gans-sociology in america

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Sociology in America: The Discipline and the Public American Sociological Association, 1988Presidential AddressAuthor(s): Herbert J. GansSource: American Sociological Review, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Feb., 1989), pp. 1-16Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095658

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SOCIOLOGY IN AMERICA: THE DISCIPLINE AND THE PUBLIC*AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION,

1988 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSHERBERT J. GANS

When I first began to think about thepresidential address, I planned to choose oneof the research areas in which I've worked allof my professional life. I considered a paperon Sociology and the City, urban sociologycurrently being in an exciting intellectualtransition, and also one on Poverty andInequality, a topic about which sociologistshave far more to contribute than they now do.I would also have liked to discuss Sociologyand the Mass Media, an ever more significantfield which still has not received the attentionand respect from the discipline that itdeserves.Instead of writing a paper that might havebeen relevant to only some colleagues,however, I chose a topic in which all of us areor should be interested, the discipline.' Moreparticularly, I want to discuss our relationswith America's nonsociologists, the laypublic: both the very large general public andthe smaller well-educated one which doesmuch of the country's professional-levelanalytic and creative work. Since the laypublic includes the country's entire popula-tion, less the approximately 20,000 sociolo-gists, my topic is also an intrinsic part ofSociology in America.Although I shall concentrate on what we

* Direct all correspondence o HerbertJ. Gans,Departmentof Sociology, Columbia University,New York, NY 10027.I am grateful to many colleagues who madehelpful comments on the version of this essaypresented n Atlanta,and to those at the GraduateCenter of the City University of New York, theState University of New York at Albany, andFordhamUniversity for allowing me to try outearly versions of it on them. My thanks also toAnna Karpathakis or libraryresearch assistanceand to Allan Silver for convincing me to use anallusion to Alexis de Tocqueville'sclassic work forthe title of this paperand the theme of the 1988AnnualMeeting.1 I had, however, made presentationsaboutwhereI thoughtsociology was going to seminarsatColumbiaUniversityin 1980 and 1985, each timebeforelarge enoughaudiencesto suggestthat therewas considerable nterest n the topic.

still need to do to serve the lay public and theinstitutionsin which it is involved, in manyrespects we are doing better than we have inthe past. Sociology has establisheda presencein many kinds of policy analysis and ismoving into large numbersof other so-calledpractice areas, even if our ideas continue tobe largely absent from the country's politicalthinking.As best I can tell fromenergeticbutunsystematic observation, the news mediapay more attention to us than before, andsomejournalistsnow wantsociological angleson feature stories they are covering. Slowlybut surely they are also becoming interestedin sociological research. We even show up assympatheticcharacters n occasional popularnovels and films, although we continue toplay villains and fools in high culture. I havethe impression hat the majorityof the literarycommunity still believes that only it cananalyze society.When one talks with publishersof general,nonacademic books as well as with editorsand writers for so-called serious magazinesand with foundationheads, the picture alsoremains discouraging. Too many people stilldislike sociology or, worse still, are notinterested n it. To be sure, often they react tocaricatures f sociology, but the very fact thatthey are not motivated to go beyond carica-turesis itself depressing.In effect, we play asmaller part in the country's intellectual lifethan we should.Many sociologists find nothing wrongwiththis state of affairs. For them, sociology is asocial science with emphasison the science,andreachingout to, or obtaining he attentionof, the lay public is irrelevant.Othershold astrongerversion of this point of view; beingin touch with the laity, except when necessaryfor earninga living, impedes the progressofscientific research.Colleagueswho feel moststrongly speak of vulgarizing sociology orpandering o the uninformed.I believe that these feelings are mistaken.Maintaining ome relationshipwith the Amer-ican public is part of our responsibility asmembers of society and as recipients of its

American Sociological Review, 1989, Vol. 54 (February: -16) 1


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2 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWfunds, public or private, whether as tuitionpayments,salaries,grants,or contacts. More-over, when members of the lay public feelthat our work is useful or enlightening orboth, they have an incentive to give us theircultural and political support f we need it-when issues like student nterest n sociology,the allocationof researchfunds, and freedomof researchare at stake. The rest of the essaywill show that paying more attention to layAmerica can be done without pandering.This essay has threemajor parts. The firstdescribes some of the research needed toanalyze sociology's roles in America, forwithout it we cannot fully understand ow wecan best reach out to the lay public. Thesecond partdiscusses some ways in which wecan now improve our relations with thepublic. In the last partof the paperI focus onsociology itself, offering some ideas on whatwe can do better for ourselves even as we dobetter by the public.2Before I startI mustdefine the term "we."I use it broadly, referring to "we thediscipline" and "we the collectivity," know-ing all the while that the discipline is highlydiverse while the collectivity is far from afunctioning sociopolitical entity. "We" istherefore mainly a shorthand about hownumbers of us act or how we should all act,but I must apologize to the practitioners hatmy "we" is mostly the academic disciplineandcollectivity, they being what I know best.

STUDYING SOCIOLOGY N AMERICAMy initial topic is researchingSociology inAmerica. At one level, I see the topic as a setof studies in the sociology of knowledge thattriesto understandwherewe arecomingfromand going and how we are tied to the mainstructuresand hierarchiesof American soci-ety. In the process, we should identify ouremployers, sponsors, funders, supporters,and allies, as well as our clients or constitu-ents-and our possible victims. In short, wemust understandwhose sides we have beenon, purposelyor accidentally (Becker 1967).At anotherlevel, Sociology in America isevaluative, the application of our analytic

2 Some of what follows was also said bypresenters at the Atlanta thematic and specialsessions, but I wrote this essay beforereadingtheirpresentations.

tools and our values to understandand assesswhat we are doing for and to the country, aswell as to all the sectors on which we mightimpinge, from underdogs to top dogs, forinstance. We need to know whom we helpand whom we injure and damage, intention-ally andunintentionally, o that we canfigureout whatwe shouldbe doing andnot doing inbehalf of a better society, however "better"may be defined."Sociology in America" is a good title foran ASA annualmeeting theme, but the topiccould also be called sociology and society, inpart to emphasize that it must be cross-national and cross-cultural as well (Kohn1987). A first priority is conceptualizing thebasic subject, and many alternatives arepossible. One can begin by looking for and atsociology's contributions,identifying activi-ties and institutions in which sociologistshave participateddirectly or in which theirwork has been used indirectly. A majorproblemwith looking at contributions s thatwe tend to forget the negative ones and theones we fail to make, but this problem can becorrected.

