Search

The author discusses a research article by Brandon Vaidyanathan and colleagues regarding the use and type of causal claims in sociology. Topics discussed include relationship between sociology and causation, causal language in contemporary American sociology, and discipline of international relations.

This paper tracks Mead's induction into the sociological canon, focusing in particular on American sociologists who made a concerted effort to reconstruct Mead as a systematic social theorist and apply his ideas to empirical research. It distinguishes two interpretive strategies of framing the classic and constructing the canon -- the politics of orthodoxy and politics of the open canon. The politics of orthodoxy aims to ascertain the original meaning and close the textual canon, creating a template relative to which alternative interpretations are judged incomplete, unorthodox, or wrongheaded. The politics of the open canon proceeds on the assumption that the classic text lends itself to conflicting interpretations, that room for the honest difference of opinion must be safeguarded, and that the capacity to further productive inquiry rather than the adherence to an orthodox view recommends a particular construal as viable and canon-worhty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Nisbet's ideas on sociology as an art form are examined in the light of Nisbet's intellectual biography as we as in the tradition of other writers who have approached sociology and history as an art. Nisbet conceived sociology as an art of landscape and portraiture, in which neither theory nor methods should be allowed to become 'idols of the profession.' His thought on sociology as an art is best understood as part of a long-term effort to re-center sociology in a conservative intellectual tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology once debated ‘the social’ and did so with a public readership. Even as late as the Second World War, sociologists commanded a wide public on questions about the nature of society, altruism and the direction of social evolution. As a result of several waves of professionalization, however, these issues have vanished from academic sociology and from the public writings of sociologists. From the 1960s onwards sociologists instead wrote for the public by supporting social movements. Discussion within sociology became constrained both by ‘professional’ expectations and political taboos. Yet the original motivating concerns of sociology and its public, such as the compatibility of socialism and Darwinism, the nature of society, and the process of social evolution, did not cease to be of public interest. With sociologists showing little interest in satisfying the demand, it was met by non-sociologists, with the result that sociology lost both its intellectual public, as distinct from affinity groups, and its claim on these topics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article I trace the fortunes of sociology in the United States, Britain and Australia over the course of some 60 years. I compare the impact of professionalization, migration and institutional location on the character and contents of sociology in these countries. While recognizing the many achievements of professional sociology, I argue that the modern auditing frameworks by which the careers of academic sociologists are measured have had the effect of standardizing teaching and research in sociology to the point of marginalizing the discipline in many institutions. Such marginalization has occasionally encouraged creativity, but it has nonetheless left many sociology offerings in a fragile position. As part of my historical overview I challenge the stereotypical contrast between American empiricism and European theoretical flair. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the concept of internal colonialism and explores ways in which ethnic Mexicans living in the U.S., both as legal residents and illegal aliens, are a living representation of that concept. It traces the evolution of the theory of internal colonialism and examines how elements such as territorial expansion, ethnic conflict, and social stratification influence its interpretation. Other topics include the development of neocolonialism following World War II, research regarding internal colonialism and its impact on Mexicans by scholar Pablo González Casanova, and literature on how internal colonialism can be applied to the Basques in Spain and Native Americans in the U.S.

