FROM THE WESTERN TO THE MURDER MYSTERY: THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION OF C. WRIGHT MILLS

More than half a century after its emergence as a formal field of study, medical sociology remains an important substantive area within our discipline, wide ranging in its appeal and the plethora of topics it engages. Tangible indicators, including the increase in the number of medical sociology journals and the number of medical sociology courses offered in colleges and universities across the country (Bloom 2000), point to the continued interest in this field. The vitality of medical sociology stems in part from the fact that today's health sector is an extraordinarily broad and vibrant arena of society (Weiss and Lonnquist 2000). Major topics of current interest have included the medicalization of society, sociocultural responses to health and illness, patterns of physician-patient interactions, health services utilization, alternative healers and alternative health practices, and comparative health care systems. The array of topics of analysis in our field continues to expand; recently emerging areas of interest include the social effects of health care technology, medical ethics, managed care, and health care reform. Indeed, it is an exciting time to be a medical sociologist. In the Call for Papers distributed for this special issue, we announced that we hoped to explore health- and illness-related topics that should continue to be influential into the new millennium. Further, we specifically encouraged submission of various formats and lengths not typically included in Sociological Spectrum or similar publications. Thus, this collection is unique in its conceptual essays, and methodological and theoretical notes. As suggested by the special issue's title, we hold a broadened view of medical sociology, a view also encouraged by scholars such as Conrad (2001), Weiss and Lonnquist (2000), and Charmaz and Paterniti (1999), that encompasses a sociology of health, healing and illness, as well as of medicine. Although not all inclusive, the organizational schema of the special issue reflects the broad range of topics that scholars who responded to our Call for Papers, our special issues reviewers, and we, as co-editors, considered particularly relevant to medical sociologists at this point in time.     

Medical sociology: some tensions among theory, method, and substance

Why is it that quantitative and qualitative researchers on health issues often have divergent findings and conclusions? Exploration of such differences can be a useful way of bringing separate intellectual enclaves in medical sociology together and also can stimulate future inquiries. Some differences can be resolved by more precise definitions, by comparable frequency and timing of measurement, and by careful evaluation of meaning contexts. The triangulation of methods, using diaries as a bridge between surveys and qualitative measurement, offers particular promise. Improved theory on the relationships of method to data, and more attention to behavioral sequences and the social context of measurement, can serve as a stimulant to innovative solutions.     

Women’s sociological research and writing in the AJS in the pre-World War II era

Recent revisionist scholarship on the history of sociology suggests that women scholars in the pre-World War II era made distinctive contributions to the development of the field of sociology. Most research, however, has focused on women prominent in their era, whose works might or might not be typical of all women who published during the same periods. Furthermore, few studies have made explicit comparisons between works by women and by men writing in this same era, so it has been difficult to sort out gender effects from historical era effects. This study explores writings by women and men in the first volumes of the American Journal of Sociology, from 1895 through 1940. As the oldest continuously published sociology journal in the U.S., AJS played a central role in the development of American sociology. We find that women authors were present in AJS from the earliest days, though their share of authorships never was large, and fluctuated year by year. Women’s work was distinctively different from that of men, with more women than men writing empirical, evidence-based articles, focusing on women, children, immigrants, the poor, and other have-not groups, and advocating for social reform. Writings of rank-and-file and prominent women sociologists were similar in methods, content, and form, and their distinctive contributions to sociology paralleled many of the concerns of feminist sociologists today.     

Understanding Symbolic Boundaries and Improving Quantitative Analysis of Social Exclusion by Improving the Operationalization of Boundary Work

In survey research, how can we measure actors' judgments concerning who is a member of a particular social group and who is not? How can we measure changes in this process over time? Within the sociology of culture, the operationalization of boundary work, or decisions of group membership, has been relatively overlooked. Similarly, measurement of changes in boundaries has been relatively overlooked as well. An important first step is to better match the operationalization of boundary work with theory. To do so, I argue that survey items concerning decisions of social exclusion measured in the Likert scale can be used. In addition to allowing scholars to compare those who exclude with those who include (often measured as Strongly Agree/Agree vs. Disagree/Strongly Disagree), the Likert scale offers a measurement of boundary strength: how strongly respondents are committed to their exclusionary judgments (Agree vs. Strongly Agree, Disagree vs. Strongly Disagree). A novel element of boundary change can then be measured as variation over time in commitment to exclusionary judgment in time series data. A boundary that has increased in strength would be one for which respondents increase in their emotional commitment to their exclusionary judgment over time.     

