What’s Keeping Sociology from its Promise?

• In Event: 431 - Regular Session. Sociology of Knowledge: Organizing Scholarly Knowledge

Abstract

Most sociologists I have talked to were attracted to the discipline because they believed it would help them to contribute to making the world a better place. Yet, feminists and other critics have argued, mainstream social scientists have, however unintentionally, too often done the opposite. That is, the knowledge we are producing has tended to bolster the system of social domination. How does this happen? In this paper, I draw on evidence from interviews with 34 sociologists in North America and the UK to argue that the system through which we evaluate sociological scholarship pushes us to write sociology from the standpoint of the powerful. Problematic dimensions include our conventional segmentation of scholarly work into research, teaching and service, our emphasis on counting publications and weighing them by the status of the outlet, our devaluation of work that has immediate practical applications, and our standards for rhetorical style. I suggest ways to change our evaluation system to make Sociology what most of us want it to be: a basis for developing a more just society.

Author

• Joey Sprague, University of Kansas