Sociology, Social Activism, and the Quest for Objectivity
Larry Stern, Chair, Department of Sociology, Collin College
Introduction
From its inception, the discipline of sociology has been marked by a
fundamental dilemma and tension that has sparked serious debate time and again
throughout its one hundred twenty-five year history.
On the one side are those sociologists who exhibit a critical stance toward
existing social arrangements, seek to pinpoint the causes and consequences of social
problems, and proffer remedies they believe would reduce the extent to which these
problems exist. They typically share a commitment to greater social equality and the
collective use of reason to create a better and more just social world. For many on
this side, the ideas of sociology, reform and activism are so tightly enmeshed as to
be inseparable. Though not necessarily Marxist in approach, they adhere to his
famous maxim that “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various
ways; the point is to change it.”
But there is another side, and these sociologists are more apt to subscribe to
William Ogburn’s comment, delivered in his presidential address to the American
Sociological Society in 1929: “Sociology as a science is not interested in making the
world a better place in which to live . . . Science is only interested in one thing only, to
wit, discovering new knowledge.” These sociologists argue that in order for the
discipline to be taken seriously as a legitimate area of inquiry – for it to attain and
retain some degree of intellectual authority – sociology must be seen as a
thoroughly scientific and objective enterprise. If sociology wants the public to trust
what it says about society it must, like all pure sciences, deal with “facts,” not morals
or ethics, and be seen as disinterested, detached, value-free, and apolitical.
I intend to trace the history of these recurring debates in this study grant, to
be conducted during the second summer session in 2012. My interest in these
debates and how they have affected – and continue to affect – the development of
sociology is long standing. Like many other sociologists my age, I was drawn into the
discipline at a time (late 1960s) when social activism and sociology seemed to go
hand in hand. The graduate training I received, however, emphasized that the two
sides of the debate were not necessarily contradictory or incompatible. Values
clearly affect the problems one chooses to pursue – and they certainly may reflect
one’s activist or reformist bent. But once chosen, the problem must be studied in
accordance with a strict sociological approach, wedded to the mandates of scientific
methodology. To be an activist, then, does not necessarily undermine or
compromise the authenticity of one’s work or their scientific standing.
These debates also provide an interesting case in the sociology of sociology –
a specialty I have pursued for many years. Sociological work, like all scientific work,
does not proceed in a vacuum and is affected and shaped by the various social and
historical circumstances in which it is embedded. It should come as no surprise,
then, that the prominence of one or the other of these positions has been cyclical
and greatly affected by social and historical circumstances. As shall be seen, a strong
activist and reformist orientation spurred the founding of sociology as a discipline.
After a period when the discipline became more concerned with packaging itself as
a pure science in order to secure public acceptance and legitimacy, activist and
reformist tendencies resurfaced during the years of the great depression, the civil
rights era, the turbulent decade of the sixties, and this past decade as a
reinvigorated concern with “public sociology” and “service learning” has taken hold.
At other historical moments, the discipline was more concerned with the strict
pursuit of law-like propositions and the development of theory, or concerned with
how its public persona appeared in the face of McCarthyism and the fervor of antiCommunist movements. How all this played out, how the debates were conducted,
periodically resolved, and how they resurfaced in different guises are questions that
will guide my readings.
Plan of Study
The sources I shall be examining are of four types: (1) primary sources,
including research articles and brief historical accounts that have appeared in the
major sociological journals and edited volumes, (2) presidential addresses delivered
by prominent sociologists to the leading sociological organizations, (3) book-length
socio-historical accounts and analyses by leading scholars in the history of the social
sciences that focus upon key events in the history I shall be tracing, and (4)
autobiographical recollections of important participants in the events to be
addressed. Both a weekly reading list and a full bibliography appear at the end of
this proposal. In what follows I shall provide a chronological account of the sources I
shall read that is not tied to specific weeks, since, although they mark tidy
boundaries, the actual reading of these sources will likely spill over from one week
to the next.