Embodiment, experience and theory: in defence of the sociological tradition

This paper examines whether the theoretical analyses and ambitions of sociologists of the body are increasingly making obstructive and irrelevant the subject boundaries and methodological conventions associated with their parent discipline. Concerns about the utility of the discipline have been expressed by a number of body studies emanating from within and outside of sociology. These imply that it is necessary to reject the dominant problematic of sociology and utilise non disciplinary resources if we are to understand issues surrounding the ‘lived experience’ of embodiment. In opposing this rejection of sociology, if not the use of other intellectual resources, I argue that the discipline contains much valuable theorising about experience which has yet to be developed by body theorists. Many of sociology's central concepts, indeed, evoke dimensions of human experience that remain highly pertinent to an understanding of the individual and societal significance of the body in the contemporary era. In order to illustrate this argument, I focus on the writings of Durkheim and Simmel. Their work is rarely central to writings on the body, but provides good examples of the diversity of theoretical approaches within sociology that remain relevant to body theorists. Specifically, I want to use it to develop the outlines of a theory of embodiment as a medium for the constitution of society which has at its centre a concern with human experience. I conclude by reassessing the strategic options sociologists of the body confront in developing their analyses.     

Paul Willis and the Scientific Imperative: An Evaluation of Learning to Labour

This article evaluates the methodological philosophy and strategy of Paul Willis's classic, Learning to Labour. We use King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social Inquiry as a litmus test, showing how Willis's work meets, diverges from, and innovatively reconstructs good social science research. Drawing from Learning to Labour and Willis's writings on methodological issues, as well as key texts on the science of sociology, this article evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a reflexive method and the potential this method holds for qualitative work in sociology.     

Cognitive Sociology in France

While cognitive sociology is a relatively new area in U.S. sociology, the subfield has a lengthy history in French sociology. Developing a typology based upon the existing literature, we identify three branches of cognitive sociology in France. The first was initiated by Raymond Boudon, one of the scholars most responsible for popularizing the area, who envisioned cognitive sociology as helping delineate the role of beliefs in rational action. Second, another group of researchers seeks to found sociology upon a naturalistic basis, thus drawing upon the disciplines constitutive of cognitive science (e.g., psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive anthropology). Finally, the third approach to cognitive sociology in France takes inspiration from linguistics as a foundation for sociological investigations. We conclude the paper by discussing the relationship between these three sub-fields and by examining the relationship between French and American cognitive sociologies in order to identify fruitful directions for future research.     

Social Survey Research1 in Japanese Sociology

Abstract: In this paper, we look at the history of social survey development in Japanese sociology. First, the history of social research in Japan before World War II is explored. Second, the introduction of survey research to Japan during the American occupation after World War II is examined, and third, the present state and roles of social survey research in Japanese sociology is discussed. Social research was introduced as an administrative tool for the government. Sociology and social research were developed under British empiricism and American pragmatism, but Japanese academia has been based on a metaphysical approach. Social research introduced as a practical tool long had difficulty in being accepted by Japanese academia. For this reason, most sociologists in universities did not use social survey research for practical purposes, but pursued qualitative methodologies for analyzing data to gain academic prestige even after Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) and Sabro Yasuda's research projects spread social survey methods in the field of Japanese sociology. Such academics did not think that findings acquired through qualitative case studies had to be confirmed through quantitative data to serve a practical purpose, nor did they believe that quantitative data could be better understood when examined along side qualitative data. Social survey methods have been opposed by those who have favored case‐study analysis methods in Japanese sociology. Needless to say, this opposition is fruitless. I propose that professional sociologists in Japanese universities should use social survey research for practical problems more frequently. This is the best way to establish sociology and social research as a science in Japanese society.     

