The sociologist and the community developer: Autonomy and role conflict in qualitative research

Sociologists are being called upon to evaluate community development efforts in the United States at an increasing rate. These sociologists, as independent researchers, are working side by side with professional community development consultants. Based on an ongoing community development research project, which rests largely upon qualitative techniques, the roles of consultant and researcher are delineated. Methodological advantages and disadvantages of separating these roles are discussed. It is hypothesized that the presence of an independent research agent will likely produce four response phases on the part of the professional consultant during the course of the research project: (1) approval and support, (2) professional challenge, (3) apprehension, and (4) guarded acceptance. Suggestions are made regarding qualitative techniques that can minimize negative responses on the part of practitioners.     

An accidental journey: Becoming a sociologist

This sketch describes how I accidentally became a sociologist. More importantly, it describes undergraduate sociology training at a private liberal arts university during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The University of Maryland began a Ph.D. program in sociology just before World War II began. I report on graduate training there, as well as the social and intellectual life of the department. C. Wright Mills began his academic career at Maryland. I consider his place in the department, my experiences with him as my dissertation director, and how he influenced my lifelong study on the bearing of social stratification to politics.     

The sociologist and the state. An assessment of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology

This paper provides an assessment of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology based on a reading of his posthumously published lectures on the state in Sur l'État. It argues that the state was a foundational element in Bourdieu's rendition of the symbolic order of everyday life. As such, the state becomes equally pivotal in Bourdieu's sociology, the applicability of which rests on the existence of the state, which stabilizes the social fields and their symbolic action that constitute the object of sociology. The state, which Bourdieu considers a ‘meta'‐ordering principle in social life, ensures that sociology has a well‐ordered object of study, vis‐à‐vis which it can posit itself as ‘meta‐meta’. The state thus functions as an epistemic guarantee in Bourdieu's sociology. A critical analysis of Bourdieu's sociology of the state offers the chance of a more fundamental overall assessment of Bourdieu's conception of sociology that has relevance for any critical sociological perspective that rests on the assumption of a meta‐social entity, such as the state in Bourdieu's work, as a final ordering instance.     

The sociologist as celebrity: The role of the media in field research

In the literature on qualitative methodology, little has been written about researchers who become public media figures, either with regard to the research process or the researcher's self. In this paper I discuss experiences I underwent and roles I assumed while doing research on a nationally publicized college athletic team. Unwittingly, my relations with my subjects thrust me into a highly visible position which led me to receive much media attention. Press coverage precipitated roles I had not planned to adopt: these include active force, bearer of the truth, defender of the faith, expert, and celebrity. This paper assesses the media's influence on my relations with research subjects, on my relations with others (strangers, acquaintances, fans, boosters, colleagues, friends, and family), and on my sense of self. In each case the media were potent in redefining situations and relationships.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Detroit, 1983. I would like to thank David Altheide, Andy Fontana, David Hayano, Joe Kotarba, Peter Manning, Shulamit Reinharz, Carol Warren, Louis Zurcher, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. In addition, Patti Adler and Jean Blocker provided essential support in all phases of the research.     

Surviving in Psychiatry as a Systemic Therapist

Although family therapy was born to deal with problems posed by severe mental disorders, systemic therapists today tend to drift away from the field of psychiatry The author refers to his own experience in psychiatry to argue in favour of the presence of the systemic model within the field: systemic understanding might be precious to counterbalance the tendency toward too easy a reliance on bio‐psychiatry and pharmacology. In turn, keeping close to psychiatry and to its problems can be useful to systemic therapists, by involving them in social and epistemological queries that are otherwise extraneous to professionals mainly devoted to private practice.     

I never had a mentor: Reflections of a chicano sociologist

By tracing the career path of a senior Chicano sociologist, this article attempts to gain insights into the problems and dilemmas faced by minority scholars in earlier stages of their careers. Tensions between the demands of a professional identity as a sociologist, on the one hand, and a personal identity as a Chicano, on the other, are isolated and discussed. It is suggested that this dynamic tension between professional and personal demands, coupled with expanding career opportunities and the emergence of Chicano Studies as an academic discipline, gave impetus to the development of an indigenous Chicano sociology that challenged traditional sociological paradigms and was grounded in Chicano culture and world view. His publications includeThe Age of Crisis (Harper & Row, 1975),La Chicana: The Mexican-American Woman (University of Chicago Press, 1980),The Chicano Experience (Notre dame University Press, 1985),Gringo Justice (Notre Dame University Press, 1987), and many journal articles dealing with race and ethnicity.     