I shall begin my work by going back to sociology’s reformist roots to examine
the close relationship between the Social Gospel Movement – a movement that
sought to make the Christian churches more responsive to social problems such as
poverty, prostitution, child welfare, temperance, and crime – and the development
of sociology in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. After reading
Graham Morgan’s account of this remarkable symbiotic relationship, I will turn to
Pat Lengermann and Gillian Niebrugge’s analysis of the emergence of social work as
a distinct entity and its uneasy relationship with sociology as the two clashed over
agendas and goals. This will be followed by closely examining the work of six
remarkable women, each trained in the social sciences, and each putting both their
reformist inclinations and their theories to practice. Linda Rynbrandt, focusing upon
the work of Caroline Bartlett Crane, shows how Crane’s devotion to the Social
Gospel and salvation, her sociological training, and her efforts to improve sanitation
in the inner cities were carefully blended together. Ellen Fitzpatrick, in her Endless
Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Reform, traces the lives and careers
of four women trained in the social sciences at the University of Chicago –
Sophonisba Breckinridge, Edith Abbott, Katharine Bement Davis, and Frances
Kellor. A noted historian, Fitzpatrick demonstrates how their training and research
grounded their efforts for tenement and prison reform, child labor legislation, public
health programs, and other important reform movements in the early twentieth
century.
Each of these women was also connected to Hull House, founded by Jane
Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Opening its doors in Chicago in 1889, Hull House
became the most visible, successful, and influential settlement house in the United
States, providing opportunities to underserved residents of the community. Equally
important, it also became the center for campaigns for protective legislation for
women and children, child labor laws, occupational safety, unemployment and
worker’s compensation, and public education.
The work of Mary Jo Deegan, a respected historian of sociology, is the most
widely acclaimed source for this extended episode, and I shall read her Jane Addams
and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918 next. In addition to providing an
overview of the reform activities located at Hull House, Deegan focuses upon the
ambivalent relationship between the women of Hull House and the leading male
sociologists at Chicago at the time. Some, such as William I. Thomas, George Herbert
Mead, and Charles Henderson, were quite supportive and active in reform
movements. Others, such as Robert Park, chair of the Department of Sociology,
referred to these women, quite disparagingly, as those “damn do-gooders.”
Despite Park’s admonition, many of these reformers, firm in their belief that
the law should be used as a means to shape and promote social welfare, worked
tirelessly to introduce new legislation. At the same time, changes in legal philosophy
were beginning to take hold in the legal profession. In 1908 Roscoe Pound, one of
the leading figures in twentieth-century legal thought, introduced the notion of
“sociological jurisprudence” to his colleagues on the court. Judges, Pound argued,
should stop thinking like lawyers and start thinking more like social scientists. They
should take the social context and the consequences of the cases before them into
account before reaching their decisions. The actual effects of legal rules that
regulate, for example, the hours and wages of industrial workers, regulatory
measures to inspect housing and oversight of the milk supply, he argued, should
take precedence over the logical symmetry and legal standing of those laws. To best
understand this movement and its application, I will turn to Michael Willrich’s City
of Courts: Socializing Justice in Progressive Era Chicago, the most complete historical
account of this movement to date. A legal historian, Willrich traces the development
and application of this new legal philosophy through an extensive examination of
the records of the Court of Domestic Relations, the Morals Court, the Boys Court, and
the Psychopathic Laboratory associated with each.
As mentioned in the introduction of this proposal, a tension has existed
between two camps of sociologists throughout the discipline’s history: those
seeking to be publicly engaged and to solve the social problems of their day and
those who believed that the “science” and “objectivity” of sociology dictated the
pursuit of generalizable, law-like propositions about the social world. Robert
Bannister’s Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity explores this
tension and the controversy it engendered between the years, 1880 and 1940 and it
is to this work I turn next. Focusing on the champions of objectivity – Lester Ward,
Albion Small, Franklin Giddings, William Graham Sumner, Luther Lee Bernard,
F. Stuart Chapin, and William Fielding Ogburn – Bannister seeks to show how these
men fought to free their discipline from its reformist concerns and turn sociology
into a mature science that would be granted legitimacy by society-at-large.
Those social scientists advocating reform, of course, were not about to
abandon their pursuits, nor were they to agree that advocating the reform of certain
social conditions in any way precluded the objective scientific study of those social
conditions. This position is clearly staked out by Robert S. Lynd, noted sociologist at
Columbia University, in Knowledge for What?: The Place of Social Science in American
Culture. Sociologists, Lynd argues, need to get out of their ivory towers and deal with
the real world. Having never read this 1939 classic, I expect to find a striking
resonance to arguments made again in the 1960s.