The engineering of consent: A state-of-the-art review

This study systematically analyzes Engineering of Consent (EOC)-focused scholarly papers published between 1947 and 2018 using content analysis and text mining. It aims to shed light on the progress of EOC research and related disciplines as well as the methodologies, data collection methods, major perspectives, and most frequent words used within these writings. Additionally, this study considers publications by region and the affiliations of first authors. The results show that only a small number of EOC-focused papers have been published since 1947; this area of public relations research has suffered from a lack of scholarly attention despite its relevance to various disciplines, and this is a situation that we hope improves. Recent trends have shown some reasons for optimism. We found that at least one EOC-focused paper has been published annually in most years since 2000 (the exceptions are 2001, 2006, 2010, 2011, and 2015). Our research shows that scholars in the fields of public relations, media studies, and political science published more papers on EOC than scholars in other fields. Research articles usually utilize qualitative research methodologies. Interviews stand out as the most widely used data collection method. Our analysis of publications by region and first-author affiliation shows that the majority of EOC papers were written by faculty and students working or studying in the United States. Seven perspectives frequently discussed by scholars and the most frequently used words within EOC papers are highlighted in a follow-up qualitative review.     

Environmental/Green Cultural Shifts: Dynamics of Social Change

The greening of society is a strong cultural wave as we enter the second decade of the century. This article considers what it means to be ‘green’, core issues that the environmental sustainability wave brings to society and the role of sociology its evolution in public culture. A key argument offered is that sociologists’ historic commitment to critical analysis and to social justice could be important in determining whether the green wave is simply a cultural trend or if it will expand to become a cultural shift. The contributions of environmental sociology, ecofeminism, deep ecology, and green economics are considered significant influences on the relationship between environmentalism and social analysis. Whether scholars and activists can link key concepts such as sustainable development, ecological sensitivity, human dignity, and social justice may prove critical for achieving the goal of societal transformation toward a greener culture.     

The invisibility of qualitative sociology in Sweden

Summary The special situation of Swedish qualitative sociology may reflect the implacable and antagonistic attitude of the quantitative sociological establishment which in practice controls all research funds and all power in the universities. To try for a scientific career as a purely qualitative sociology is still very risky in Sweden. This situation, together with the alliance between positivists and Marxists, helps explain the severe obstacles facing the formation of a qualitative alternative.Interestingly, however, there has always been a segment of Swedish sociologists skeptical of quantitative sociology, a segment which may be growing. But, lacking a qualitative tradition, regarded with suspicion by Marxists, and stopped in their career by the quantitative sociologists who have academic power, most potential qualitative sociologists end up trying to combine qualitative and quantitative methods. Thus, the qualitative sociology that does emerge is an out-growth of criticism of quantitative methodology rather than a truly independent alternative.This paper has been edited extensively by Shulamit Reinharz.     

On Diversity,Empathy, and Community: The Relevance of Johann Gottfried Herder

Abstract The writings of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) foreshadowed several of the dominant theories of sociology, social psychology, aesthetics, linguistics and literary theory. His ideas impacted generations of thinkers, but today he is uncelebrated, mostly unknown. His writings on populism, expressionism, and pluralism are relevant to contemporary sociology, especially community sociology. Here we consider his views on the nature and meaning of community, and his methods of studying and interpreting communities. These include an emphasis on the essential particularity of human communities and their connection to wider systems and networks. Herder urges special attention to the elements of context (place, time, language, culture) within which communities are situated. Herder's is an embedded particularism, a focus on individuality and diversity within larger unities. He also sensitizes us to the multivalence and multiplicity of social phenomena. As the proper stance for community research he counsels involvement and empathy rather than objectivity and emotional distance, and he urges researchers to be sensitive to data from all of their senses, not merely sight. Drawing upon Herder's writings, we conclude with several important methodological principles relevant to improving current work on the nature and conceptualization of communities.     

