Jeffries Vincent (Editor). Handbook Of Public Sociology

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72 Chapter 4

contrast, we view public sociology as inherently critical (not dividing criti-

cal and public sociology like Burawoy) and as a particular form of sociology

committed to social justice, a sociology that focuses specifically on histori-

cally oppressed and exploited publics: women, people of color, the poor,

sexual minorities, and other socially oppressed groups.

Social-justice-oriented sociology is concerned not only with political-

economic oppression and resulting inequalities created by states and mar-

kets, Burawoy’s primary concern, but also with other historical, intentional

oppression. Along with state and market (“class”) oppression related to

“contemporary capitalism, other forms of social injustice and inequality

remain central to the United States and other societies . . . [such as] racial

and ethnic oppression, patriarchy, homophobia, bureaucratic authoritari-

anism, violence against children, and discrimination against the aged and

disabled” (Feagin 2001b:4).

A critical public sociology consistently focused on social justice contrasts

with Burawoy’s public sociology. Unlike his view of a workable relation-

ship between the critical-public and professional-policy sociological di-

mensions, we find that sociologies committed to social justice (critical and

public sociology) have historically been in significant and ongoing conflict

with mainstream sociologies (professional and public sociology). Sociolo-

gies committed to social justice are too frequently suppressed or marginal-

ized by mainstreamers, and we disagree with Burawoy’s too-rosy view of

symbiotic relationships between the former and the latter. Unlike Burawoy,

we do not find the two forms of sociology to be regularly compatible and

do not share Burawoy’s “normative vision of the discipline of sociology”

as a “reciprocal interdependence among four types [of sociologies]—an

organic solidarity in which each type of sociology derives energy, meaning,

and imagination from its connection to the others” (Burawoy 2005d:15).

In contrast, we are critical of the history and current state of mainstream

sociology—professional/policy sociology—and are skeptical of a healthy

reciprocal relationship being forged between mainstream sociology and

sociologies oriented to social justice. Mainstream sociology has often failed

to promote social justice issues where it could have. We note its past and

present racial, class, and gender biases; its lack of racial, class, and gender

pluralism in many decision-making positions; its government-oriented and

corporate-oriented production (via grants) of sociological knowledge; and

its long-term promotion of a supposed value-neutral perspective claiming

to be the only “scientific” approach to knowledge generation.

Furthermore, we do not share Burawoy’s belief that “over the last half

century the political center of gravity of sociology has moved in a critical

direction” and disagree with his assertion that “the radicalism of the 1960s

diffused through the profession . . . [and that the] increasing presence and

participation of women and racial minorities, the ascent of the 1960s gen-

72 Chapter 4

Social Justice and Critical Public Sociology 73

eration to leadership positions in departments and our association, marked

a critical drift that is echoed in the content of sociology”; and we are dis-

suaded by his optimistic claims that “sociologists have become more sensi-

tive, more focused on the negative” (social justice issues), and that “today

sociology has never been in better shape” (2005d:6, 7, 18). Despite chal-

lenges to mainstream sociology in the 1960s and the increasing presence of

women, people of color, and the less economically privileged in sociology,

how widespread, enduring, and effectual have the changes in mainstream

sociology actually been?

In response to these questions we expand on key issues raised in Feagin’s

presidential address, “Social Justice and Sociology.” We revisit his argument

that mainstream U.S. sociology has in significant ways become less criti-

cal since its neglected first founders—Jane Addams, W. E. B. Du Bois, and

sociologists working with them—and indeed has wandered from the early

focus on issues of social justice, with much neglect today of critical needs

of women, people of color, the poor, and other marginalized publics. Much

mainstream sociology is presently in poor shape and in need of recovery

of its social justice past. We accent here Feagin’s argument that sociology’s

health relies upon the development of a countersystem alternative to main-

stream sociology, one recognizing the centrality of social justice, a human-

rights morality, and vital pluralism in the sociological enterprise.

