The demographic transformation and the sociological enterprise

The dramatic demographic changes of the 1980s and 1990s in the United States are creating a multiracial, multicultural society. This article examines the intellectual challenges for sociology posed by the emerging racial diversity brought about by these population trends. The problem is that conventional sociological frameworks no longer apply in this increasingly complex social world of rapid population changes, diversity, and polarization. Most significant, conventional American sociology, which has focused on white society rooted in western culture, is challenged by three large racial/ethnic categories. We argue that diversity must be incorporated into our sociologies. This requires two new approaches: (1) Sociology must be recentered, that is, it must move away from the notion that whites have the universal experience against which all others are measured; and (2) Sociologists must apply to diverse populations the same kind of sociological analysis that they apply to mainstream categories. This means that we demythologize by dispelling common myths about those outside the mainstream and that we uncover the mechanisms that construct social differences.