American Studies is an academic discipline whose object of study is the United States of America and everything associated with it, and American sociologists largely ignore it. American Studies largely ignores American sociology. What causes this mutual exclusion? An outline of the disciplinary history of American Studies and journal article citation data show that the relationship between sociology and American Studies is weak and asymmetrical; American Studies cites sociology more often, but very little and not by much. I argue that mutual exclusion is due to mutual distrust in methods: sociology sees itself as a science, while American Studies, with roots in history and literature, does not. This article serves as a case study in the limits of interdisciplinarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herbert Blumer was a key figure in what came to be identified as the Chicago School of Sociology. He invented the term ‘symbolic interactionism’ as a label for a theoretical approach that derived primarily from the work of John Dewey, George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley. But his most influential work was methodological in character, and he is generally viewed today as a prominent critic of positivism, and of the growing dominance of quantitative method within US sociology. While this picture is broadly accurate, it neglects an important strand in his methodological thinking. He was committed to the goal of a science of social life, while at the same time he was uncertain whether such a science is possible. In his Appraisal of Thomas and Znaniecki’s The Polish Peasant, he identified a serious dilemma facing this project: the problem of how a scientific approach can be made compatible with the distinctive nature of human social life. In the first chapter of his most influential book, Symbolic Interactionism, he advocates a naturalistic approach to case study, and seems to treat this as avoiding the dilemma. However, there is evidence to suggest that, even towards the end of his life, he regarded the problem as still unresolved. In this article, I examine both sides of Blumer’s dilemma, and whether his attitude towards it changed. However, my interest here is not only historiographical. I evaluate Blumer’s arguments and show that his intellectual struggle with this issue remains relevant today, despite the shifts that have taken place in social science methodology and the philosophy of science since his death. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the possibility that early sociological interest in the integrative role of mass communication may have been undermined (1) by the short-run study of media “campaigns,” and the declaration that such persuasive efforts have only “limited effect”; (2) by the wrangling over theories of “mass society”; and (3) by a quasi-journalistic emphasis on “media events.” In spite of the theoretical basis for reconciling these traditions, the rift over the academic locus of communications research has not been repaired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on historical changes to the study of elites in sociology, generally focusing on the post-World War II period in the United States and Great Britain. It reveals that studies of elites have been hampered by an overly broad use of the term "elite" beginning in the 1980s. Topics considered include elite groups and their access to power, decision making, and social structures of societies. Notable theories of sociologists including Michel Foucault, John Scott, Vilfredo Pareto, and Gaetano Mosca are considered.

The article presents the author's reflection on the challenges to a unified sociological theory presented by the singularity of sociological developments in each particular country and context. The author discusses the contextual aspects of sociological developments and describes some of the particularities of sociological theorizing in the United States compared to that in Germany. He comments on how such particularities create intercultural obstacles to the creation of a unified international body of sociological theory.

Introductory sociology textbooks are one of the disciplinary sites that illustrate both the prominent place, and many uses, of theory in sociology. This article examines the place of theory in a selection of introductory sociology textbooks published in Australia, Britain and the US. It identifies the emergence of theory as a separate topic warranting its own sections or chapters, and considers the historical changes in explicit advice provided about the nature and use of theory in sociology. It also illustrates some of the uses of theory exhibited there that go beyond those directly addressed in textbook advice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the University of Chicago as a case study, this essay examines the racial foundations of sociological thought during the discipline's rising academic legitimacy and cultural authority, in the first half of the 20th century. Much more than critical hindsight, the basic theories and methods developed by the "Chicago School" and Robert Park in particular did not just construct racial categories, but were constructed by national anxieties about racial differences in urbanizing America. From this anxiety emerged a "second wave" of Black social scientists who both offered important and under recognized critiques of the "Chicago School" outlook, while reinforcing its industrial framework of organization and civilization in ways that marked "Black" identity as maladjustment, deviance and dysfunction. By stripping away this overarching sociological framework and resituating the "data" derived from "Black subjects" within its migrant and urban context, this essay ends with thoughts about how Chicago's Black residents theorized themselves, their neighborhoods and the larger world in ways that challenged both White and Black sociological visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the relationship between human needs and democratic sovereignty in the U.S. Interpretation and satisfaction of needs; Association of states with markets; Implications of the combination of economic, military, and ideological power relations on globalization.

Focuses on the theories of social contract in the U.S. Founders of contractarianism; Differences between two political visions on contractarianism; Creation of commonwealths.

Describes how students in the U.S. are brought to a compassionate understanding of others through contact with the homeless as inspired by the message and philosophy of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Transformative consequences of Gandhi's experiments with truth, justice, integrity and commonality; Fear of relating with the impoverished as stemming from a fear of becoming impoverished.