Institutional Public Sociology: Theory, Practice, and the Organizational Mediation of Public Knowledge

• In Event: Innovations in Sociological Practice and Public Sociology: Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

Despite renewed calls for public sociology, existing frameworks say little about how disciplinary institutions influence sociologists' capacity to engage broader publics. This paper introduces Institutional Public Sociology (IPS) as a distinct mode of public-facing sociological practice produced through, authorized by, or regulated by disciplinary institutions whose bureaucratic, political, and professional logics actively shape the content, timing, and form of public engagement. IPS repositions public sociology from an individual vocation to an organizationally mediated practice, identifying a "missing institutional middle" between sociologists and their publics. I illustrate the concept through my experience as co-chair of the ASA Committee on the Status of LGBTQ People in Sociology, during which I worked from 2022 to 2024 to produce an official ASA report on the well-being of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth amid a wave of anti-trans legislation. Drawing on theoretically informed reflection on that experience, connected to literatures on public sociology, the sociology of expertise, and organizational theory, I identify four mechanisms through which institutional context influenced the project: (1) the simultaneous amplification and constraint of sociological knowledge; (2) temporal mismatch between bureaucratic time and public urgency; (3) neutrality norms that depoliticize empirically grounded claims; and (4) disciplinary boundary-work that narrows the interdisciplinary evidence base of public-facing documents. The paper makes three contributions: it extends public sociology theory by foregrounding meso-level institutional dynamics; advances the sociology of expertise by showing how organizations negotiate public authority under political pressure; and contributes to organizational sociology by revealing how institutional logics shape knowledge production. IPS offers a conceptual vocabulary for understanding why public sociology often unfolds differently in practice than in theory, and what it would take to build institutions more capable of effective public engagement.

Author

• Harry Barbee, Johns Hopkins University