It should come as no surprise that the turbulent 1930s propelled many
socially and politically aware young men (and a few women) to enter the discipline.
Indeed, some of the towering sociologists of the second half of the twentieth century
were, in their youth, radicals, socialists, and Trotskyites. This, no doubt, shaped their
research and other professional activities. I shall first look at autobiographical
accounts of three of these prominent sociologists: Charles H. Page, who discusses his
years in the alcoves at City University debating depression era political issues with
an assortment of activists, Nathan Glazer, who traces his journey from socialism to
sociology, and Louis Coser, who brings to life the intellectual ferment surrounding
discussions of political and social issues of these turbulent years and how they
shaped his thinking.
Next, I shall turn to the history of two sub-disciplinary organizations, each
created with the expressed intent of dealing with the social and political issues of
the day. The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), founded in
1936, took as its mandate the use of psychological research and insights as the
means to build a more humane society. SPSSI, over the years, led efforts to study the
issues of unemployment, industrial conflict, war, racial hatred, and the abridgment
of civil liberties. It has since championed the causes of civil rights, feminism, and the
rights of homosexuals, and the inclusion and equality of socially marginalized
groups into the discipline. To attain a better understanding of this organization, I
shall rely upon two articles, one by Ian Nicholson, the other by Ben Harris, that focus
specifically upon SPSSI’s early years, and then read the special issue of the Journal of
Social Issues published in 1986 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the
founding of the Society. Here, various participants involved in the organization’s
founding and later years provide personal reminiscences that convey their trials,
tribulations, successes, and failures.
The second organization I shall examine is the Society for the Study of Social
Problems (SSSP). Founded in 1951, those sociologists who joined were interested in
using social research to contribute to the solution of persistent social problems and to
promote social justice locally, nationally, and in the wider world. Founding members
were a self-proclaimed dissident group, imbued with missionary zeal, who thought
of themselves as the "self-appointed conscience” of the American Sociological
Association. I will read the special issue of their journal, Social Problems, published
in 1976 in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Society.
This issue, too, contains personal reminiscences of some of the key players in the
organization. Next, I will read two recent presidential addresses that indicate the
perceived state of the organization and its goals for the future.
At this point I will shift gears and examine, in far greater detail, one
particular issue that involved activist scholars from both social psychology and
sociology beginning in the late 1940s and spilling over into the 1950s: the study of
race and prejudice. The horrors of the holocaust forced social scientists to engage
(yet again) with issues of race and prejudice. How could they contribute to efforts to
reduce the extent to which racial prejudice existed by curtailing its emergence and
changing attitudes already present? Stuart Svonkin’s Jews Against Prejudice:
American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties is widely considered the definitive
historical work that outlines efforts by various Jewish organizations (The American
Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith and the American
Jewish Congress) to fund social science research devoted to these issues. With these
funds, an intergroup relations movement, with social psychologists and sociologists
in the lead, produced landmark research on the authoritarian personality, interracial housing, and the impact of mass media in combating prejudice. After reading
Svonkin’s account, I will read two personal accounts of the authoritarian personality
studies (Samuelson and Sanford) and then Fran Cherry and Catherine Borshuk’s
account of the work of the Commission on Community Interrelations.
Next, I will focus on the role of social psychologists and sociologists in the
landmark Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education. John P. Jackson
chronicles these efforts in his Social Scientists for Social Justice: Making the Case
Against Segregation. Contributing much more than the famous doll studies, these
activist and reform-minded scholars, through their research indicating the
debilitating effects of racism and segregation and their testimony in numerous
lower court cases, helped pave the way for some of the basic legal protections
against discrimination we take for granted today.
It would be a grievous error, however, to think that all social scientist
activists lean to the political left. A significant number of social scientists, in fact,
mounted an important challenge to the Brown decision, producing research and
devoting considerable efforts to defend segregation. To investigate these efforts I
shall rely upon I. A. Newby’s Challenge to the Court: Social Scientists and the Defense
of Segregation, 1954-1966. An award winning historian of racial issues in the South,
Newby recounts these efforts, and as an added bonus, includes commentaries on his
analysis by the segregationist scientists he examines in the text. One other source I
shall read, cementing the point that social activism may be found at both ends of the
political spectrum, is Winston’s “Science in the Service of the Far Right: Henry E.
