Jeffries Vincent (Editor). Handbook Of Public Sociology
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132 Chapter 7
to write, they should be trained for a teaching career, and in lieu of writing
dissertations, develop courses that use public sociology and topic-driven
research to enrich the undergraduate curriculum.
RECRUITING PUBLIC SOCIOLOGISTS
For the past several decades, the discipline, at least in America, has primar-
ily trained normal scientists, sometimes beginning with undergraduate ma-
jors. I assume that as public sociology becomes more visible, some majors
and prospective graduate students will also become interested in it, but
broader recruitment should be undertaken as well.
Disciplines which seek normal scientists attract hedgehogs, to use Isaiah
Berlin’s classic dichotomy, who focus on one or a few closely related objects
of study to make their careers and typically conduct theory-driven research.
However, public sociology is better served by foxes who are able and will-
ing to study several objects and fields, and are therefore flexible enough
also to orient themselves toward the topical.
I am not familiar with aptitude tests that distinguish foxes from hedge-
hogs but would think that all scientific disciplines that are trying to de-
velop public tracks could use such tests. In the meantime, prospective
foxes are more likely to be found among undergraduate journalists and
other writers—even budding fiction writers—who are discouraged from
specializing in a single topic.
Actually, young journalists are sometimes attracted to sociology be-
cause they find reporting too superficial or hasty and want to dig to a
greater intellectual depth. Consequently, journalism is a relevant recruit-
ing territory for public sociology. I would also reach out to creative writ-
ing departments, for a significant number of novelists actually write soci-
ology, even if their characters are fictional. Since they are frequently loath
to recognize or admit that their work bears any resemblance to sociology,
I would not expect fledgling novelists to instead become public sociolo-
gists, but their fiction might sometimes benefit from a properly designed
course in sociology.
6
Some essayists, social and even literary critics are also doing our kind
of work. They write essays not research reports, but the best of their work
suggests that sociologists would benefit from the humanist and philosophi-
cal intellectual training that is sometimes missing from the sociological
curriculum. Concurrently, social criticism would benefit from contact
with sociology. Some sociology departments might therefore benefit from
cooperative ventures with socially inclined departments in the humanities,
perhaps resulting, some day, in the emergence of scholars who can be both
public humanists and public sociologists.
A Sociology for Public Sociology 133
Other sources of future public sociology will become evident if and when
more sociologists “go public.” However, the discipline must first put greater
priority on becoming more relevant and useful to the larger society, and
choose clear English over technical writing. If sociology would make its
next “turn” in those directions, its desirability, prestige, and ability to attract
lively young minds to its ranks should rise. Eventually, it might no longer
even be confused with social work.
NOTES
This chapter has benefited considerably from the editor’s comments on an earlier
draft.
1. Burawoy (2007:28) suggests Du Bois’s Soul of Black Folks, Myrdal’s American
Dilemma, The Lonely Crowd, and Bellah et al.’s Habits of the Heart. Although eye-
opening public sociology should not be judged by sales figures, a number of other
obvious examples can be found in Gans (1997).
2. My distinction resembles in some respect that between ideographic and no-
mothetic studies.
3. Stinchcombe (2007:135) warns that “we do not have enough truth to offer,”
and while he may be unduly pessimistic, he is also often right on target.
4. Envy may be present too, especially if public sociologists write best sellers,
are recruited into the national cultural elite, or spend some time on the celebrity
circuit.
5. In my presidential address to the ASA (Gans 1989) I had suggested that the
authors of articles in ASA’s and sociology’s other journals be required to write their
abstracts in clear jargon-free English. Then journalists could read them, learn about
what sociologists were doing, and perhaps write articles for the general public about
their work. I still think it’s a good idea.
6. Gyorgy Konrad, the prominent Hungarian novelist, worked as a sociological
researcher before he began to write novels.
REFERENCES
Burawoy, Michael. 2007. “For Public Sociology.” Pp. 23–64 in Public Sociology: Fif-
teen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century,
edited by Dan Clawson et al. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2007. “Going Public: Doing the Sociology That Had No
Name.” Pp. 101–113 in Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics
and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Dan Clawson et al. Berke-
ley: University of California Press.
Gans, Herbert J. 1989. “Sociology in America: The Discipline and the Public.”
American Sociological Review 54:1–16.
