SOC 312: AMERICAN SOCIETY What is sociology? How is it organized?

Sociological Boundaries Levels of analysis and focus (realms) are semi-permeable boundaries within and between disciplines Most of us specialize, but most of the interesting questions (and research) spills over (e.g., political economy)

Mills' Sociological Promise Promise is the ability to connect personal troubles and public issues –smoking or drugs or deviance –unemployment –healthcare Best work bridges levels and realms –last class on smoking and drugs –political economy of national healthcare

Contextualizing Mills Mills published in 1959 –sociology went from Progressive/Chicago School reformists to Conservative/Harvard Human Relations bureaucrats/advisors –Mills saw sociology as critical voice of the early 20th century –Mills feared the conservative/neo-liberal corporate conservative future of the discipline

Sociology Since 1959 Good News: Sixties brought new challenges and new voices –critical/Marxist –feminist –race, class, and gender Bad News: Eighties brought conservative reaction and efforts to reinvent 1950s –consequently, Mills' vision and hopes and fears are still relevant today –Gitlin and I will attempt to explain that

Sociological Networks Mills talks about cliques, but these are really social networks –people I know from graduate school –people I know from professional meetings and organizations –people whose work I read and assign to my students (here the network is often much less tangible and interactive: I don't know all of these persons personally)

How is Sociology Organized? The American Sociological Association and the Purdue Sociology Department are organized into sections To some extent, these reflect levels of analysis and focus/realms/topics To some extent, these are political or social organizations

Why Join Sections? Max Weber distinguishes types of social action by motive or "subjective meaning" –habitual: eventually, it all comes down to habit –affect: if it feels good, do it (fun) –value rational: the right thing to do (end in itself) –instrumental rational: a means to an end

Sociology at Purdue We currently have six sections –family and gender –law and society –religion –health and aging –social movements and political sociology –social inequality

What Do Sections Do? Mostly, we teach classes –sections meet to determine which professors will teach which classes each semester –theoretically, each section has a three year plan for teaching –some department heads use sections more than others –some sections are more active than others

What Else Do Sections Do? We also represent our needs as collective (departmental) needs –religion wants to replace Jim Davidson –social inequality wants to hire people of color and people who study race and ethnicity –theoretically, we defend these as teaching needs –actually, we sometimes argue that we need these people to be a better department

Sections Versus Foundations Aside from our six sections, we have three foundational areas: –theory –method –statistics These foundational areas are associated with required courses for graduate and undergraduate programs

Foundational Areas Theory includes Macro and Micro, although there is very little contact between these sections within the area Methods and Statistics tend to function as a single Foundational area –but methods include qualitative and quantitative methods (separate from statistics) –thus three distinct sections here

Sections Are Functional? Some people argue that we need sections Diversity makes specialization necessary –we can't all know everything –we need to have a community of experts –we need to collaborate If this is true then we should expect to see –diversity on graduate student committees –theory, methods, sections all represented

Sections Can Become Barriers Others argue that sections impede work –Fighting for turf prevents collaboration –Competition for grants, faculty, and graduate students undermines collaboration –grad students and faculty tend to form sectional cliques –thus we become narrow, specialized, and generally ignorant

Summary Generally, discipline of sociology involves –theory –method –topic This is how we teach undergrads and train graduate students

Questions Why are ASA and Purdue sociology organized into sections? Why do people join sections? Other ways to organize cliques? –political perspective –theory/method/paradigm