Garrett, the IAAEE and the Liberty Lobby.”
The political tenor of the later 1950s – in particular the specter of
McCarthyism and the widespread FBI surveillance of purported “reds and radicals”
– had a clear dampening effect on social scientists’ willingness to take certain
political positions in public or to criticize existing social relationships. One study of
academics reported that two-thirds of the approximately 2,500 social science
faculty members surveyed had been visited by the FBI at least once, and one-third
had been visited three or more times during the 1950s and 1960s. Based on the
analysis of their data, these authors concluded that a large number of social
scientists had withdrawn from participation in community activities, and some had
confined themselves to a narrower, less political type of research. I will explore this
issue by reading, first, Ellen Schrecker’s No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the
Universities. Considered the definitive work in this area, Schrecker ransacked
government archives and conducted extensive interviews with professors in elite
and general colleges and universities to demonstrate how McCarthyism operated to
intimidate scholars and the impact it had on their research and social activism.
A second important source is Mike Keen’s Stalking the Sociological
Imagination: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI Surveillance of American Sociology. Throughout
the history of American sociology, many of its prominent contributors have been
under the surveillance of the FBI for suspected “radical” or otherwise “un-American”
activities, such as questioning accepted ideas or being critical of the policies of the
Bureau (Hoover actually believed that advocacy of racial justice was a subversive
act!). Keen, examining FBI files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act,
shows how the anti-Communist furor of the times affected such noted sociologists
as DuBois, Lynd, Sorokin, Parsons, Mills, and Blumer (to name but a few). To round
out this section, I shall look at Ben Harris’ description of the FBI’s files on SPSSI and
the American Psychological Association and the implications of these federal
investigations on various politically active social psychologists.
The 1960s, of course, changed everything (again). Some of the “old guard”
sociologists re-emerged, finding a more hospitable environment for their once
radical ideas, while a new generation of social scientists, drawn to the discipline by
the social upheaval of the era, emerged with many embracing even more radical
ideas. But many in the discipline were wary and concerned that the legitimacy that
sociology had fought so hard to attain by convincing the public of its “scientific
status” would unravel. As a result, the old issue of whether sociology could – or
should – be value-free resurfaced with a vengeance. I will go back to the three “flash
points” of this debate: Alvin Gouldner’s two articles on the myth of value-free
sociology and then on the sociologist as partisan, and Howard Becker’s presidential
address to SSSP, titled “Whose Side Are We On.” I will follow this with two volumes,
each containing autobiographical accounts of sociologists who “came of age” during
these turbulent times. The first, The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the
Sixties edited by Alan Sica and Stephen Turner, contains accounts by an
international cross-section of well-known sociologists detailing how the formative
experiences of the sixties influenced the development of their academic lives – why
they chose some issues and problems for study rather than others, why they applied
certain interpretative schemes to make sense out of their data rather than others,
and how the mainstream sociology responded to their efforts. The second volume,
Radical Sociologists and the Movement: Experiences, Lessons, and Legacies edited by
Martin Oppenheimer, Martin Murray, and Rhonda Levine, contains fourteen essays
by scholars intimately involved with what came to be known as “radical sociology”
and the emergence of the Sociology Liberation Movement. They, too, recount the
early “heady” days of the movement and chronicle the many battles fought to gain
some semblance of acceptance. To weave these different strands together, I shall
rely upon noted sociologist Immanual Wallerstein’s essay “The Culture of Sociology
in Disarray: The Impact of 1968 on U.S. Sociologists.”
As it turned out, the revitalization of the activist and reform component of
the social sciences could not be sustained; it, for the most part, stalled by the early
1980s. Within the past decade, however, there has been yet another resurgence of
interest in an activist and reform oriented sociology. This is evidenced by at least
three presidential addresses delivered to the major sociological organizations that
constitute, in effect, a call to return to action. I shall close the study grant by
examining Joe R. Feagin’s address to the American Sociological Association (ASA) in
2000, “Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty-First Century,” Robert
Perucci’s address to the SSSP in 2001, “Inventing Social Justice: SSSP and the
Twenty-First Century,” and then Michael Burawoy’s 2004 address to the ASA, “For
Public Sociology.” The last of these presidential speeches has spawned a rich
literature that, not surprisingly, revisits many of the issues debated for at least the
past 125 years, but with a twenty-first century twist. The last source I shall read,
then, will be a recently edited volume that showcases fifteen eminent sociologists
debating the “proper role” of sociology in the world.
