The race relations “Problematic” in American sociology: Revisiting Niemonen’s case study and critique |
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Authors: | Douglas Hartmann Paul R Croll Katja Guenther |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, USA |
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Abstract: | 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. |
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