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A sociology minor appeared at Otago University in 2003 and a major in 2005, but these relatively late developments were preceded by a rich history of sociology-like research and teaching at our institution. This article presents a sociological prehistory which winds its way through aspects of the teaching and research of home science, preventive medicine, education, physical education, anthropology and several other disciplines, uncovering sociology-like approaches adopted in the university from the 1920s on. It then briefly considers the reasons behind the late establishment of a stand-alone sociology programme at the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which came first, the teenager or the social scientist? This article explores the rise of the social scientific study of the adolescent in 1940s and 50s New Zealand. Our social science scene came of age during these decades, and teenagers became the object of much inquiry and social debate at the same time. Was this co-emergence coincidental? In this article I suggest that these two groups - adolescents and social scientists - were mutually constitutive. As Aileen Maxwell, Ada Gilling, Dorothy Crowther and A.E. Manning described and constructed mid-century youth cultures in particular ways, they also helped to create a platform and a public profile for social scientific writing. Is it stretching it too far to suggest that the social scientist was the 'bodgie' or the 'widgie' of the intellectual world? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the richness of social research in New Zealand over many decades and analyzes the role of social workers, psychologists, educationalists and literary commentators in promoting the research. According to the author social order, social change, state, gender relations, demography and citizenship are important aspects of sociology and all has a long history of continuity as well as change. All these aspects were analyzed and informed by an interdisciplinary interweaving of social research, political science, education, social psychology, town planning and architectural criticism.

The article explores the topic of sociology of gender. The author asserts that the suggestion that gender can be understood in terms of performance or performativity is common within New Zealand sociology, as it is overseas and in other disciplines. This article critically examines the theoretical background to these metaphors as ethnomethodology and the writings of sociologist Judith Butler. A dose reading of these theorists' work reveals differences between sociologist Butler and ethnomethodologists, while a number of useful similarities emerge. A synthesis of these authors' strengths allows people to create an integrated checklist which can be taken to specific studies of gender performance. For sociologist Erving Goffman, there is no authentic core self and no natural maleness or femaleness. Sociologist Harold Garfinkel also follows Goffman in his understanding that in order to attain maleness or femaleness one must act in concert with others within particular social contexts involving prevailing "communities of understandings."