A slightly different approachwould be toask what roles sociology has played and isplaying, adding the evaluative element byalso asking how well these roles were played,and which should be played in the future.Some roles are self-evident, but the conceptallows us to wonder whether, for example,we somehow also representparticularnterestgroups, or falling, not to mention rising,classes. Or are we mainly one of a set ofacademicswhose role it is to add a touch ofcultural polish and a smidgen of socialconscience to the socialization of youngAmericansable and willing to go to college?Yet how do we fit into the scheme of thingswhen we play what I think of as the Martianrole, distancingourselves andgoing to ErvingGoffman's backstage-or back of it-toreport on how society or some of itsconstituentpartsoperate.My own thinkingtakes me in the directionof effects concepts, because what mattersmost is not what we have done but how ourworkhas affected others. Somewhat the sameoutcome as a studyof effects can be achievedby the use of functional analysis, forfunctions are operationalized as conse-quences-as long as we always inquire intofunctions anddysfunctionsof what for whom,and assume the possibility that some of our


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1988 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS 3activities are functionalmainlyfor ourselves.Alternatively, one can look at sociology'sbenefits and costs-if these are not treatedsolely as quantitative oncepts. We must alsoremember that researcherswill not alwaysagree on what is beneficial and costly, andthat the determinationof benefits and costsmust reflect the views of all those whoactually win and lose. Moreover, we mustnever exclude the possibility that our workhas neithersignificantbenefits norcosts-normajorindependenteffects. We are, after all,only 20,000 in a countryof 230 million.I am aware of all the methodologicaldifficulties of studyingeffects, functions,andbenefitsandcosts, but we must discoverwhatimpact we have had. Furthermore, anyproperly sociological effects study has toexamine the agents and processes that haveshaped sociology to achievewhatever mpactsit is having. Thus, a study of sociology'simpact on America must be preceded byresearch on America's impacts on sociology(Gouldner 1970; Vidich and Lyman 1985).However, if we analyze the roles we haveplayed, we must likewise ask who helped usplay these roles and how we were invited orshoehorned nto them.Needless to say, thereare otherconceptualschemes for looking at sociology in America,but whatever the schemes, the questions Ihave raised also have to be answeredhistorically. In fact, it may be strategic tobegin with historical analyses because thehistoricalview can give us a betterfix on theprimary theoretical and empirical issues onwhich we must concentrate in order tounderstand he present.Althoughthe teachingof sociology has stillnot obtainedenough respect from the disci-pline, the fact remains that virtually allacademic sociologists, including those at themost elite research universities, earn theirliving by teaching. Consequently,one of thefirst and most important questions to beresearchedconcernsthe effects, andthus alsothe effectiveness, of our teaching.

ASA estimates that 75 percent of Ameri-ca's sociologists-or 15,000-are still aca-demics. If each teaches four courses a year,and many unfortunatelyteach many more,that comes to 60,000 courses a year, and ofthese the most frequentlytaughtcontinue tobe introductory,marriageandthe family, andsocial problems. Although studies have beenmade of the majortexts used in these courses,

we ought to start finding out what is actuallybeing taughtin them:not only what kinds ofsociology, but what descriptions of andprescriptions or Americansociety. Forexam-ple, a multicampussample of marriageandthe family courses could be analyzed toidentify what models of marriage and thefamily sociologists teach, and what posturesthey encouragestudentsto take towardthem,explicitly or implicitly. To what extentdo weteach conformity to the culturallydominantmodels, and if we suggest the desirability ofsociopolitical change, what new or oldmodels do we have in mind?After that, we ought to begin on the moreurgentbut also more complex task of lookingat what students learn from these basiccourses, for their own lives and their citizenroles, to see if we can establishfindingsaboutthe effects of their exposure to sociology.Since sociology has begun to drift down tothe high schools, similarresearchcan be donethere. Schools not being the only teachinginstitutions in America, however, someoneshould also take a look to see whethersociology has yet had any visible impact onthe country'snews and entertainmentmedia.Parallel kinds of research can be under-taken among sociological practitioners.In-deed, now is an ideal time to begin, forbefore-and-afterstudies should immediatelybe conducted at some of the many publicagencies and privatecompanies that are firsthiringsociologists, so thatwe can learnwhatearly effects they are having. Now thatsociologists are being employed in marketresearch, for example, it would be useful tolook at a sampleof firms to discoverwhat, ifanything,the sociologists do differently-andwith what effects-from the previous marketresearcherswho have generally been MBA'sand psychologists. Do sociological marketresearchers have more empathy for thesubjects of market research than had theirpredecessors,andwhat effects does this haveon theirwork, the resultingfirmpolicies, andthe profits? Or are sociologists in bigorganizations more likely to practice whattheirorganizationsprescriberather hanwhattheir discipline has trained them to practice?Incidentally,an interestingstudyof academicpractitioners, he increasingnumberof sociol-ogists who become deans and provosts oftheiruniversities,could be done to see what,if anything, they do differently because theyare sociologists.


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4 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWThe effects studies of the greatest urgencyare those with potential public policy signifi-cance. I will limit myself to two examples.One is the roles and functions sociology has

played in past culture-of-poverty esearchandis now playing in the study of what iscurrently called the underclass. We couldbegin, for example, with the effects the mostwidely-readnew sociological book of the lasttwo years, William J. Wilson's The TrulyDisadvantaged (1987), has had for the publicunderstandingof the underclass,and for thepolicies needed to bring it into the country'smainstream. As sociological underclass re-search proliferates, however, we must alsolook at what we may be doing against thepeople now assignedto that class.The term underclass was first used inrecent times by GunnarMyrdal (1963) as aneconomic concept for describing a set ofpeople being driven to the edges or out of theeconomy. While most current underclassresearch seems to be in the hands ofeconomists, they have generally adopted adifferent definition, perhaps of journalisticorigin, in which the membersof that class arealso associated with a variety of criminal,pathological, or stigmatizedactivitiesand aregenerallyblack or Hispanic.No laws prevent us from studying theimpact of economists alongside of, or incomparison o, our own, and many questionsdeserve answering. Do studies using theunderclass concept call attention to peoplewho need economic and other kinds of aid?Or are researchersprimarilygiving scientificlegitimization to the latest buzzword for theundeservingpoor and concurrentlyhelpingtodisseminate a new code word for the covertexpressionof racialhostility?Moregenerally,what role do researchers play in the emer-gence of a new public stereotype, and howcan they preventa social science generaliza-tion or an ideal type frombeing interpreted sa stereotype?To the extent that underclass studies areseen and used by social workers and otherstreet-level bureaucrats as well as policy-makers,we have to ask whetherthese studiesmainly help the people of the underclassorhelp government to control them? Onceagain, what sides are we on, intentionallyandunintentionally, as we study this newest"hot" topic? Perhaps the biggest problemstems fromunintentional"putdowns"of poorpeople, because of either lack of researcher

reflexivity or the use of data from agenciesthat exist in part to be punitive toward thepoor.I have the impression that sociologistsdoing researchamong underclasspeople aremore likely to be on their side while theeconomists tend to treat them as a dangerousclass. Even so, sociologists and economistsplay only a small causal part in the tragicrelationship between the underclass and therest of America. Indeed, the currentresearchis itself an effect of public appetites forinformation, scapegoats, and, of course,solutions. These appetites have themselvesemerged for such reasons as the increasingfear of crime-and of dark-skinnedAmeri-cans-the rise of homelessness, the economicinsecurity created in many parts of thepopulationby the Reagan economy, and therelentless pressuresby the Reagan administra-tion on people who cannot afford the valuesof mainstream ultures.My secondexample mightserve as a modelnot only of what we have done well associological researchersbut also of the waysin which sociology can be useful, andrelativelyeasily. I think here of the large setof findings which indicate on the one handthat informal groups and related socialsupports have both illness-preventing andhealing functions, and on the otherhandthatisolation and loneliness as well as alienationproducedby hostile or distant formal institu-tions can breed and worsen physical andmental illness. The basic idea goes back to19th-century ociology, but since WorldWarII many researchers have shown how thepresence or absence of kin, friends, neigh-bors, and other informal groups and net-works affect health (Litwak and Messeri1988).For the studyof sociology in America,andfor the making of health policy, we mustexamine whether and how such findings are,or could be, providingcompetitionfor purelymedical models of health and illness. Inaddition,we need to know whether and howthese findings are leading to changes inmedical activity, from physician practice tonational health policy. Conversely, we mustalso study why changesdid not takeplace, sothatwe can try to understandhow they couldtakeplace. Since informalgroupsshould costless than doctors and hospitals, social sup-ports would help reduce medical costs andmight be welcomed for that reason alone-


