvement of the nature of the personal contacts between union officials and managers, from conflict to co-operation in a brief span of seven years. The study itself took place after the event, a fact which mitigates the value of the interpretation by Whyte.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Michael Burawoy's plea for public sociology is welcome, but he is far too optimistic. The period of retreat after the years of foundation which he too observes has not allowed us to stock up intellectually in such a way that we are now ready to come forth, armed so as to contribute to human progress. By and large, we do not have the capacity to undertake the tasks that Burawoy has in mind. Nor is there a groundswell of support for his plea for public sociology. There is more to be said for his position prescriptively than descriptively. He tends to see progress in the arming of society, naively presuming that strong social self-organization leads to progress. This is not necessarily the case.

This article points out that Michael Burawoy's "For Public Sociology" traces the many diverse ways in which the discipline can encompass public sociologies. This is a thoughtful piece, and an exciting one. It explodes the category of public, showing us its many facets. There is little to disagree with in Burawoy's eleven theses. The notion of provincializing American sociology is important. And Burawoy's insistence that there are many diverse publics critical to the task he calls for is also significant. It is a brilliant, intelligent, generous, map of the project that he names For Public Sociology. However, there is a need to explore the conviction among academics that theory discolors the public moment of sociology, even though it can provide the insights and unsettle traditional understandings. To participate in this moment, so the notion runs, theory first needs to change clothes, which is to say, be de-theorized, because if we expect to communicate with our "public" publics, we need to leave theory behind in the academy. However, it is argued that we can engage our publics in the work of theorizing as seeing, without using arcane languages, and can learn a lot, and hopefully so can they.

This article comments on the topics discussed in this issue. Sociology is a discipline born out of social change and upheaval. It is also a discipline traditionally seen to have a role in helping us understand the world around us and even contributing to those improvements emerging as a consequence of this understanding. Whether or not this is achievable and desirable is the subject of controversy within the discipline with some believing it to be an impossible, even futile, ambition. There is a view that sociology has forgotten about social issues, lost its critical edge and in so doing lost its public voice. These were all issues raised in last year's debate on the relationship between sociology and government. Public sociology was also the theme of the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in 2004. In his Presidential address Michael Burawoy stated that "More than ever the world needs public sociologies, sociologies that transcend the academy and engage wider audiences." Whether they are successfully doing so is open to debate.