Remembering reuel denney: Sociology as cultural studies

Selected writings from Reuel Denney’s work as a social analyst are reviewed in order to establish and highlight his often-overlooked contributions to sociology. Denney’s cultural studies of Americans at play, with specific reference to his writings on the subcultures of football and hot-rodding, and on television and the electronic media, advertising and architecture, are reviewed in examining some major themes emphasized in his sociology. These writings are discussed against the backdrop of Denney’s early life experiences drawn from his autobiography to better enable readers to gain an appreciation of his sociological thinking. The beginnings of a Denney postmodern are sketched as a conclusion to this paper’s major contention that Denney anticipated much of today’s sociology as cultural studies. As one of Reuel’s students, nearly forty years ago, I hope that this article serves not only to highlight Denney’s contributions and place within the discipline of sociology, but also that my personal recollections will serve to reveal the strong attachments we students felt toward him as our teacher, mentor, and friend. nt|mis|His teaching and research combine his interests in higher education and the professions, bureaucracy, social thought, mass media, and popular culture. His most recent book, Schooling As Entertainment: Corporate Education Meets Popular Culture, is available from Cedarreek Press.     

Taking stock of research methods and analysis on oppositional political terrorism

A variety of techniques are used by journalists, practitioners, experts, consultants, and scholars in conducting research on terrorism.² This information appears in the context of journal articles, chapters in scholarly books, academic monographs, newspaper and magazine articles, and books for popular audiences. In general, this work can be divided into qualitative and quantitative approaches. A subtle but necessary distinction should also be made between research produced for popular audiences and that which is done for the academic or scholarly community. There is an understanding that work for this latter audience is more rigorous but may lack the excitement and sensational appeal to sustain a wider interest. Nevertheless, a symbiotic relationship exists between popular and academic writers; at various times they depend upon or use research from each other. Periodically, researchers conduct comprehensive reviews of the research on terrorism and the methods used by investigators. Since the examples from which they draw are illustrative, these writings are not meant to be comprehensive, but rather illustrative. Building on similar work by Schmid (1983) and Gurr (1988), I review salient contributions in both qualitative and quantitative approaches to terrorism studies.     

On the Contributions of Cognitive Sociology to the Sociological Study of Race

In this article, we argue for cognitive sociology as a framework for studying the sociology of race. Cognitive sociology concerns itself with classification, identity construction, meaning and collective memory and is thus centrally concerned with generic issues that apply well to racial category construction and maintenance. We, first, outline the cognitive sociology framework. We then elaborate on traditions in the sociology of race and racism that have implicit affinities to cognitive sociology. We argue that cognitive sociology provides a useful generic framework with which to look at specific issues in racial classification, the social construction of race, and to racist cognitions, while critical race theory and other sociology of race frameworks can compliment cognitive sociology by addressing issues of power and domination in cognitive frameworks.     

The race relations “Problematic” in American sociology: Revisiting Niemonen’s case study and critique

Using articles drawn from the years 1996-1999, this paper updates and expands Jack Niemonen’s 1997 TAS analysis of the articles dealing with race and ethnicity in the four core sociology journals. We found a greater rate of publication and several new substantive areas incorporating race and ethnicity, but many of the patterns Niemonen identified remain in place. These articles are highly quantitative, rely heavily on U.S. Census categories, tend to explain racial and ethnic phenomenon as by-products of broader social forces (such as class-based stratification), and subsume these analyses under the headings of alternative subfields. Niemonen used these findings to offer a powerful critique of the status of race and ethnicity in sociology, the under-development of the racial and ethnic relations “problematic,” and its marginalization within the discipline as a whole. To reassess these interpretations and conclusions, we examined the relationships between methodology and substance, and compared the main sample with a subset of more specialized articles focused on race and ethnicity. We found a close connection between quantitative methods and the use of Census definitions of race and ethnicity, but surprisingly few differences between the race and ethnic subset and the more inclusive main sample appeared. These findings allow us to offer support and some important qualifications to Niemonen’s original conclusions. We would like to thank Jordan Bartlett for serving as our research assistant on this project, and the members of the Fall 2000 Race Theory Seminar at the University of Minnesota (Sociology 8211) who participated in and gave commentary on a preliminary version of this study. Thanks also to Professor Jack Niemonen who communicated at length with us about his coding procedures and even consented to code a number of articles for us.     