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1988 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS 5unless hospitals and doctors decide to turnthem into a medical specialty, and chargeaccordingly.Whether he study of Sociology in Americainvolves basic, applied, or policy-orientedresearch, we will, in effect, be studyingourselves. I need not list the dangers of adisciplinary-wideself-study, and in a utopianworld, anothersocial science would study uswhile we study yet a third. However, in thisworld, we have to do the needed studies andwe have to learn how to deal with the likelyconflicts of interest.An essential ingredient or self-studyis theright mixture of deliberate and systematicreflexivity and an equally deliberate andsystematic distancing. Appeals for morereflexivity without structural underpinningsandinstrumentalncentivesbeing the materialof sermons, I am reluctant to go furtherexcept to hope with Alvin Gouldner hatwhatI have in mind here does not become "justanother topic for panels at professionalconventionsand not just another ittle streamof technical reports" (Gouldner 1970, p.489).

Consequently,as relevantstudies areunder-taken, we have to begin to think about whatwe will do with the results. Even before weknow more about our contributions, roles,and effects, we must debate how to increasesociology's positive effects and cut back thenegative ones. We ought also to confrontonce more an old, recently forgottenquestion:whatis a good society and how can sociologyhelp bringit about?I have no illusions about how much we canagreeon the natureof the good society or howmuch we can do to bring one about, but thediscussion of these questions will havebeneficial resultsfor the disciplineitself. Thevery innocence of the notion of the goodsociety may be a useful antidotefor our toofrequenttendency toward excessive abstrac-tion. Moreover, asking fundamentalgeneralquestions, even the kind that cannot beansweredeasily or completely, forces us toaddress issues of widespread interest inAmerica and is, in addition, a way ofreachingout to the generalpublic.SOCIOLOGYAND THE LAY PUBLICThe second part of my paper is aboutimproving relations with the public and itsinstitutions. I begin again on an empirical

note, becauseat least two further opics badlyneed studyif we are going to act intelligentlyto improve our relations with both the largegeneralandthe smallerwell-educatedpublic.One study seeks to identify lay sociology,the generalizationsabout society and its partsthat all people-we included-start learningas children, long before knowing of theexistence of professionalsociology. True, laypeople do not label their knowledge aboutsociety sociology, but nonetheless it consistsof ideas anddatain all of the fields we study.Much lay sociology is learned during theprocess of socialization, yet more is discov-ered through the applied participant-observation we all do constantlyin everydaysocial life, and some comes from nonprofes-sional, or so-called pop, sociology: researchdone by nonprofessional ociologists who usesome of our methodsbut few of our conceptsandtheories.For my purpose, the significant questionscenter around what happens when people'slay sociology comes into contact with ourprofessionalsociology. We have to discoverwhat impactswe have on lay sociology, andwhether and how we add to and change it.Perhaps even more to the point, we have tofind out if and why we are ignored orrejected.When the generalizationsof lay andprofessionalsociology diverge, we generallyseek to replacethe lay kind, and our studentsmay fail to learn because they are notpersuadedthat our sociology is more validthan theirs. I wonder, for example, whathappens when working-class and poor stu-dents, whose lay sociologies are particularlyrich in the fields of class and inequality,takea course in social stratificationwhich seessociety solely from a middle-class perspec-tive. Although we assume that professionalsociology is always better than the layversion, that assumptionalso deserves someinquiry.The other study strikes at the heart of ourrelationswith the educatedpublicbecause weneed to know in detail how our sociology isjudged by that public. If, when, and whereourstanding s not as good as it shouldbe, wehave to identify the reasons and causes. Inaddition, we have to find out what themembersof this public want from sociology,ours and theirs. There is clearly a greatdemand for applied organizationalresearch,for the management iterature s full of popsociology on this topic, much of it so poor


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6 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWthat every six months yet another newanalysisbecomes a brief best-seller.In theirnonoccupational eading,however,many membersof theeducatedpublic seem tospecialize in literary and historical works,which is one reasonwhy just aboutall of theimportantmagazines and publishing housescateringto this public continue to be run bypeople from literary and historical back-grounds.Why the readingpublic is so fond ofhistory and why it ignores-and perhapsdislikes-some or much sociology is aresearch opic of fundamentalmportance, oruntil we have a comprehensiveanswer ourwork will not get much attention from thejournals of culturaland political opinion, thelarge circulation "class" magazines such asTime, The New Yorker,or TheAtlantic, and"tradebook"publisherswho publishnontech-nical books in the social sciences.Despite the need for these researches,many suggestions can be made now for howto improveour relations with the lay public,but I will limit myself to five I considerparticularly ignificant.First, I assumethe lay public-general andeducated-will pay more attentionto profes-sional sociology if and when our researchaddressessalientsubjectsandissues. Many ofthese center around he family, the economy,and health-subjects about which we havesomething to say that can help people'sunderstanding, f we can present our ideasand findings in plain English. Other layconcerns touch on or are set off by currentevents, and we shouldfigureout how we cando more studies on significant topics of themoment. Many years ago Gladys and KurtLang proposed"firehouse research"for suchstudies, and their proposal is as timely asever. We can also supplyusefulcomments ontopical issues, especially as debunkersandcorrectorswhen the early journalisticreportsand nonprofessionalsociology are wrong. Inaddition,we can reporton trendsunderlyingtopical subjects and can often provide moresystematicexplanations of events and trendsthando journalistsand pop sociologists.An already existing lay interest in oursociology has to do with the diversity ofAmerican life. Because of that diversity,some membersof the lay publicwantto knowhow other Americans cope with commonproblems such as familial and communityones, as well as how they interpret, orsubstitute for, the conventional rules and

normsof Americanlife. It is no coincidencethat the best-knownsociological works of thelast 75 years-Middletown, The LonelyCrowd, and Habits of the Heart-respond toone or anotherof these lay inquiries.These studies also exhibit what I considerone of sociology's distinctive qualities:theyare based on researchamong ordinaryAmer-icans. While othersocial sciences concentrateon elite decision-makers, exotic subcultures,or laboratorysubjects, sociology has alwaysdone much of its work with and amongtypical Americans. This is one reason whyprofessional sociology, when properly pre-sented, appealsto the lay public. Thatappealis widenedwhen we use the researchmethodsthat seem most attractiveto this public: thedepth-interview, in which people have achance to talk andto explainthemselvesfully;and fieldwork, in which sociologists are onthe scene to hearthem on a continuingbasis,and inside the social structuresn which theyact and interact.The ideal study format may be thecommunitystudy, not because I have done afew but because it is broad; it allowsresearchersthe opportunityto report on avariety of people across a wide range ofinstitutionsand situations.If the communitiesandpeople studied are reasonablyrepresenta-tive or thoughtfullychosen deviantcases, thesampling s done properly,andthe research sfocused on significanttheoreticalandsubstan-tive questions, this is the best way to look atAmerica, for both the discipline and the laypublic (Keller 1988).Communitystudiesarehardwork;theycantake a long time and, like many qualitativestudies, do not fit the currently dominantdefinition of science. As a result, fundingagencies have not been supportive-a seriousmistakethathelps to explainwhy sociology isnot as much in the publiceye as it shouldbe.The second of my five suggestions is acorollary of the first: that undergraduatesociology courses should concentrate,when-ever -possible, on sociological analyses ofAmericaninstitutionsand society rather hanon sociological principles illustrated withsamplesfrom America. There is nothing likean overly concept-filled introductorycourseto turn many students against sociologyforever. Coursesthatteach sociology throughan analysis of Americansociety also require


