2324 - Going Public: A Guide for Social Scientists (University of Chicago Press, 2017) by Arlene Stein and Jessie Daniels (Sponsored by the Public Engagement Advisory Committee)

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Description

The call for “public sociology” by Michael Burawoy, among many others, has initiated a lively debate about what the term means and its relationship to “professional” social science. Yet, more than a decade on from Burawoy’s call, the discipline is just now beginning to help equip scholars who want to venture into the public sphere with the skills necessary to do such work. Arlene Stein and Jessie Daniels’ Going Public describes itself as a guidebook for “doing” public sociology and offers nuts-and-bolts advice about how exactly to move research into public arenas (Daniels co-edited and contributed to the ASA’s Promoting Sociological Research Toolkit). While there are numerous guides for producing scholarly work, Going Public is expressly dedicated to moving scholarly work out of academia and into the public sphere, focusing on writing and on using digital media tools. The book seeks to help academic social scientists develop the tools for translating their work into different arenas. It also reflects on the hazards of scholarly engagement in increasingly polarized political contexts and in an era when scholars are regularly called upon to justify and legitimize our work.
The traditional model of public sociology envisions the “scholar-as-expert,” and holder of privileged insight. Such a model assumes that academics and the lay public exist in separate spheres and relies on journalists to act as a bridge between those worlds, translating scholarly work for lay audiences. Going Public nods to this model but expands the scope of what it means to be engaged with a wider audience by recognizing the rise of social media, which has blurred the boundaries between academia and journalism. Today, as more and more scholars have their own social media presence, many of us are more likely to be translators and disseminators of our own research. Changes in higher education writ large, such as the sharp decline of tenure-track jobs, alongside attacks on faculty from politicians and the cultural Right, are altering the relationship between “outside” and “inside” the academy, making public sociology more crucial than ever.
In this panel, a number of distinguished and early career practitioners of public sociology will evaluate whether Going Public lives up to its promise. Together, we will consider the tools and strategies we need to realize the promise of public sociology, along with considerations of the perils of engagement. And, we will consider how publicly engaged scholars might challenge dominant understandings of the role of social science knowledge in an open society.

Sub Unit

• Special Sessions

Session Organizer

• Matt Wray, Temple University

Authors

• Jessie Daniels, City University of New York-Hunter College and The Graduate Center

• Arlene J. Stein, Rutgers University

Panelists

• Eric Klinenberg, New York University

• R. L'Heureux Lewis-McCoy, City University of New York-City College

• Alondra Nelson, Columbia University and Social Science Research Council