The American sociologist: Characteristics in the 1990s

This article describes the characteristics, theoretical preferences, and political orientations of sociologists in the United States. The findings are the most representative of their kind reported to date. Other professional groups, such as psychiatrists, have been studied over time (Gallagher, 1977; Gallagher et al., 1987; Gallagher et al., 1990), but studies of sociologists have been almost non-existent. In fact, there has only been one study of this nature conducted in the 1990s, and that one sampled only sociologists whose names appeared on the membership list of the American Sociological Association (Sanderson and Ellis, 1992). However, that sampling frame did not provide a representative cross-section of American sociologists because it excluded the large proportion of sociologists who are not members of the ASA and who probably are systematically different than members. It is ironic that sociologists who intensively study the characteristics of all sorts of groups know so little about themselves. That is a major reason why this project was undertaken.     

Migration experiences of Turkish women: notes from a researcher's diary

The article reviews the migration experiences of Turkish women who were either involved in external migration or were exposed to migration by being left behind upon the emigration of their husbands. It includes notes on statements made by some returning women and women whose husbands returned home.
The statements were encountered during a comprehensive field survey conducted in Turkey. Since the literature on women and external migration is, in general, blinded by a view of migrant women as "traditional" regardless of their ethnic, regional, religious and other background variables, it is expected that their exposure to the "modern" western culture will automatically pave the way to their emancipation.
The diary entries of statements made by migrant women portrayed in this article question such an axiomatic proposition by pointing to the significance of background variables and certain features of household structures.     

Researching religion: The vocation of the sociologist of religion

This paper reflects on the vocation or 'calling' of the researcher in the sociology of religion in the light of his experiences of researching transformations in English Catholicism in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point Weber's two essays. A consideration of religious perspectives on the lay vocation leads to an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of insider research. The paper reflects on research mistakes, threats and attempts to co-opt the researcher, unexpected surprises and serendipity, and the need for the social scientist to retain control of his/her research. It concludes with inspiration from Havel that the calling of the sociological researcher is socially important and urges renewed commitment to seeking with integrity the extension of certified knowledge and the demystification of powerful institutional structures.     

“Please don’t think of me as a sociologist”: Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge and the early Chicago school

There has been a concerted effort in the last three decades to identify early female sociologists and to add or restore their works to the sociological canon. This effort has generated a substantial body of work, much of which examines the relationship between the women and men of the Chicago School in its early years (1892–1920). Two primary assumptions about this relationship have emerged over the years: (1) the women were frustrated sociologists; frustrated by a lack of acceptance in the discipline and a department run by men; and (2) the women were displaced sociologists, forced out of the discipline by the men into disciplines such as household administration and social work. This paper examines these assumptions through a case study of the life and work of Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge. Breckinridge is among those characterized by the literature as a frustrated and displaced sociologist, but Breckinridge’s own words to a friend, “Please don’t think of me as a sociologist,” suggest that this was not always the case.     

The business of becoming a professional sociologist: Unpacking the informal training of graduate school

While one can be labeled a sociologist in name by fulfilling formal institutional requirements, that is only part of the necessary work involved in graduate training. What is also required is mastering the informal professional culture associated with academic sociology. In this paper, we offer practical advice about informal norms in graduate school—norms we know now that we wish we’d known then. Our reflections upon our own experiences in graduate school are guided by our common research and teaching interests in informal organizational culture. What is the potential salience of informal norms, such as particularistic relations with faculty and graduate students, ceremonial versus actual practices regarding research and teaching, and emotional labor around one’s work, for better understanding the professional socialization of graduate study in sociology? Our emphasis here is to offer advice on how to navigate the graduate school realities these norms present. We also believe that sociologists should turn a more focused eye on the profession, one in which the presence of such norms is readily acknowledged and more formally considered for the benefit of teaching graduate students.     

Academic odyssey: The training of an African sociologist

This article describes my experience of graduate training in sociology at an elite American university. As an African, I faced cultural and intellectual pressures to adopt white middle class cultural norms and a Eurocentric worldview. The article critiques American sociology, including symbolic interactionism, the sociology of the Third World and the study of race and ethnic relations. I describe my personal encounter with American racism and the process that led me to conduct research on black immigrants. I argue that my exposure to American sociology and experience of American society transformed me into a black marginal sociologist, specializing in teaching and research on the African-American experience in the New World. His forthcoming book,Becoming Black American, is being published by AMS Press.     