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1988 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS 7researchon topical issues and currentevents.3Unfortunately, even reading a first-classnewspaperor weekly news magazine with asociological eye is not normally part of thegraduate school training program. If wecarried out more analyses of topical issuesand current events, sociology could makemore original contributions o understandingboth. If any sociologists now prepare suchanalyses for their classes, we should find aplace where the best of themcan be publishedfor the rest of us.My third proposal is that we must recruitand encourage talented sociologists who areable andeager to report heir work so that it issalient to both their colleagues and theeducated lay public. Borrowing Russell Ja-coby's concept of public intellectuals (Jacoby1987), they might be called public sociolo-gists, and the public sociologist par excel-lence that comes at once to mind is DavidRiesman. Public sociologists are not popular-izers; they are empiricalresearchers,analysts,or theorists ike the rest of us, althoughoftentheirwork is particularlyhoughtful, magina-tive or originalin some respect.4

Public sociologists have three furtherdis-tinctive traits. One is their ability to discusseven sociological conceptsandtheoriesin theEnglish of the college-educatedreader, prob-ably because they enjoy writing as well asdoing research and may even think ofthemselvesas writers.Their second trait s thebreadthof their sociological interests, whichcovers much of society even if their researchis restricted o a few fields. That breadthalsoextends to their conception of sociology,which extends beyond research reportingtocommentaryand in many cases also to socialcriticism. To put it anotherway, theirwork isintellectualas well as scientific.5A third, not

unrelated, trait is the ability to avoid thepitfalls of undue professionalismdescribedbyearlier ASA presidents (for example, Hughes1963, p. 890; Lee 1976, pp. 927-29).I do not know how one recruits ledglingormaturepublic sociologists, but I fear that toomany young people with an interest n societyget Ph.D.'s in English, literature,or history.Consequently, ociology mustencourage hoseit does attract, beginning in graduateschool.It also has to assure them that they can beboth sociologists and writers and will not bediscriminatedagainst for this combinationofskills. For example, they must be rewardedfor being writers, and their majorsociologicalwriting in nonscholarlypublicationsmust betreatedas equivalent to scholarly writing inpromotion and tenure decisions. We shouldalso find outlets for their writing insidesociology so we do not lose all their work tootherpublications.I have been around long enough toremember when David Riesman was notconsidereda sociologist in many partsof thediscipline, although even today some col-leagues who hold fervently to a naturalscience conceptionof sociology rejectpublicsociologists. Worse yet, they may dismissthem as "journalists,"a term that we shouldnever use as a pejorative or yet otherreasonsI will come to shortly. I am told that JohnKennethGalbraith, he dean of public econo-mists, has never been accepted as aneconomist by many of his colleagues, butthen economics is a backwardsocial sciencein otherrespects.The fourth suggestion for adding to ourimpacton the lay public requiresrevitalizingan old mode of public sociology: socialcriticism.I oversimplify only slightlyto pointout that Americansociology began in partassocial criticism, and while a handful ofsociologists have continued this tradition,today's American social criticism is almostentirelyin the hands of journalists,essayists,literary critics, and philosophers. Europe isquite differentin this respect, because manyEuropeansociologists and researchersdoubleas-newspaperr magazinecolumnists, writingregularly the kind of social commentaryfound here in journalsof opinionandculturalcriticism.We are not Europeansand we should noteven imitate America's currentsocial critics.Our task is sociological social criticism.Journalisticand humanistic critics too often

3 Some time ago I receiveda blurb or an annualreview of sociology text for undergraduates nddiscovered that the vast majority of contributionswere not written by sociologists.4 I distinguish public sociologists from visiblescientists (Goodell 1977) because the visiblescientists she describes earned their visibility notonly as scientists but also as popularizersand ascommentators on social issues far outside theirscientific fields.5 Jacoby's hopes notwithstanding,public sociol-ogists also have to be academics or practitioners,there currentlybeing no free-lance writing marketto providea living for even one sociologist.


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8 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWview social ills by what makes them person-ally unhappy, and they may also misunder-standthe causes of these ills or offer solutionsthatreflect the values of a single group-be itintellectualelite or workingclass. Partlyas aresult, conventional criticism is frequentlynostalgic or apocalyptic, with good old daysbeing mourned right and left and manyinstitutionsthought to be in permanentrapiddecline-headed almostalways by the family.The sociological social critic can do muchbetter!The identificationof social ills oughtto be basedboth on empiricaldata aboutwhatthe public or several parts of it feel to bewrong, and on the critic's own concerns.Proposedsolutions can likewise transcend heperspective of the critic's own immediatecircle, and they should draw on systematiccausal analysesof the problemsto be solved.Social criticismis not for every sociologist,butit shouldbecomepartof the disciplinejustas social policy researchbecamea partof it inthe last 20 years, once we were able to movebeyond the primitive conceptions of value-free sociology on which the early disapprovalof social policy researchwas based. Sociolog-ical social criticismwill never grow as largeas social policy research,however, because itcannot,and shouldnot, become a governmentfunction.My fifth and last proposal is particularlyfocused on the general public. Since its majorcontact with professional sociology comesfrom the mass media, we should try to getmore of the sociological perspectiveand ourown studies into these media. Reaching thegeneral public requirespopularizers,sociolo-gists and others who can turn the ideas andfindings reportedin our journals and booksthat should be of general interest intoeveryday English.6Concurrently, we should encourage thejournalistswho also popularizeour work: thesmall number of free-lancerswho do it fromtime to time, as well as the handfulwho haveregularsocial or behavioralscience beats. We

6 Actually, number f sociologists realreadyworkingwithASA'sPublic nformation ommit-tee and ASA staff to writepopular rticles rompapers n various ociologicalournals.Now weneed o findwaystogettheirwork nto he media,which also requires earning what kinds andsubjectsof sociologywill appeal o the generalpublic,and the editorswho supply heirnewspa-persandmagazines.

should assist journalisticpopularizers s muchas we can, for good popularization willincrease public interest in sociology. At thesame time, we may be able to head off someinaccurateor sensationalizedpopularization.In addition, we should help nonprofes-sional researcherswho undertakepop sociol-ogy, which I described earlier as researchbased on the concepts and ideas of laysociology. We can be particularlyhelpfulwith advice on methods. After all, the rulesofsampling, question construction, field work,and statistical analysis apply equally toprofessionaland pop sociology. True, nonpro-fessional sociologists often cannot apply theserules as rigorouslyas we do, for the lay publicis not interested n professional subtleties andqualifications, whether in sociology or inphysics. Still, our common interestsin goodmethodology can make us useful as long aswe understand and are tolerant about thedifferences between their sociology and ours.Good nonprofessional sociology is usefulto us for the same reasons as good populariza-tion. We have a special interest in reducingbad pop sociology, however, because its lowqualitycan reflect on us directlyand quicklysince the general public may not distinguishbetween professional and nonprofessionalsociology.Professional sociologists should keep aneye on pop sociology, if only because it has amuch larger audience than we do. Theyshould also distinguishbetweengood and badpop sociology, but unfortunatelyoo many ofourcolleagues look down on all of it, as theydo on popularizersof our work. This stancecan only hurt he discipline, for when some ofus appeardistantand superior,we may turnoff membersof the lay publicotherwisereadyto pay attention to our work. Worse yet,wholesale rejectionof sociologies other thanours may end up by biting the public handthat feeds us.An ideal solution, allowing us to have ourcake while eating it, is an ASA-run orsupervisedmagazineof high-qualitypopular-ized and pop sociology, but that solution isunrealisticsince the current ay constituencyfor sociology is too small to supportsuch amagazine. Sociology may be inherentlylessnewsworthy han,for example, psychologyoreconomics, since both give advice abouteveryday life of a kind that we cannotsupply-or anthropology and psychiatry,which can tell more dramatic tories than we.