HISTORICAL ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN SOCIOLOGY

In their presidential addresses, Feagin and Burawoy both chart historical

phases in the development of sociology. Both observe that the discipline’s

noble beginnings, as a critical public sociology concerned with social

justice and change, shifted over time to an increasingly professionalized,

mainstream discipline characterized by a supposedly detached, value-free

perspective. The latter perspective is out of touch with the discipline’s origi-

nal dedication to critically addressing power imbalances favoring certain

social groups (fortunate publics) and socioeconomic injustices targeting

other groups (misfortunate publics).

Feagin (2001b:6, 8, 10; see also Feagin and Vera 2001) makes it clear that

“it is time for the discipline to fully recover and celebrate its historical roots

in a sociology committed to social justice in ideals and practice.” Accord-

ing to Feagin, “from the beginning there has been a robust ‘countersystem’

tradition within U.S. sociology—a tradition whose participants have inten-

tionally undertaken research aimed at significantly reducing or eliminating

social injustices.” However, “by the 1920s and 1930s leading white male

sociologists were downplaying or ignoring the pioneering sociological work

of early countersystem sociologists [like Harriet Martineau and Jane Ad-

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dams, two women; W. E. B. Du Bois, an African American; and one might

add political-economist, Karl Marx, a Jew].” One early and influential white

sociologist who neglected prior countersystem concerns was Robert E. Park.

The author with Ernest Burgess of the influential textbook Introduction to the

Science of Sociology, Park was one of the white male sociologists responsible

for shaping sociology as an “academic and abstract science” that ignores

the research of the early (often non-white or non-male) countersystem and

activist sociologists.

As Feagin documents,

Park and other prominent sociologists were increasingly critical of activist so-

ciology and were moving away from a concern with progressive applications

of social research toward a more “detached” sociology. Their work was increas-

ingly linked to the interests of certain corporate-capitalist elites . . . While they

frequently researched various types of urban “disorganization,” . . . they rarely

analyzed deeply the harsher realities of social oppression—especially gender,

class, and racial oppression—in the development of cities. Park and several of

his colleagues played a major role in shifting the emphasis from a sociology

concerned with studying and eliminating serious social problems to a more

detached and academic sociology concerned with “natural” social forces—

without the humanitarian attitude or interpretation of what Park sometimes

called the “damned do-gooders.” (2001b, 8)

Park, and the University of Chicago “School of Sociology” tradition

he helped inaugurate, along with the rise of positivism and quantitative

research in other leading U.S. sociology departments (particularly, Co-

lumbia University), marked the beginning of a sociological tradition that

typically retreats from human rights and social oppression concerns to

government- or corporate-defined concerns, supplants qualitative in favor

of hyper-quantitative research, and approaches the study of society and

human beings through the detached, “objective,” and “rational” lens of an

instrumental positivism. Feagin notes that “during the 1920s and 1930s

support for a detached and instrumental-positivist sociology increased at

major U.S. universities.”

This sociological approach is well expressed in the

views of two prominent sociologists of this period, Franklin Giddings and

William Ogburn. Giddings (1909) argued that sociology can be an “exact,

quantitative science.” Ogburn, Giddings’s student, argued for “a detached

and quantitative research approach . . . a sociology emphasizing statistical

methods” in which sociologists “should not be involved . . . in improving

society,” but should “instead . . . focus on efficiently discovering knowledge

about society” (2001, 8). According to Feagin,

By the 1930s and 1940s the critical, countersystem approaches of sociologists

like Addams and Du Bois were losing out to a politically safe, academic, and

distancing sociology. Sociology was increasingly becoming a discipline whose

college and university departments were dominated by white male sociologists

Social Justice and Critical Public Sociology 75

and often linked to elite interests—including ties such as grants from corporate

foundations and government agencies. (2001b:9)

Feagin further explains that after World War II “many mainstream sociolo-

gists continued the move toward the pure-science ideal and away from the

concerns for social justice and the making of a better society.” He argues

that this move away from improving society and promoting social justice

concerns is linked to sociology’s increasing cooptation by business and

government projects, arguing that “government and corporate underwrit-

ing of much mainstream sociological research has fed the emphasis on

a quantitatively oriented or instrumentalist-positivist sociology and soci-

ologists as research entrepreneurs,” the latter being sociologists who “have

rarely done research that draws on the countersystem tradition [which is]

strongly critical of established institutions in the corporate or governmental

realms.” Feagin concludes his mini-history and critique by noting that from

the 1930s to the present “the accent on academic grant getting, the heavy

emphasis on certain types of quantitatively-oriented research, and the

movement away from the social justice concerns of earlier sociologists have

been associated trends,” and that a “detached-science perspective has been

influential in many areas of sociology for some decades now” (2001b:10).

