Applied and Public Sociology: Arguments for a Bigger Theoretical Picture around a University Third Mission

• In Event: 063 - Regular Session. Public Sociology

Abstract

This paper addresses concepts and issues embedded in the discourses over the past decade in American sociology about Public Sociology, Sociological Practice, and Applied and Clinical Sociology. These approaches are considered in the light of the author’s own work in South Africa on the University in Development during this same decade, where a different theoretical framework or ‘bigger picture’ has been constructed to understand new ‘glocal’ developments around the current focus on university ‘use-oriented research’. It is argued that these new international developments revolve around a post-1970s consolidation of a university Third Mission of ‘development’ (alongside the earlier First Mission of teaching and Second Mission of basic research). Alternative core concepts needed for a bigger theoretical picture - linked to an understanding of global capitalism and ‘innovation’ within its knowledge economy - are proposed: Use-Inspired Basic Research, a Second Academic Transformation linked to the emergent Third Mission, in symbiosis with a post-1970s ‘3rd Capitalist Industrial Revolution’ rooted in a knowledge society. This set of concepts link to the current idea of Triple Helix (University-Industry-Government, U-I-G) of research relations which is now globally dominant in both university discourse and practice. The paper concludes with a call for the broadening of the idea of Third Mission for ‘economic’ development to encompass ‘socio-economic-cultural’ development, itself embedded in a broader Quadruple Helix of University-Industry-Government-Civil Society (U-I-G-CS) research relations. This moreover needs an academic movement for Engaged Scholarship for ‘social justice’, which goes beyond the smaller but useful picture provided by Applied and Public Sociology.

Author

• David Michael Cooper, University of Cape Town