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1988 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS 9Thus, a Sociology Today modeled on themonthly Psychology Today is not in thecards.7Today's most significant disseminators ofour sociology to the general public aremagazine and newspaper journalists whoincorporate urwork in their stories, occasion-ally becausethey judge a sociological studytobe newsworthybut increasinglyoften becausethey want sociological commentaryon and intheir stories. In these cases they may look forappropriate ociological findings, a sociolog-ical perspective o increasethe qualityof theirstory, or a quote to provide the story withsome sociological legitimation.

These journalists are a crucialresource forus, a veritable disciplinary reasure,and theyshould be given our full and immediatecooperation (Gans 1988). That we are beingcalled more and more often by reporters,feature writers, and their equivalents intelevision can only be viewed as a compli-ment. I hope it is also a sign thatthe old days,when sociology was good only for a crankyfeature exaggerating our shortcomings, arecomingto an end.8Besides, the more we helpjournalistswith their stories, the more inter-ested they may become in reporting ourstudies.We can be helpful furtherby eliminatingthe mindless attacks on journalism that arestill heardin the discipline. At one level theyreflect a disciplinary stereotype that alljournalismis superficial,but at another evelthey may express unhappiness with thecompetition ournalistsprovideus in the studyof society. While journalism s often superfi-cial, sociology would be superficial equallyoften if it had to reportto a diverseand oftenpoorlyeducatedlay audience; f it had a two-to six-hour deadline for data collection,analysis, and writing; and if the research

7 Psychology Today,which was foundedas, andis once again, a commerciallyowned magazine,was for some years published by the AmericanPsychological Association, which lost severalmillion dollarsin the process and proved that evena giant social science organization s not necessar-ily commerciallyadept.8 Suchfeatures,which criticizeus for the use ofjargon, too many numbers, irrelevance,academicrestatements f the obvious, as well as for trivialityand excessive seriousness,still appear rom time totime, and we should make sure thatwe do not actaccordingto this now-agingcaricature.

reporthad to be condensedinto a few hundredwords. Journalismhas otherfaults too, but wemust learn to distinguish between good andbad journalism. Indeed, we should not refrainfrom criticizing bad news stories about ourwork and ideas, as long as we make clear tothe journalists involved how and why theirwork was inadequate. Conversely, we haveevery right to expect that ournalistswill learnto distinguish between good and bad sociol-ogy, to give up their stereotypesof us, and tostop thinking of the term sociological as apejorative.I end this section of the paper with amodest proposal: that the abstracts of ourjournal articles and the summaries of ouracademic books be written in nontechnicalEnglish.9 Journalistsmay then become inter-ested in our work instead of becomingdiscouragedat the very outset, and while theywill probably still have troubles with thetechnical writing in the body of the text, theymay be motivated to get in touch with theauthorfor help in clarifyinghis or her work.They may also wean us away fromwritingsomany of our article and book texts in"Sociologese."SOCIOLOGYFOR AMERICAThe thirdof my threetopics is the disciplineitself and what we can do to help as well asimproveourselves. I againlimit myself to theacademicside, mainly at the researchuniver-sity level I know best. I will not systemati-cally evaluate that side of the discipline,however, and I cannot even go into somespecific problemsthatbadly need discussing:for example, the ways we still often mistreatgraduate students and part-time instructors,which is in part a reflectionof long-standinginequalities within the discipline. Theseinequalities are currently worsened by theever-expandingstarsystem and the treatmentof some colleagues as celebrities.Here I want principally o outline what weneed to do for andin the disciplinein ordertoobtain a better reception from the public,particularly the educated one. This goalrequiresattention to the intellectual level of

9 Moreover,article abstracts hould not berepetitions f the first and sometimes he lastparagraphsf the articlebut should upply eaderswitha summaryf thearticle's indings.


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10 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWour work and the imperfectionsthat intellec-tual observers and other members of theeducatedpublic see in thatwork. I will limitmyself to two such imperfections.Both canalso be found in the other social sciences,which means that their causes transcendourown discipline. However, the imperfectionsof the other social sciences do not excuseours-and besides, we should be the first toovercome them, thus leading the way for theothers.The initial imperfection is mindlessness,research that is poorly thought through.Mindlessnesscuts across fields and methods.It is the use of proxies or indicatorsbecausetangentiallyappropriatequantitativedata areaccessible, even though these proxies haveonly the most tenuous logical or empiricalconnection to the phenomena under study.Mindlessness is groundingthe analysis of acomplicatedphenomenonon survey questionswithout any idea of how respondentsunder-stood the questions. Mindless fieldworksupplies thick descriptionsof what is alreadycommon knowledge but fails to provide thethick analyses that are sorely needed. Andwhateverthe researchmethod, there are stilloccasional sociological analyses that, oncetranslatedntoordinaryEnglish, turnout to beexamplesof what we have oftenbeen accusedof: restating he obvious.Another kind of mindlessness sacrificessubstantive validity to a favored analytictechnique of the moment. That kind ofmindlessness s part andparcelof ourpassionfor methodology, which is actually long-standing. Jules Poincare,who was writing atthe turn of the century, even then describedsociology as "the science with the mostmethods and the fewest discoveries."10OtisDudley Duncan, whose theme I am hererepeating, has put it more pointedly:

Writing on "methodology" cultivated for itsown sake produces a bifurcation of scientificeffort that is stultifying. You have on the onehand inept researcherswho thinkthey have noresponsibility or the methods they use becausethey can cite the authorityof some "methodol-ogist" and on the otherhand "methodologists"whose advice is no good because they do not10I am indebted o Otis Dudley Duncan for thisquotation. Robert K. Merton has planned toincludeit, with its source, in a collection of socialscience quotationwhich he and David Sills areediting.

actually know how to do research (otherwise,we must suppose, they would have done some).(Duncan1974, p. 2)The second imperfection, also of long

standing, is what I thinkof as overqualifica-tion. I have no quarrel with statistical ormathematical analyses per se; they haveadvantages and disadvantages just as thevarious qualitative methods do. However,overquantification akes place when the re-search problemcalls for qualitativeanalysesbut quantitative ones are used instead, orwhen the use of such analyses changes theresearch problem. Overquantificationoccurswhen elegant statistical analyses are per-formedon sloppily collected data, or on dataforever made unclean by the covert or overtagendas of the collectors. And it takes placewhen quantitativeanalysis is not preceded-or driven-by concept and theory formula-tion, when researchersare literally merelycrunchingnumbers.Needless to say, equiva-lent sins happenon the qualitativeside. Theremay be no phrase for qualitative datacrunching, but it occurs, and fieldworkaloneis inappropriatewhen the research problemcalls mainlyfor frequencydistributions.Some unfortunate ffects of overquantifica-tion result from its ideological character.Oneis the inability of overquantifiers o toleratedisagreement,and their resulting stigmatiza-tion of and discriminationagainstqualitativeresearch.Perhapsas a result, some advocatesof qualitative method have also becomeideologists. Consequently, a scientific disci-pline, in which research problems ought todetermine the methods, and in which manyproblemsare best solved by the use of bothtypes of methods, is locked into an ideologi-cal dispute over a dubious typology-whichis, moreover, actually about the nature ofsociology.A relatedeffect of overquantifications thetime and energy academic departments,individuals, and the discipline as a wholewaste in endlessbattlingover the two types ofmethods.RobinWilliamswas recentlyquotedas calling this a sham battle, adding rightlythat -"energy should be better utilized inapplying whatever techniques seem to pro-duce reliable knowledge" (Hirschman1987,p. 5). However, by now the crucial battle isless over ideas than over "scarce resources. . . jobs, research funds, editorial policies ofour journals, professional recognition andprestige," as MirraKomarovskyhas pointed