———. 1997. “Best Sellers by Sociologists: An Exploratory Study.” Contemporary
Sociology 26:131–135.
134 Chapter 7
Hays, Sharon 2007. “Stalled at the Altar: Conflict, Hierarchy, and Compartmental-
ization in Burawoy’s Public Sociology.” Pp. 79–90 in Public Sociology: Fifteen Emi-
nent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century, edited
by Dan Clawson et al. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen J. Dubner. 2005. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist
Explains the Hidden Side of Everything. New York: William Morrow.
Smith-Lovin, Lynn. 2007. “Do We Need a Public Sociology? It Depends on What
You Mean by Sociology.” Pp. 124–134 in Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociolo-
gists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Dan
Clawson et al. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 2007. “Speaking Truth to the Public, and Indirectly to
Power.” Pp. 135–144 in Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics
and the Profession in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Dan Clawson et al. Berke-
ley: University of California Press.
135
I, in common with other contributors to this volume, am in favor of public
sociology,
1
and I am a sometime practitioner of it. My contribution, how-
ever, is almost certainly more cautionary than most of the others. Whereas
public sociology is necessary if sociology is to be relevant and deserving of
the support that the discipline receives from the societies in which it exists,
bad versions of public sociology, which Burawoy mentions but does not
discuss in detail in his eloquent ASA presidential address (Burawoy 2005),
could threaten the modest and fragile credibility and respectability that
sociology has been able to gain during its relatively short existence. Fur-
thermore, bad public sociology can have social consequences inconsistent
with the goals of those who practice it, and participating in public sociol-
ogy carries risks for the individual sociologist. Some of the personal risks
are unavoidable, and effective public sociologists cannot be preoccupied
with avoiding them, but irresponsible or incompetent public sociology can
harm careers and reputations as well as have other negative consequences.
I am not the first supporter of public sociology to discuss the perils
associated with it (e.g., see many of the contributions to Clawson et al.
2007), and the critics of public sociology have expounded on what they
perceive to be numerous dangers involved in its practice (e.g., see Nielson
2004; Tittle 2004; Stinchcombe 2007). Therefore, little, if anything, that I
say here is entirely new, my intended contribution being to combine my
own less than unique ideas with points made by others to formulate a set
of suggested standards for distinguishing between good and bad public
sociology. In developing these standards, I draw heavily on examples from
family sociology and family sociologists’ participation in the heated public
debates that have been called, with only moderate hyperbole, “the family
135
8
Some Suggested Standards
for Distinguishing between
Good and Bad Public Sociology
Norval D. Glenn
136 Chapter 8
wars.” As Orlando Patterson has pointed out (2007), there has not been
a vigorous sociological presence in those debates, but the participation of
sociologists has been extensive enough to provide numerous examples of
how daunting the practice of good public sociology can be. As one of the
few participating sociologists, I have a number of impressions (which I
would like to consider insights) based on personal experience.
It would be impossible to formulate a set of standards for good public
sociology that would satisfy all supporters of public sociology, and I do
not try to do that. For instance, my concern about the reputation and re-
spectability of sociology is likely to be distasteful to those who believe that
a major purpose of sociology should be to oppose all hierarchical social
arrangements—a goal inconsistent with trying to maintain a position in a
hierarchy. A larger number of readers are likely to find my vision for the dis-
cipline to be too influenced by the positivist tradition, even though I have
been a critic of aspects of that tradition. And any readers who believe that
sociology, as a discipline, should spearhead a social movement to remake
the world into what sociologists believe it should be will find themselves
largely in disagreement with me, because I consider that view arrogant and
elitist (cf. Tittle 2004). Finally, some readers may want a clear distinction
between what sociologists may properly do in their professional role and
what they may properly do as private citizens—a distinction I do not make
because it seems to me that it is impossible in many if not most real world
situations to cleanly separate the roles of citizen and sociologist.
2
In spite
of these anticipated disagreements, I hope that my suggested standards and
my defense of them will stimulate discussion of the issues involved, even
among those who strongly disagree with me in some ways.
I state my suggested standards in terms of what a good public sociologist
will do, and thus I deal with what individual sociologists, rather than the
discipline as a whole, can do to foster good public sociology and say little
about how structural impediments to it might be removed or lessened. I
discuss the standards in no particular order except that the first two are the
most basic and together are a summary of my view of what most public
sociology should be.