Burawoy echoes Feagin’s concerns, arguing that the shift toward profes-

sionalization and value-neutrality represented sociology’s fight “for a place

in the academic sun” as “pure science” (2005d:5). He acknowledges that

the discipline simultaneously became less concerned with social justice

and morality, and less critically and publicly oriented, and aptly observes

the corresponding damage this legitimizing interest had on sociology’s

academic practitioners:

The original passion for social justice, economic equality, human rights, sus-

tainable environment, political freedom or simply a better world, that drew so

many of us to sociology, is [now] channeled into pursuit of academic creden-

tials. . . . Progress becomes a battery of disciplinary techniques—standardized

courses, validated reading lists, bureaucratic rankings, intensive examinations,

literature reviews, tailored dissertations, refereed publications, the all-mighty

CV, the job search, the tenure file, and then the policing one’s colleagues and

successors to make sure we all march in step. (Burawoy 2005d:5)

In spite of this agreement on the development of professional sociology

and demise of critical public sociologies that address issues of social injustice,

Feagin and Burawoy emphasize different problems and concerns associated

with the development of professional sociology, and each offers a different

interpretation of professional sociology’s present state. We disagree with

Burawoy’s claims that (1) “professional sociology has now reached a level of

maturity and self-confidence that it can return to its civic roots, and promote

76 Chapter 4

public sociology from a position of strength,” and (2) that “professional so-

ciology of the 20th century” has “created the basis for its own transcendence”

into a “21st century public sociology of global dimensions” (2005d:20).

Given Burawoy’s own research, understanding of social sciences as fields

of antagonistic power, and acknowledgment that instrumental-positivistic

knowledge continues to be privileged over critical-reflective pursuits, we

do not understand his assumption that “dominant knowledges” of profes-

sional/policy sociology will or do concede “breathing space” for “subaltern

knowledges” of critical/public sociology (2005d). There is little evidence to

suggest that power concedes space without insistent demands. Perplexing

too is his inference that critical/public sociologists should be content with

paternalistically “granted” breathing spaces for their subaltern positions. If

sociology as a discipline can do no better than elevate from intellectual des-

potism to an intellectual hegemony of instrumental positivism, as Burawoy

suggests,

then there is no wonder that the mainstream discipline continues

to preserve the world it once hoped to change.

The field of sociology will not transform for the better from the top;

sociology’s character will not shift for the good because of internal revo-

lution within mainstream sociology, nor through the ideas and efforts of

professional sociology. Instead, as in the past, contemporary sociology’s

transformation into a more critical, public, and social-justice-oriented dis-

cipline will most likely develop at the hands of countersystem sociologists

working with and for socially oppressed groups, those scientists who are

often marginalized by professional sociology. We question Burawoy’s de-

piction of a “third phase of American sociology” or “third-wave sociology”

(2006, 2005a, 2005d), in which professional sociology is effectively recon-

structed by the critical sociologies of feminism and Marxism (2005d:20)

and which is now in the process of “transcendence” (2005a:512). We see

no evidence that professional sociology has ever made the major ideas of

feminism, Marxism, and critical race theory central to its research concerns.

In fact, many professional sociologists have regularly attacked ideas of these

marginalized sociological perspectives, and/or those who assert them. We

see little evidence that most professional sociology has been transfigured or

transcended; today, it is as powerful in U.S. social science as ever.

Rather than waiting for professional sociology to metamorphose into a

more pluralist and justice-conscious sociology willing to move away from

its corporate- and government-controlled existence and instrumental-

positivistic sensibility, we believe a countersystem sociological tradition

must be reinvigorated to combat the dominant position of hyper-profes-

sional sociology. This countersystem approach, reflected in much critical

public sociology,

would directly challenge the concepts, methods, and

overall framework of mainstream sociology, and would attempt to drasti-

cally re-shape or dismantle professional sociology.