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1988 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS 11out (Komarovsky1987, p. 562). Suchbattlesare not sham, and were they to end now, thesuperior resource position of quantitativesociology wouldbecomepermanent.Those ofus who believe in the virtues of qualitativeempiricaland othersociological work have tocontinue the struggle for equality of re-sources. I consider it scandalous, for exam-ple, when funding agencies with publicmandatesor tax exemptions nonethelessbasetheir grant policies on the power balanceinside disciplines.A final effect of overquantificationthatneeds mentioning is its tropism towardsecondary analysis, which makes it possiblefor sociologists to study society for theirentire lives without ever leaving their officesto talk or listen to the people they study."The reliance on secondary analysis alsomakes us increasinglydependenton officiallyproduced data. Worse yet, the resultingimpersonalizationof research is thought tomake sociology more scientific, whereas infact intensive interviewingand fieldwork aregenerallymore scientific because the research-ers get to know closely the people and socialstructures hey are studying.The problemsI have described are familiarand have been discussedin previouspresiden-tial addresses (e.g., Coser 1975). Thus,nothing is gained by further elaboration.What would be useful, however, is moresociological research nto why sociology andthe other social sciences have been develop-ing what I see as imperfections. If I weredoing the study, I would want to lookparticularlyat three sets of currentacademicarrangements.The first of these arrangementsmight becalled scholarly insulation and a correlativelack of reality checks, which can disconnectourwork fromwhatis generallyreferred o asthe real world. Unlike practitioners, ourresearchdoes not need to be accountabletononsociologicalkinds of validity, so that, forexample, we are not open to and thus do notreceive corrections from the people we havestudied. We are accountable to funders tosome extent, but many tend to base theirjudgments on peer reviews and, whatever

their other virtues, peer reviewers can be asinsulated from the nonsociological world asotherresearchers.The absence of reality checks, which isalso one cause of intellectual mindlessness,could actually be remedied somewhat byinstituting such checks as part of ourempirical procedure at the start and justbeforethe end of ourresearch.Basically suchchecks would involve informal reconnais-sances, through the use of informants,informalinterviewing, and fieldwork, amongthe people or institutionsunderstudy, as wellas the application of independentstatisticaldata, already available or newly collectedfrom a small sample. Even theoreticalpapersand quantitativesecondary analyses can beimprovedby realitychecking.Another kind of reality checking wouldidentifythoughtfulnonsociologiststo critiqueour work and identify errors of omission andcommission. Wherepossible, these must alsoinclude the people we study. Reality checksseem to me to be at least as importantasliterature eviews, andwe will be well servedif we can make them intrinsic parts of ourresearchprocedures.The other two causes of imperfectionareless easy to remedy. One is scientist, themodeling of sociological (and social science)research methods on a highly idealizedversion of the methods of the naturalsciences. Althoughthis modeling began evenbefore sociology first became systematicallyempirical, it continues today when we knowfull well, in part from research in thesociology of science, that natural cientists donot operateaccording o the idealizedconcep-tion of their method. Indeed, the ideal ishumanlyunworkable;nevertheless we cannotlet go of it. We also know that socialstructuresare not molecules and cannot bestudied like them, but we cannot seem to letgo of that analogy either. Nor have we yetlearned to appreciate Donald McCloskey'slesson that "scientific work is rhetorical"andthat it is so "even in its stylistic appeal to arhetoricof not havinga rhetoric" McCloskey1985, p. 98).Idealizednaturalscience is a kind of civilreligionin modernAmerica,andtheremaybea quasi-religiouselementboth in the ideal andthe consensus behind it. The ideal alsocontinues to justify the search for sociological"laws"-the nomothetic approachto sociol-ogy-but that search may express the latent

" David Riesman has pointed out that somesurvey researchersdraft their interview questions,have others obtain the answers and then analyzethe data and never leave their offices either(personalcommunication).


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12 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWhope for power-in an ideal society in whichthese laws - and their formulators - wouldplay a central decision-making role. Such asociety is as millenarianas those of the majorreligions: when salvation has been achieved,the Messiah has come, Mohammed hasreturned,or the State has witheredaway.The searchfor sociological laws is, further-more, sufficiently abstract to be "above"culturalor political conflicts of the moment.It is perhaps no accident that nomotheticsociology-like overquantifiedwork-is usu-ally noncontroversial,and unlikely to producecriticism of economic, political, and culturalpower holders who are behaving in undemo-craticor unjust ways.The third and last cause of imperfection nsociology I will discuss concerns that strangeinstitutionin which academics work and inwhich all academic scholarship is thereforeembedded. Although we are paid for thenumberof courses we teach, we arepromotedby how much we publish, and only some-times by the quality of our publications aswell. In effect, our strange institutionoper-ates like a machine shop in which publica-tions are treated like piecework. And likeemployees in any other kind of machineshopbasicallyconcernedwith amountof productiv-ity, we may overspecialize to study one partof the "social machine."Moreover, again like workers in othermachine shops, we are periodically greetedby new technology oriented to improvingproductivity, most recently of course thecomputer. The virtues of the computer forbothquantitativeandqualitativesociology faroutnumber the vices, but there are somedownsides too. Despite its potentials forhigh-qualityresearch,the computer acilitatesthe speedier and thus greater productionofpiecework. It further encourages secondaryanalysis and the use of official, ratherthanself-generated, data. Although creative re-searchers can make creative use of thecomputer, the new technology even reducesthe need to think and analyze once the rightcomputer program has been found. Likemany other industries,we too are becomingless labor-intensive.These patternsare also symptoms of thecontinuingbureaucratization f researchand,as often happens, the new technology ismerely handmaiden to the socioeconomicprocess. In fact the computer nicely fits theacademicshop routine,for it enablesacadem-

ics to do their researchduringthe intersticesof a full teaching load, and to publish morework at a faster clip.'2 The computer addsfurtherto the impersonalizationof research,and thus fits in with the worship of theidealizednatural cience method.Whatcomesout of the computer s thereforeautomaticallyjudged to be scientific, and insufficientattention is frequentlypaid to what humanbeings put into it.The imperfections I have described notonly stand n the way of a bettersociology butalso damage our disciplineand its reputation.The public, general and educated, cannotunderstand,or even see the justificationfor,much of what we produce, since in too manycases our work appearsto have no benefit,director indirect, for people's understandingof society or for their lives. The reactions ofthe lay public must not determine socialscience policy or shapeourresearch,buttheycannot be ignored either. Meanwhile, theleadersas well as the foot soldiers of today'sdominantsociologies ought to remember hata good deal of the intellectual standing andgood will our disciplinehas developedcomesfromthe work of public sociologists. They-and books like TheLonely CrowdandHabitsof the Heart-essentially persuade much ofthe lay public and its politicians that sociol-ogy ought to be cared aboutand funded!'3OUR SOCIOLOGICAL DENTITYTo conclude my highly selective analysis ofthe disciplineand to end this essay, I want toraise the issue of our identity as sociologistsin an era of ever-greater specialization offields and subfields within the discipline.4