These first two standards involve the distinction between “ultimate” and
“derivative” values (the latter sometimes being called “proximate,” “medi-
ating,” or “secondary”) and thus I must define these concepts before dis-
cussing the standards. An ultimate value is a judgment about the goodness
or badness of some object or condition that does not depend on a belief
about the nature of empirical reality. When one explains why one holds
an ultimate value, one does not make a causal statement about empirical,
non-transcendent reality. Rather, one will say “it is good just because it is,”
“because God wills it,” or something similar. Ultimate values are based in
religion, humanistic traditions, philosophies of various sorts, and perhaps
136 Chapter 8
Some Suggested Standards 137
even partially in the unique biology and biography of the individual. In
contrast, what I call a derivative value depends on—is derived from—both
an ultimate value and a belief about empirical reality, as when someone
says that marital stability is good because it contributes to the well-being of
children. In other words, a derivative value is linked to an ultimate value
by a belief about non-transcendent reality.
3
Standard 1: A good public sociologist will support causes, social move-
ments, and public policies that comport with his/her ultimate values by
helping devise effective means for attaining movement and policy goals
and by helping assess the effectiveness of the means advocated by others
who strive to attain those goals.
Standard 2: A good public sociologist will make only tentative commit-
ments to specific means for attainment of goals, including those supported
by a “preponderance of the evidence,” and thus will refrain from dogmatic
adherence to “derivative values.”
A crucial aspect of these standards is that they are not based on the
assumption that all sociologists must have the same ultimate values. If
sociology is truly a “scientific discipline,” as the website for the American
Sociological Association states that it is, it cannot assess the relative valid-
ity of competing ultimate values, because, in an empirical sense, ultimate
values are neither valid nor invalid. A scientific discipline does not neces-
sarily have to follow the “normal science” model of the natural sciences,
but it must deal with empirical, non-transcendent reality and cannot, for
instance, assess the value of prenatal life, or assess the relative importance
of prenatal life and the needs and desires of the pregnant mother. Thus,
sociologists may be either “pro-choice” or “pro-life,” and which of these
they are is not relevant to their sociological competence. It follows that
some sociologists may employ their sociological knowledge and skills in
service of the “pro-choice” movement, while others may do the same for
the “pro-life” movement. Both are public sociologists, and the ideological
camp to which they belong has nothing to do with whether they are “good”
or “bad” public sociologists. It follows that public sociology is to be par-
ticipated in by individual sociologists and not by the discipline as a whole
(cf. Massey 2007; Nielsen 2004). The discipline and its organizations, such
as the American Sociological Association, may try to facilitate and promote
public sociology, but they cannot properly dictate to individual sociologists
what the goals of their public sociology should be.
To say that sociology cannot assess the validity of ultimate values is not to
say that sociology should, or can be, “value free.” Most value judgments are
what I define above as “derivative,” in that they depend in part on an alleged
empirical relationship, an example of such a judgment being the statement
that “comprehensive sex education is good because it lowers the incidence
of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents.” The
138 Chapter 8
empirical part of this statement is amenable to scientific investigation, as are
all alleged causal relationships that link a derivative value to one or more
ultimate values. Assessing the validity of causal claims about social and
cultural phenomena is of course a central task of sociology, and it is hard
to imagine how a sociologist could select topics for research or theoretical
treatment so abstract, or so trivial, that their study would have no relevance
to the interplay of competing derivative values in public debates. It seems to
me, therefore, that sociologists must be involved in the assessment of deriva-
tive values, whether they want to be or not, and what they do will almost
inevitably have implications for public issues and discussions.
Another one of the several reasons why sociology cannot be value free is
that there are some values, along with their associated norms, that must be
embraced by sociology as a whole if it is to be a scientific discipline. The
most basic and obvious of these is that trying to gain knowledge of social
and cultural phenomena is worthwhile. This may be an ultimate value to
some sociologists—those who value knowledge for its own sake—but is
probably embraced by most sociologists largely because they think that the
knowledge can be instrumental in the attainment of ends consistent with
their ultimate values about human life, human happiness, justice, and so
forth. Being a scientific discipline also requires sociology as a whole to em-
brace a scientific epistemology, which includes, or leads to, norms about
openness, skepticism, and questioning of dogmas about the nature of real-
ity. More specifically, it requires that good sociologists be willing to change
their beliefs about reality in the face of evidence that their previous beliefs
were incorrect, and it requires that sociologists let the evidence lead where
it may regardless of where they would like it to lead. (Being a scientific
discipline does not, however, resolve all questions about what constitutes
good evidence.)