Benefits of Being Awarded this Study Grant
Completing this study grant will yield clear benefits in a number of ways. If
funded, my professional development will, of course, be greatly enhanced. But my
students will be the prime beneficiaries. I always apply a socio-historical approach
in my introductory classes, firmly believing that presenting sociology firmly
embedded in its social and cognitive settings deepens and facilitates my students’
understanding. I strive to show them the relevance of sociology to both their daily
lives and the larger issues of the day, and these readings will provide ample
materials to achieve these goals. This fits nicely, I think, with the Coordinating
Board’s commitment to include “social responsibility” as a core component in
student learning objectives in nearly every area taught at the College. In addition,
given Collin College’s commitment to “service learning,” I have no doubt that
incorporating these materials into class discussions will lead to increased
participation in the program.
I also have no doubt that I will be presenting this work to various groups in
and outside of the College. First, of course, I shall be presenting this work to faculty
in the “Study Grant Seminar Series.” I am also quite certain that I will present at
Seniors Active in Learning (SAIL), since I am invited each year. Last, I am often
asked to present at the yearly Leadership McKinney conference, and this topic
would clearly fit into their program.
Study Grant Weekly Readings – Summer 2012
Week 1: Roots of Sociology – Reformist & Activist Beginnings
J. Graham Morgan, “The Development of Sociology and the Social Gospel in
America,” Sociological Analysis, 30:42-53, 1969
Patricia Lengermann and Gillian Niebrugge, “Thrice Told: Narratives of Sociology’s
Relation to Social Work,” Pp. 65-114 in Craig Calhoun, ed., Sociology in America: A
History, University of Chicago Press, 2007
Linda J. Rynbrandt, “Caroline Bartlett Crane and the History of Sociology: Salvation,
Sanitation, and the Social Gospel,” The American Sociologist, The American
Sociologist, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 71-82.
Fitzpatrick, Ellen, Endless Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Reform,
Oxford University Press, 1990
Mary Jo Deegan, Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918,
Transaction Books, 1988
Week 2
(A) Sociological Jurisprudence
Michael Willrich, City of Courts: Socializing Justice in Progressive Era Chicago,
Cambridge University Press, 2003
(B) The Turn Toward Objective Science and Value-Neutrality
Robert Bannister, Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity,
University of North Carolina Press, 1987
Week 3
(A) The Turbulent 1930s: Radical, Socialist, & Trotskyite Social Scientists
Charles H. Page, 50 Years in the Sociological Enterprise: A Lucky Journey, The
University of Massachusetts Press, 1982; Chapter 3: “City College in the Thirties:
Seedbed of Modern American Sociology”
Louis Coser, “A Sociologist’s Atypical Life,” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 19
(1993), pp. 1-15
Nathan Glazer, “From Socialism to Sociology,” Pp. 190-212 in Bennett M. Berger, ed.,
Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American
Sociologists, University of California Press, 1990
Robert S. Lynd, Knowledge for What?: The Place of Social Science in American Culture,
Princeton University Press, 1939
(B) The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)
Special Issue of the Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986): In
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Society for the
Psychological Study of Social Issues
Benjamin Harris, “Reviewing 50 Years of the Psychology of Social Issues,” pp. 120
Lorenz J. Finison, “The Psychological Insurgency: 1936-1945,” pp. 21-33
Ross Stagner, “Reminiscences About the Founding of SPSSI,” pp. 35-42
S. Stansfeld Sargent and Benjamin Harris, “Academic Freedom, Civil Liberties,
and SPSSI,” pp. 43-67
Ernest Hilgard, “From the Social Gospel to the Psychology of Social Issues: A
Reminiscence,” pp. 107-110
Rhoda K. Unger, “Looking Toward the Future by Looking at the Past: Social
Activism and Social History,” pp. 215-227
Ian Nicholson, “The Politics of Scientific Social Reform, 1936-1960: Goodwin Watson
and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues,” Journal of the History of