Social Justice and Critical Public Sociology 77

THE COUNTERSYSTEM TRADITION IN SOCIOLOGY

In “Social Justice and Sociology,” and in contrast to Burawoy, Feagin iden-

tifies the countersystem tradition as a “tradition whose participants have

intentionally undertaken research aimed at significantly reducing or elimi-

nating social injustices.” He argues that “contemporary sociologists need to

cultivate the long-standing countersystem approach, not only in regard to

investigating social inequality and injustice but also in regard to assessing

alternative social systems that may be more just.” Developing a countersys-

tem approach requires that we first learn from the ideas and actions of the

early sociologists committed to “social-scientific knowledge and to social

justice, equality, and democracy.” With the aid of concepts and methods of

these early sociologists, the next step for countersystem sociologists involves

developing a “new conceptual paradigm for sociology,” one “that would ac-

cent the centrality of differences, oppressions, and inequalities—as well as

recurring movements for social justice—within societies” (2001b:6, 11).

According to Feagin (2001b:6, 12), the countersystem tradition in U.S. soci-

ology “is one in which social scientists step outside mainstream thought

patterns to critique existing society,” or, in other words, “a counter-system

approach attempts to assess the status quo from a viewpoint at least some-

what outside the frame of the existing society and/or nation state.” Such a

countersystem approach can be developed if we “document empirically, and

ever more thoroughly, the character of major social injustices, both nation-

ally and internationally,” and if we generate “more conceptual work that

develops and enriches the concepts of social justice and equality.” Feagin

further argues that

social injustice can be examined not only in terms of the misdistribution of

goods and services, but also in regard to the social relations responsible for

that misdistribution. These social relations, which can range from centrally

oppressive power relations to less central mechanisms of discrimination,

determine whether individuals, families, and other groups are excluded from

society’s important resources and decision making processes. They shape the

development of group and individual identities and the sense of personal dig-

nity. In the end, social justice entails a restructuring of the larger framework of

social relations. (Feagin 2001b:11)

Feagin asserts that, seeking social justice, countersystem sociologists

must “document the character and impact of class, racial, and gender sub-

ordination,” must hone “countersystem ideas and methods,” must work

“interactively with people at the grassroots level seeking assessments of,

and alternatives to, an onerous status quo,” must “get out of the ivory tower

and . . . build a resource and power base for the disenfranchised in their

communities,” and, additionally, must encourage “collaborative research

78 Chapter 4

between sociologists and community groups seeking solutions to serious

local problems of housing, work, education, poverty, discrimination, and

environmental pollution” (2001b:12).

In Feagin’s view (2001b:12–16), a countersystem sociological approach

must be morally guided, critical and self-critical, recognize the impor-

tance of teaching, and recommit to studying the big, challenging socio-

logical questions. He claims that “[i]n everyday practice all sociology is

a moral activity,” and that “we should seek a sociology that is grounded

in empirical and theoretical research and that hones a critical perspective

less restricted by established institutions” (2001b:12). More specifically,

Feagin (2001b:13) calls for “accelerated self-reflection” in sociology, a

heightened reflexive thought that recognizes and accents pluralism and

the necessity of incorporating “critical social perspectives, such as those

of feminists, gay/lesbian scholars, critical theorists, anti-racist scholars,

and Marxist researchers,” sociologists who take risks to counter oppressive

social relations.

Feagin (2001b:14) argues that we should encourage idealism and ac-

tivism among students of sociology and work to ensure that these future

sociologists “think critically about their social lives and about building a

better society,” learn how “to engage in debates about important issues,

critically assess necessary moral judgments, and explore possible futures for

themselves and their societies.” In short, it takes sociology students (future

professors, policy makers, activists) trained in countersystem approaches

to step outside the “iron cage of professionalism”

and further countersys-

tem sociological projects. A countersystem approach must move beyond

the confines of specializations and engage big, often uncomfortable social

questions. To succeed in this, sociologists must not rely solely on estab-

lishment grant money, which “distorts too much social science research

in the direction of relatively minor social issues,” rather “sociologists need

to formulate more original and independent ideas, and to illuminate and

directly and critically address recurring national and global crises” (Feagin

2001b:15).