It follows that a good public sociologist will not dogmatically embrace
derivative values. And in view of the fact that valid knowledge of social and
cultural phenomena should ordinarily facilitate effective efforts to further
ultimate values, dogmatic adherence to derivative values is inconsistent
with being true to one’s ultimate values.
It is inevitable that what I say in the previous two paragraphs will elicit
from some readers the mantra that the kind of objectivity dictated by sci-
entific norms is impossible in sociology because sociologists, being human
beings, are situated within the phenomena we study—an issue that has
been discussed extensively since the writings of Karl Mannheim (and some
other theorists) on the sociology of knowledge early in the twentieth cen-
tury (Mannheim 1936). Mannheim, unlike some contemporary scholars
(perhaps more often in the humanities than in sociology) who deal with
this issue, did not advocate abandoning the ideal of objectivity and did not
come close to saying that there is no objective social reality about which we
Some Suggested Standards 139
can gain valid knowledge. Rather, he was concerned about how the partial
knowledge of different persons resulting from their different positions in
the social structure and from their different interests could be combined to
gain more nearly complete knowledge and how “free floating intellectuals”
can transcend the perspectives of specific social locations.
I agree more with Mannheim than with the more nihilistic of the con-
temporary critics of the ideal of objectivity. The difficulty of our adhering to
the norms of openness, skepticism, and the like is undeniable, and perfect
adherence probably is impossible for most if not all sociologists. However,
perfect, across-the-board compliance to social norms never occurs, and that
lack of compliance does not render the norms useless. To me, giving up on
the ideal of objectivity because perfect attainment of it is impossible makes
no more sense than giving up on the ideal of justice because perfect justice
is unattainable.
Much of what I say below deals with how public sociologists strongly
committed to their ultimate values may be able to gain a reasonable degree
of objectivity about the effectiveness of the different means being advocated
and used for the attainment of the goals they believe in. At this point, I
will only say that I agree with commentators who urge sociologists to be
constantly aware of how their position in the social structure may bias their
perceptions of reality. If by having such awareness and by largely avoiding
other sources of bias, public sociologists can approach if not attain the ideal
of objectivity, they are likely to make a stronger contribution to the causes
they support than they could by engaging in frontline activism.
Standard 3: A good public sociologist will avoid formulating positions
and arguments for the purpose of gaining the approval of (sometime) po-
litical and ideological allies and should, insofar as possible, avoid letting
those persons become his/her main significant others.
In public discussions of political and ideological issues, an inordinate
amount of time and effort is devoted to communications that are almost
certainly ineffective in converting undecided persons to the positions being
advocated. (Does anyone seriously believe that Rush Limbaugh is an effec-
tive recruiter to his brand of conservatism?) This includes derision, sarcasm,
name-calling, ad hominem attacks on opponents, and the use of ideologi-
cally loaded words that have a common emotional valence only among the
already converted. Such communication that is ineffective for its ostensible
purpose may grow in part out of ignorance of the psychological principles
of persuasion, but I suspect that it grows largely out of the fact that its real
purpose is usually to entertain and please the already converted and to gain
their approval and applause.
Public sociologists who align themselves with particular causes are sus-
ceptible to being lured into the trap of writing or speaking to please their al-
lies, and much public sociology, it seems to me, can serve no other purpose
140 Chapter 8
than to demonstrate what a truly great feminist, or liberal, or conservative,
or whatever, the sociologist is. Such posturing is of course a major threat to
objectivity, and at best it is a huge waste of time, effort, and talent. My im-
pression, which could be incorrect, is that young sociologists are especially
prone to grandstanding for their ideological compatriots when they partici-
pate in public sociology. When a sociologist engages in public discussion,
he or she should ask “how is this going to further the goals of my cause,”
not “how much applause am I going to get for my participation.” A good
public sociologist must be willing, when necessary, to disagree with, and
thus incur the disapproval of, persons who share his or her goals. It follows
that good public sociologists will refrain from becoming highly dependent
on the approval of their sometime ideological compatriots.