12 Perhapshecurrent risis nuniversityibraryfinances, broughtabout in part by the ever-increasingnumberof journals which chargeever-increasingubscriptionates,will eventuallyput a damper n thepublish-or-perishyndrome.13 Theirreasons orsupportingociologycouldshrink if culturalanthropologists ho can nolongerdofieldwork verseas ndwholearn o cutbackon theirappetiteorexoticU.S. subculturesreplaces us even furtherin doing Americancommunitytudies.14 Again, I must omit the practiceside ofsociology, but the discipline's most seriouslong-termdentityproblem s our continuingoconceiveof identitynacademicesearcherms,asI do here. Thus, we neglect the fact thatmanypractitionersayhave ittlereason o identifywith


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1988 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS 13That identity should concern all of us, tofurtherour own well-being and to help usmakeourcase for the desirabilityof sociolog-ical knowledge to the lay public.

Sociology is once again no different fromthe other social sciences, althoughthe degreeof specialization may be greater than it isamong our peers because we are the residualsocial science. We are more diverse to beginwith than economics (even though it is nowbranching out beyond the economy) andpolitical science, which is basically stillconcerned with politics only in government.In any case, it is worth looking into thebenefits and costs of further sociologicalspecialization.Among the majorbenefits arethe intellectualvitality usually found in newfields and subfields, as well as the intensivepersonalcontactamongresearchersas long asthese fields remainsmall. Indeed, because ofthe vitality thataccompanieswork in the newfields or at the frontiersof research, we oughtalso to be moving deliberately across theaccepted or imagined boundariesof sociol-ogy, and in two ways.'5For one thing, we should look morecloselyat othersocial science disciplines to see whatwe can learnfrom them as well as to discoverhow we can improveon theirwork, jointly orby ourselves. To mentionjust a few: socialhistory, the study of symbols and symbolsystems which we share with anthropology,and empirical research in and of economicinstitutions can all gain from such a look.'6Disciplinaryboundaries n the social sciencesare arbitraryanyway, and they should becrossedfreely, preferably or substantive, notimperialistic, reasons. We should act simi-larly toward boundaries beyond the socialsciences and take a greater interest in thehumanities.Among otherthings, the study ofthe interrelationsbetween culture and socialanacademicdiscipline,especiallyif andwhen theyare pushed or pulled by industry/agency- andjob-specific demands for theirloyalty.

15 Both of these boundary-crossinghemeswereconsideredby the 1988 ProgramCommittee andtranslated nto a numberof Special Sessions at theAtlantameeting.16 The intellectual vacuum created by theeconomists'emphasison econometricsand model-buildingcould andshouldbe filled in partby moreethnographic and other institutional studies bysociologists of the giant, and the small butinnovative, firms that currentlyplay a significantrole in the Americaneconomy.

structurecan benefit from the concepts andideas of literaryscholars.These can put someof our concepts and ideas to use as well intheir work on literature and society-forinstance, what we have learned about theroles of audiences in the production ofculture.Increasing specialization inside sociologyalso carriescosts, however.Forone thing, themore sociologists specialize in particularfields, the more are some likely to limitthemselvesto really tiny specialtieswithin thediscipline as a whole. Moreover, when newfields and subfields develop, they quicklybreed their own technicallanguages.

Theendresult s that thediscipline]ooks ike awheel.Peoplesit on theirownspokesand talkless and less to those on the other side.Eventuallyhewheelmay becomea doughnut,with a huge intellectualhole in the middle.(Winkler 986, p. 7)The person I quote is geographer SamHilliardtalkingabouthis own discipline, buthis comment is starting o apply to sociologyas well, and the challenge is to preventboth

the wheel and the intellectual hole. The holecannot, however, be filled by pining for oneapproach or theory that will reintegratesociology, for such reintegration is neitherlikely nor desirable n a pluralisticdiscipline.Insteadwe should ask ourselves what canor should bring us together as sociologists.One approachmay be to identify intellectualcores thatare common to many of us. Thesecan be concepts, frames, theories, methods,or other intellectual forms and qualities thatwe continue to share. A relatedapproach s tolook empiricallyat some major old and newfields andsubfieldsanddeterminewhatideas,concepts, and theories are operationallysimilarin the significant researchandtheoriz-ing in them, even if the terminology isdifferent. 7 Such a project might even in-crease the sharing of terms and reduce theexcessive number of terms in the discipline.The more we emphasize elements of sociol-ogy that we share in annualmeetingsessions,other -conferences, and various kinds ofpublications, the more we will discover to

17 HarrietZuckermanhas suggested, in apersonal ommunication,hatsome sociologists'practiceof changing ields andthe migration fproblemsndapproachesromone fieldto anothermayact as countertendencieso fragmentation.


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14 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWwhat extent we can remaina single discipline.Even my previously mentioned question,"What is a good society?" can performthisfunction. Imagine a medical sociologist, anethnomethodologist, a specialist in genderand sex roles, a market researcher, and amathematical ociologist, all with roughly thesame values, being asked to come up with asingle answer to this question!Identity is social as well as intellectual;consequently, we should also look at socialmechanismsthat can contribute o being andfeeling a partof a single discipline. ASA doeswhat it can along these lines, but only a baremajorityof all sociologists belong, and muchtoo small a numberof them are involved inASA as other than receivers of its services.Also, the organizationstill relies excessivelyfor its agenda and leadershipon academicsfrom the major research universities to befully representative. The Annual Meetingsbring about 3,000 of us togetherfor a hecticfew days, although the sessions themselvesincreasinglyare vehicles for specialization.In1988, for example, 43 percent of the regularsessionswere runby sections, andmanyotherregular sessions were on subjects for whichthereare sections.Publications could bring us together aswell, but I wonder if they do since ourjournalstend to appeal largely to specialists,whatever the editor's hopes. For example,ASR, being the flagship journal, is supposedto representthe best in sociology. However,for this readerandI imagine manyothers, it isalso a journalof lengthy researchreportsonspecialized topics, only some of which are ofgeneral interest. In addition, ASR is domi-nated by often elegant quantitativeresearch.In fact, some have suggested that ASR isactually a methodologicaljournalfor quanti-tative sociologists not able or willing to workthrough the yet more technical articles inSociological Methodology. There are excep-tions in ASR's emphasis, to be sure, andrecent editorshave publishedmore exceptionsthanpast ones. On the whole, however, mostmajorarticles continueto be researchreportsof roughlythe same formatand frombasicallyone kind of sociology. Sometimes one getsthe impression that ASR is "run" by itscontributors, he editorsfunctioningprimarilyas qualitycontrollers and traffic cops even ifthey might personally prefer to publish adifferentjournal. Like the organizationswestudy, ASR has become institutionalized.