Black women’s mental health matters: Theoretical perspectives and future directions

Despite recent sociological research exploring how stratification systems impinge on the health of socially disadvantaged populations, Black women’s mental health is rarely a topic of investigation among scholars of medical sociology, sociology of race and racism, or sociology of gender. In this review, we incorporate perspectives from sociology, social psychiatry, psychology, and social work to develop a transdisciplinary intersectional model of Black women’s mental health. We also present critical interventions in the extant literature. First, though stress exposure is generally associated with poor mental health, more research is necessary to ascertain the gendered-racialized stressors to which Black women are exposed, owing to their racial and gender oppression. Second, we admonish mental health scholars to incorporate other status dimensions (e.g., nativity, sexual orientation, age) to provide a more nuanced depiction of Black women’s psychological health. Third, the unique and enduring relationship between the U.S. punishment system and the mental health of Black women should be further explicated in future research. Last, we envision a body of work on Black women’s mental health that captures the ways in which they cope with societal level marginalization, as these forms of resilience and resistance may be mental health protective.     

Feminism and Imperialism, 1890–1920: Our Anti‐Imperialist Sisters—Missing in Action from American Feminist Sociology*

This article retrieves part of our historical past to address two omissions in American feminist sociology on the subject of global imperialism. The first section addresses the inadequate attention feminist sociologists have paid to how major leaders of the women's movement responded to U.S. overseas expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It documents how these early feminists had both progressive and reactionary responses to the anti‐imperialist struggles of their era. Particular emphasis is given to how issues of race, class, and gender were interwoven in their discourses on imperialism. The second section focuses on how the writings of the most famous woman theorist and critic of imperialism during this era—Rosa Luxemburg—are virtually ignored in U.S. portrayals of feminist sociology and women founders of sociology. To address this omission, Luxemburg's theory of imperialism is examined, as well as how it has influenced contemporary global feminist works. A critical analysis of these Luxemburg‐inspired works considers their implications for understanding global imperialism today. In this way, the past is used to clarify the present.     

Qualitative sociology in Israel—A brief survey

Conclusion Despite the proliferation of quantitative studies in Israeli sociology, qualitative approaches remain vigorously pursued by a large number of academic sociologists, who address a wide variety of problems by a heterogeneous mix of theoretical approaches, methodologies, and research techniques. While these studies yielded a rich harvest of respectable publications, the majority are not conducted in terms of theories and methodologies which are presently at the forefront of qualitative research in the United States and Europe. This is true even for the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which is still the leading exponent of QS in Israel. It is difficult to decide whether some of the currently fashionable approaches, such as French neostructuralism and American ethnomethodology, propose viable programs which will have a major impact on sociology or are just passing fashions. Nevertheless, Israeli sociologistsshould pay more attention to these and similar current developments on the international scene and examine critically the usefulness of these developments for their own research interests and projects.The same is true in the field of application of the new computer technologies to qualitative data. Very few Israeli sociologists have made any serious efforts in the development or application of such technologies in their studies. It is in these areas that greater attention and a possible partial reorientation of QS in Israel will be necessary in the future, if Israeli qualitative sociologists are to keep the place which they currently occupy in the international professional community.     

Identifying extraordinary contributors to work and family research: eight modalities of excellence

ABSTRACT

In this study we quantitatively and qualitatively explore two research questions: (1) ‘What qualifies a scholar to be classified as an extraordinary contributor to work and family research?’ and, (2) ‘Who are extraordinary contributors to work and family research?’ We first selected a group of top work and family scholars based on total citation counts and a multi-level nomination process. We then qualitatively explored our research questions via e-mail correspondence and telefocus groups. From these data, we distilled eight core themes, or ‘modalities of excellence,’ to categorize extraordinary contributors: (1) publishing (traditional academic metrics), (2) publishing (reputation among scholars), (3) disseminating work and family research (translational research), (4) funding work and family research, (5) service to the work and family field, (6) mentoring future work and family scholars, (7) landmark work and family contributions, and (8) overall reputation. Using quantitative measures (citation counts) and qualitative exploration (e-mail correspondence, telefocus groups, and surveys of work and family scholars), we identified extraordinary contributors in each modality.