Avoiding such dependence may be very difficult, especially when one has
been ostracized by other ideological factions. I give an example from per-
sonal experience. In the 1990s I joined a small group of family sociologists
who had become convinced that, contrary to the orthodoxy of the time,
family structure matters, that not all family forms are equally good for chil-
dren. That position, especially as I expressed it in a critique of family text-
books (Glenn 1997a, 1997b), led to a barrage of criticism from liberal and
especially feminist sociologists and a great deal of approval from conserva-
tives. (Even though I disagreed with conservatives on most issues—and still
do—I became labeled a defender of the “traditional” family and discovered,
several years later, that the Heritage Foundation had listed me, without my
consent, as one of their recommended consultants.) Although the favorable
attention from conservatives was unsolicited and somewhat embarrassing
(and diminished a few months later among conservatives who noticed
when I argued that enactment of no-fault divorce had little effect on divorce
rates, Glenn 1997c), I felt considerable temptation to try to keep it coming,
my having become persona non grata in some liberal circles. Rejection by
one lover makes it tempting to fall into the arms of another. A good public
sociologist must resist that temptation, however. To put it bluntly, a good
public sociologist must be willing to be without a lover, to be willing to
endure criticism from different directions. It follows that anyone highly
sensitive to criticism is not suited for public sociology.
This is not to say that the only good public sociology is that practiced by
the isolated person sitting alone at his/her computer writing op-ed pieces,
letters to editors, and similar materials for public consumption while es-
chewing affiliation or alliances with think tanks, activist organizations, and
so forth. Such isolation is the best way to avoid biasing influences, but it
limits the extent and effectiveness of participation in public discussion. The
most extreme and dogmatic of the ideological and political organizations
are best avoided, in my opinion—whether they be on the left, on the right,
or dogmatically centrist—but some think tanks and organizations allow
Some Suggested Standards 141
for considerable diversity of views and encourage debate among persons
affiliated with them. These same groups are susceptible to being influenced
and educated by sociologists and other scholars and often welcome such
influence.
Occasionally sociologists who support certain causes may not perceive
that there are any organized groups effectively pursuing those causes or that
could be influenced to do so. In these cases, “loner” public sociology, or
public sociology in loose cooperation with other critics and skeptics, is of
course the only good option.
Standard 4: A good public sociologist will oppose extreme, irrespon-
sible, and unwarranted claims about empirical reality made in ideological
debates by both opponents and sometime allies.
This is a topic on which my personal experience is again relevant. Having
taken the position that the preponderance of the evidence indicates that
family structure matters, and matters to an important extent, I have been
faced repeatedly with claims consistent with my position but based only on
simple correlations, which of course are not a good basis, by themselves,
for conclusions about causation. Very often I have read arguments about
the importance of children growing up in intact two-parent families that
are based on simple comparisons of the prevalence of delinquency, mental
health problems, marital failure, and so forth among persons who grew up
in different kinds of family structures. Such evidence is suggestive of causa-
tion, but persons who grew up in different kinds of families differ in too
many other ways for these comparisons to be strong evidence for the effects
of family structure. These unwarranted inferences of causation probably re-
sult more from a lack of understanding of the principles of causal inference
than from anything else, and it is tempting to ignore them in view of the
fact that they generally do not seem to be grossly incorrect. However, to do
so would be bad public sociology. A good public sociologist will hold all
participants in public debates to the same standards, regardless of whether
or not he/she considers their conclusions to be basically correct.
Frontline activists tend to be zealots, at least to some degree, and to hold
exaggerated views of the importance of their cause and of the detrimental
consequences of whatever it is they oppose, whether it be marital failure,
domestic violence, abrogation of fathers’ rights, or whatever. One might
argue that such zealotry contributes to, perhaps is even necessary for, suc-
cessful social action. Without it, would anyone be motivated to make the
sacrifices and take the risks involved in being a frontline activist? I am not
sure that that argument is incorrect, and therefore I stop short of saying
that a good public sociologist will oppose all zealotry in the social move-
ments in which he/she participates. I do believe, however, that a good
public sociologist will try to discourage fellow movement members from
making extreme and unsupported factual and causal claims and will avoid