According to Feagin (2001b:15), some of the large, looming questions

and concerns confronting sociologists center upon the “huge and ongoing

wealth transfers from working classes to the rich, the social impact of envi-

ronmental crises, the impact of globalizing capitalism on local communities,

and the human costs of racism, sexism, and other social oppressions,” as

well as on the study of “societal futures, including the alternative social fu-

ture of just and egalitarian societies.” We strongly suggest that participatory-

action sociologists, teachers and researchers, move outside mainstream so-

ciology and develop alternative solutions to societal problems, alternative

concepts and methods for better understanding the dysfunctions of society,

and alternative models for creating a more just society.

Social Justice and Critical Public Sociology 79

DEVELOPING A COUNTERSYSTEM APPROACH

IN CRITICAL PUBLIC SOCIOLOGY

In several ways, Burawoy’s later (2005c) development of the term and

concept critical public sociology

resonates with our accent on a social-justice-

oriented, countersystem sociology. In contrast to Burawoy, however, we do

not separate critical and public sociology, nor do we separate professional

and policy sociology. In our view critical and public sociology have long

merged into a single sociological project, into a critical public sociology

which stands in relation to (often, in conflict with) mainstream sociology

(the mix of policy sociology and professional sociology). In the 1890s,

public sociology began as a society-critical countersystem approach to

analyzing and improving the social world. From its earliest historical mo-

ments, critical public sociology has combined social critique (questioning,

examination, and supervision of ideas and the social world) and critical

social practice informed by that social critique, intent on improving the

human condition. Presently, much “public” sociology has lost its critical

dimension, and clearly must work hard to become much more critical,

to transmute into an efficacious field of critical public sociology. The lat-

ter entails an active, successful field of countersystem activist-scholars and

activist-publics committed to (1) challenging past

and present social in-

justices, exploitation, and destruction of human beings, and (2) promoting

a future of social justice, equality, and opportunity for human beings. In

our view, critical public sociology must be unabashedly proud of moral-

intellectual pursuits challenging the hegemonic operation of mainstream

sociology, which in many cases perpetuates the agenda of those who pursue

unbridled power and excessive profit.

The critical public sociology project

continues the work of past critical scholars who expose “objectivity” as a

positivist illusion that often serves to entrench power, disguises the reality

that all research is influenced by personal preferences, and ignores reflexiv-

ity as a prerequisite for the best science (see Gould 1996; Harding 1998).

A truly critical public sociology needs to establish a coherent countersys-

tem approach and to accent important counter-narratives

and counter-

frames,

which provide the sociological concepts and methods to challenge

the dominant narratives and frames drawn on by mainstream sociologists.

The latter tend to be uncritical and anti-public and often neglect the societal

marginalization, exploitation, and destruction of important publics. In ad-

dition to promoting social justice and establishing a counter-frame in soci-

ology, critical public sociology must also work for a much more pluralistic

sociological discipline, in membership and perspectives.

With these prerequisites in mind, we can now nuance our critique of the

“public sociology” of Burawoy’s presidential address. There his fourfold

division of sociology provides a less impressive, less precise model (picture)

80 Chapter 4

of sociology than his two-dimensional model that contrasts a blended

critical-public dimension (guided by reflexive knowledge) and a blended

professional-policy dimension (guided by instrumental positivism) of con-

temporary sociology. The fourfold-division model presents an unconvinc-

ing argument for current “synergistic” interrelationships among the four

distinguished sociologies, a model in which the four sociologies overlap

and are said to be positioned in a sometimes healthy/creative, sometimes

times pathological tension. Whereas Burawoy’s two-dimensional model

reflects a more realistic picture of the enduring conflicts between the critical-

public dimension and the public-policy dimension in contemporary sociol-

ogy, as well as the major need for the former dimension to gain dominance

over the second.

Burawoy’s two-dimensional model points to a primary ongoing tension

between the marginalized sociologies (“victims of exclusion and subordi-

nation”) of the critical-public dimension and the dominant, mainstream

sociology of the professional-policy dimension. As noted previously, this

tension can be seen in each position’s divergent perceptions of societal

realities and aims for change, and by their valuation or low/high ranking

in the field of sociology.