CS maybe the most generalof the journals,for it reviews a large proportionof all thebooks sociologists publish. While the reviewsare classified by sets of specialties, CSreaders can get a kind of overview ofsociology by reading all of the reviews.Conversely, anecdotalevidence suggests thatmany of ASR's readers scan the abstracts,read an article or two, and leave it at that.Over the years many have reported in thediscipline's grapevine that they have diffi-culty understandingor getting involved inmany of the articles, and there are regularcomplaints, some published (Wilner 1985),thatASR almost never deals with any of thesevere problemsor controversial ssues abun-dant in Americansociety.'8None of these observationsare intended ascriticisms of presentor past editors of ASR,for they work harder and longer at lesscelebratedtasks than any other active ASAmembers. Furthermore, do not think ASRshouldbe anythingelse thanwhat it is now: ajournalof researchpapers,althoughit shouldpublish more reportsof qualitative researchand theoreticalas well as historicalpapers.'9

Instead of making basic changes in ASR,we need another sociological journal thatpublisheswhat ASRcannot:articles of generalinterest to sociologists. Although such ajournal should be published for sociologistsand not the lay public and should be of highintellectualquality, it must not be a technicaljournal.This should also add to its appealandhelp make it profitable for an academicpublisher.We would not even be pioneersinestablishingsuch a journal, for in 1987 theAmerican Economic Association began topublish The Journal of Economic Perspec-tives, which describeditself in its first issueas "a scholarly economics journal for thegeneral audience of economists" (Stiglitz,Shapiro,andTaylor 1987, p. 3).The editorsof this new journalwould have18 Despitethe high reliabilityandvalidityof thesociological grapevine, my evidence is anecdotal,and we badlyneed sophisticatedreadership tudiesof the discipline's major ournals.19In fact, the number of historical papers inASR is now risingandone way to begin to assurethe publicationof qualitativeresearchreportsandtheoretical papers is to submit them in largeenough numbersandat such high levels of qualitythatASR cannotwant to do other than to publishthem.


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1988 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS 15to use their intuition,experience, and valuesto decide what their sociologist-readerswantand need, but I will describe some kinds ofarticles this readerwould like to see:1. Analyses of general intellectual issuesin sociology, including, for example, studiesof the roles and effects of sociology inAmerica, the relevance of sociology inpostindustrial societies, and the relationbetween Americansociology and the Ameri-can economy.2. Extended debates about, and critiquesof, current heories or trends in theorizing,aswell as fundamentalor controversial ssues inempiricalresearch,teaching, and practice.

3. Review articles of sociologically rele-vant work in other disciplines, such asinstitutional conomics, literarycriticism,andtheories of knowledge.4. Nontechnical researchreports and An-nual Reviewof Sociology-style articles aboutcurrently ignificantor controversial rends inAmerican society: for example, downwardmobility in the middle class, causes of druguse andabuse, convergencies of andrelationsbetween high culture and popular culture.This category could also include analyses(and corrections) of pop sociology, forexample, of the decline of the nuclearfamily,the rise of greed and materialism in the1980s, and the cultural and economic powerof "yuppies"and "babyboomers" in Ameri-can society.5. Sociological analyses of currenteventsthat have been or should have been in theheadlines, domestic and foreign, economic,political, andcultural.6. Long reviews, of New YorkReview ofBooks quality, of important sociologicalbooks, well knownand unfairlyneglected, aswell as of books of significance to sociologybut writtenby nonsociologists.7. Articles of professional relevance notlikely to appearin Footnotes, The AmericanSociologist, or the practice journals: forexample, analyses of sources of conflicts inacademic departments, reviews of graduatesociology programs romthe studentperspec-tive, andproblemsof sociological practiceinprofit-making organizations. These articleswould frequentlyneed to be anonymous.8. Sociological biographies of influentialfigures in sociology, not necessarilyfromthepast.9. Provocativepieces that suggest unusualif untested(and even untestable)hypotheses,

or offer thoughtfulanalyses of the disciplineby relevantoutsiders.10. Shorteror lighterarticles: or example,sociological reviews of art, literature, andfilms-highbrow, middlebrow,andlowbrow;studies of the depiction of sociologists inAmericannovels, films, and television, andeven cartoons of sociological significance orrelevance.A lively journalthat speaksto interestswesharemay help a little to bring us together asspecialization moves us ever further apart.Nevertheless, perhaps the best way to addsome unity to the diversitytakes me back tothe majorthemeof this essay: ourbeing moreuseful to the public and to its varioussectors.Being useful, as teachers, researchers, writ-ers, practitioners,and as experts, advisers,and critics, will make us feel more usefuland this will strengthenthe commonalityofpurposeamong us. Being useful should alsoaddto ourpridein the discipline, andprideisitself a potent social cement. But if we havefurtherreasons to be proud of sociology, wewill surely grow intellectually and in otherways in the years to come.

REFERENCESBecker, HowardS. 1967. "Whose Side Are WeOn?" Social Problems 14:239-47.Coser, Lewis A. 1975. "PresidentialAddress:TwoMethods in Search of a Substance." AmericanSociological Review40:691-700.Duncan, Otis D. 1974. "DuncanRequests Recon-siderationof Award!"Footnotes2, 9:2.Gans, Herbert J. 1988. "Improving Sociology'sRelationswith Journalists."Footnotes 16, 4:8.Goodell, Rae. 1977. The Visible Scientists.Boston: Little, Brown.Gouldner, Alvin. 1970. The Coming Crisis ofWesternSociology. New York: Basic.Hirschman, Charles. 1987. "Eastern Sociolo-gists." Eastern Sociological Society News 2,8:3-5.Hughes, EverettD. 1963. "RaceRelationsandtheSociological Imagination."AmericanSociologi-cal Review28:879-90.Jacoby, Russell. 1987. The Last Intellectuals:AmericanCulture in the Age of Academe. NewYork:Basic.Keller, Suzanne. 1988. "The AmericanDreamofCommunity:An UnfinishedAgenda." Sociolog-ical Forum3:167-83.Kohn, Melvin L. 1987. "Cross-NationalResearchas anAnalyticStrategy."AmericanSociologicalReview52:713-31.Komarovsky, Mirra. 1987. "Some Persistent


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16 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICALREVIEWIssues of Sociological Polemics." SociologicalForum2:556-64.Lee, Alfred McClung. "Presidential Address:Sociology for Whom?" AmericanSociologicalReview41:925-36.

Litwak, Eugene and PeterMesseri. 1988. "Orga-nizationalTheory, Social Supportsand Mortal-ity Rates: A TheoreticalConvergence." Ameri-can Sociological Review54:49-66.McCloskey, Donald N. 1985. TheRhetoricof Eco-nomics. Madison:Universityof WisconsinPress.Myrdal, Gunnar. 1963. The Challenge to Afflu-ence. New York:Pantheon.Stiglitz, Joseph, Carl Shapiro, and TimothyTaylor. 1987. "Foreword." Journal of Eco-nomicPerspectives 1:3-5.

Vidich, ArthurJ. and StanfordM. Lyman. 1985.American-Sociology:WorldlyRejectionsof Reli-gion and Their Directions. New Haven: YaleUniversityPress.Wilner, Patricia. 1985. "The Main Drift ofSociology between 1936 and 1984." HistoryofSociology 5:1-21.Wilson, William J. 1987. The Truly Disadvan-taged: The Inner City, the Underclass andPublic Policy. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress.Winkler, KarenJ. 1986. "New Breed of ScholarWorksthe TerritoryThat Lies Between Historyand Geography." Chronicle of Higher Educa-tion 33, 4:6-7.

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