General education,participant observation,and reflexive sociology

Based on the author's case study of and experience teaching in an experimental general education college which was later closed by administrators, this article addresses the question of the meaning of the discipline of sociology in a general education curriculum. The author, reflecting upon insights gained through his participant observation in the experimental college, proposes that all sociologists look to the new sociology of knowledge and its reflexive methodology to help in the presentation of sociology as a humanistic discipline contributing to general education. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Pacific Sociological Association meetings, San Diego, California, March 1976. An even earlier draft was presented to a “Sociology Colloquium and Pot-Luck Dinner,” at the University of Hawaii, May 1975. I would like to thank the students who also presented reports at the colloquium: Branden Johnson, Vivien Lee, and Eric Yamamoto; and the colleagues who made helpful suggestions and warnings: David Chandler, Libby O. Ruch, Edmund Volkart, and Eldon Wegner.