Despite this conflict, Burawoy appears to believe

that the two sides (and four sociologies) are in the future reformable, can

interact in a dialogic relationship, and communicate reasonably. This posi-

tion reflects a certain Enlightenment logic of human relations found in the

long-standing U.S. corporate-liberal-reform tradition and in Habermasian

communicative-action theory, a perception of human relations that places

argument over praxis, non-conflict over engagement, and methodical

change over rapid, radical change.

This version of Enlightenment logic impedes understanding and im-

proving human relations, contradicts actual social history, and tends to

maintain power hierarchies. Because of the more than occasional bias and

unreliability in human reason and the failure of “objectivity” and “rational

discourse” to solve major racial, class, and gender conflicts, Burawoy’s hope

for future fruitful relations and synergistic communications among the four

defined sociologies seems questionable at best. Instead, the great divide

between the professional-policy and critical-public sociological dimen-

sions most likely are to remain in irreconcilable conflict, incapable of truly

dialogic relations, especially considering their conflicting deep assumptions

and connections to societal hierarchies of oppression.

Unlike Burawoy, we question the current prestige and asserted legitimacy

of professional-policy sociology. Do these sociologies really achieve more

social good than harm? How do these forms of sociology directly benefit

the many (the larger society) and the few (certain groups and individuals

in society), the disadvantaged and the advantaged (including most soci-

ologists themselves)? Are professional-policy sociologies so enmeshed in

Social Justice and Critical Public Sociology 81

current political-economic power structures (including those in the acad-

emy) that they have mostly been impotent as sources of pluralistic social

knowledge and of major societal changes? How self-serving are these two

forms of sociology, particularly in maintaining their own existence? To

what degree is contemporary mainstream sociology—professional-policy

sociology—built on faulty concepts and flawed methods in trying to create

a social “science”?

According to Burawoy’s writings, the main standpoint of sociology is

“civil society and the defense of the social,” or in other words, sociology’s

character is discovered in its engagement with and relationship to civil so-

ciety. Sociology’s purpose is “defense of the social” against the market and

state, what Burawoy refers to as “public sociology.” He states that “sociol-

ogy’s affiliation with civil society, that is public sociology, represents the

interests of humanity—interests in keeping at bay both state despotism and

market tyranny” (Burawoy 2005d:24). Terms like “public sociology” and

“civil society,” and phrases like “defense of the social” and “the interests of

humanity,” present a picture of a pluralistic sociology and social pluralism.

Indeed, in his writings, Burawoy argues not for a public sociology, but for

public sociologies (2005d:4); he directs us not to the standpoint of civil

society, but to the standpoints of civil society (2005a:156), as objects of

sociological study.

Burawoy’s call for a pluralistic public sociology and social world makes

sense. At points in his writings, however, it is difficult to determine if Bura-

woy is calling for a pluralistic sociology or a more Marxist sociology.

advocates “a broad range of public sociologies,” including feminist public

sociologies, “calls for a pluralistic professional sociology with multiple

research programs,” and claims not to reduce public sociologies to Marxist

versions (2005a:160). He also (2005b) recounts, however, his training in

Marxist sociology and suggests that “undoubtedly, if I had a public sociol-

ogy it would have a Marxist coloring” (2005a:160).

In our view, a public sociology with a strong infusion of Marxist class

theory is definitely preferable to the stagnant establishment condition of

most mainstream sociology. However, a critical public sociology concerned

equally with class, racial, gender, and other major social divisions is yet

more necessary. As Burawoy’s idea of public sociology develops further,

will it incorporate the ideas of feminists and critical race theorists as well

as class-oriented theorists? Joan Acker (2005:328) warns that a public so-

ciology that does not include feminist “insights about the systemic nature

of gender subordination will be in danger of giving support to movements

that inevitably reproduce [male] domination.” And Rose Brewer (2005) ac-

curately observes that, in Burawoy’s history of “radical sociology,” Marxist

thought is prioritized, white feminist thought is acknowledged, but antira-

cism theory, especially the counter-framing black sociological tradition, is