the Behavioral Sciences Vol. 33 (1), 39-60, Winter 1997
Ben Harris, “The Perils of a Public Intellectual: George W. Hartmann, 1939 Chair of
SPSSI,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 54 (1): 79-118, 1998
(C) Society for the Study of Social Problems
Special Issue of Social Problems, Vol. 24, No. 1, (Oct., 1976): SSSP as a Social
Movement
Elizabeth Briant Lee and Alfred McClung Lee Source, “The Society for the Study
of Social Problems: Parental Recollections and Hopes,” pp. 4-14
Barry Skura, “Constraints on a Reform Movement: Relationships between SSSP
and ASA, 1951-1970,” pp. 15-36
James M. Henslin and Paul M. Roesti, “Trends and Topics in "Social Problems"
1953-1975: A Content Analysis and a Critique,” pp. 54-68
Melvin L. Kohn, “Looking Back – A 25-Year Review and Appraisal of Social
Problems Research,” pp. 94-112
S. M. Miller, “The SSSP – Engagements and Contradictions, Social Problems, Vol. 48,
No. 1 (February, 2001), pp. 144-147
Ellen Reese, “Deepening Our Commitment, Hitting the Streets: A Call to Action,
Social Problems, Vol. 48, No. 1 (February, 2001), pp. 152-157
Week 4: Case Study – Race and Prejudice
Stuart Svorkin, Jews Against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties,
Columbia University Press, 1997
Franz Samuelson, “Authoritarianism from Berlin to Berkeley: On Social Psychology
and History,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 191-208
Nevitt Sanford, “A Personal Account of the Study of Authoritarianism: Comment on
Samuelson,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 209-214
Fran Cherry and Catherine Borshuk, “Social Action Research and the Commission on
Community Interrelations,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 54 (1): 119-142, 1998
John P. Jackson, Jr., Social Scientists for Social Justice: Making the Case Against
Segregation, New York University Press, 2001
I. A. Newby, Challenge to the Court: Social Scientists and the Defense of Segregation,
1954-1966, Louisiana State University Press, 1967
Andrew S. Winston, “Science in the Service of the Far Right: Henry E. Garrett, the
IAAEE and the Liberty Lobby,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 54 (1): 179-210, 1998
Week 5: Backlash
Ellen W. Shrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, Oxford
University Press, 1986
Mike Forrest Keen. Stalking the Sociological Imagination: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI
Surveillance of American Sociology, Greenwood Press, 1999.
Ben Harris, “The FBI’s Files on APA and SPSSI: Description and Implications,”
American Psychologist, December 1980, p. 1141-1144
Week 6: The Return of Radical Sociology in the 1960s
Alvin Gouldner, “Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of a Value-Free Sociology,” Social
Problems Vol. 9, No. 3 (Winter, 1962), pp. 199-213 [Presidential Address]
Alvin Gouldner, “The Sociologist as Partisan: Sociology and the Welfare State,” The
American Sociologist Vol. 3, No. 2 (May, 1968), pp. 103-116
Howard Becker, “Whose Side Are We On,” Social Problems, 14 (Winter 1967) pp.
239–47 [Presidential Address]
Alan Sica and Stephen Turner, eds., The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in
the Sixties, The University of Chicago Press, 2005
Martin Oppenheimer, Martin J. Murray, and Rhonda F. Levine, eds., Radical
Sociologists and the Movement: Experiences, Lessons, and Legacies, Temple University
Press, 1991
Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Culture of Sociology in Disarray: The Impact of 1968 on
U.S. Sociologists.” Pp. 427-437 in Craig Calhoun, ed., Sociology in America: A History,
University of Chicago Press, 2007
Week 7: Public Sociology and Social Justice in the 21st Century
Joe R. Feagin, “Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty-First Century,”
ASR, Vol. 66 (February: 2001), pp.1-20. [Presidential Address]
Robert Perucci, “Inventing Social Justice: SSSP and the Twenty-First Century,” Social
Problems, Vol. 48, No. 2, (May, 2001), pp. 159-167 [Presidential Address]
Michael Burawoy, “For Public Sociology,” ASR, Vol. 70 (February, 2005), pp. 4-28.
[Presidential Address]
Dan Clawson, Robert Zussman, Joya Misra, Naomi Gerstel, Randall Stokes, Douglas
Anderton, and Michael Burawoy, eds., Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists
Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century, University of
California Press, 2007