Learning from Experience: Recollections of Working with Howard S. Becker

Howard S. Becker is, and has been, a major figure in contemporary sociology, especially within the symbolic interactionist perspective. This discussion describes my initial encounter with Howie in the mid‐1960s and moves to identify the substantive and methodological areas in which he has had major impact. I then briefly outline various ways in which the foci of my own work have been shaped by Becker's instruction and example.     

Questions of assertion,diversity, and spirituality: Simultaneously becoming a minority and a sociologist

The article describes the author’s entry into a second career as both a minority and a sociologist. At age 40, after retiring from a career in the military service, due to value and culture conflict experienced over a twenty-five year span, the author decided to return to the Native American values, religion, and, in part, culture, as taught to him by his traditional grandfather. He describes the conversion and draws analogies to three major theoretical dimensions of Native American victimization raised by Dadrian (1976). Culture conflict issues were confounded by personal conflicts concerning the very nature of assertion and competition, cultural diversity, and spirituality. The author describes his difficulty in dealng with such conflicts and, as an initial move to adapt to these stresses, purposes an extension of Merton’s (1938) five adaptations to stress. His research interests include police organizational behavior and Native American suicide patterns. He is on the Minority Committee for Native American Victimization.     

The competition state as a neomercantilist state: Understanding the restructuring of national and global telecommunications

The old etatist telecommunications order is presently experiencing radical changes, which seems to be deeper and broader than in any other sector. The paper examines the implications of these changes on the economic role of the state. It identifies regulation as an increasingly important mode of government intervention in the economy. The regulatory arsenal that states use to restructure global telecommunications includes new regulation, deregulation, and reregulation. The paper distinguishes two types of regulation aimed at the introduction of competition and the creation of markets: regulation-of-competition and regulation-for-competition. While the first type is a liberal form of intervention which aims to correct ‘market creation’ by the state. The critical place of regulation-for-competition in the governance of the new telecommunications regime underlines the rise of a ‘competition state,’ interpreted here as a refined and updated version of the neomercantilist state.     

The social worker as Professional advocate: An incomplete gestalt

Conclusion The reasons for the obvious lack of professional cohesion are varied, but most impelling is the notion that somehow political action geared at self-directed advocacy is alien to professional commitment for social workers. As a result the gestalt of total advocacy is left incomplete, and the legislative efforts in both Connecticut and Texas have ended without the passage of much needed legislation.Fritz Perls (1973a, 1973b), the father of gestalt therapy, has attempted to explain the concept of gestalt, and makes a timely observation: The world and especially every organism maintains itself, and the only law which is constant is the forming of gestalts-wholes, completeness. A gestalt is a complete and ultimate experiential unit. As soon as you break up a gestalt, it is not a gestalt any more, it can no longer exist and function constructively [1973a, p. 16, 17].It seems obvious that the profession of social work needs to devote a good deal of its energy to reexamining the very basis of its existence as a profession. Does it choose to see itself as server rather than as self-serving, or do these two concepts of advocacy need stand in conflict? Is it not only possible but also essential that those who purport to serve the needs of others be able to serve their own needs as a profession as well? Is it not possible for the process of professional education in social work to grapple and be comfortable with the notion of self-serving advocacy on the part of professionals present and future?If the gestalt of social work advocacy is to be, as Perls has stated, a whole, then it would seem essential that both areas of advocacy be mobilized effectively to ensure the survival of the profession. If not, then professional social workers will have to assume the responsibility for their own demise as professionals.     

The clinical social worker as a member of the health team in a coronary care unit

In the course of developing a pattern of assistance to the patient about to be discharged from a coronary care unit, the professional health team at the University of California at Los Angeles Hospital anticipates and treats in advance the medical, social, and emotional problems of the patient which might tend to create a crisis at the time of his re-entry into his former world, possibly a new and much-changed world dictated by the nature of his illness. The professional appraisals at UCLA are continually reinforced by the practical and social approaches of the clinical social worker who, by the nature of her training, is able to see the patient's illness in its full social and psychological framework, rather than as an isolated phenomenon.