Abstract
Stephen Turner’s book, American Sociology, is valuable contribution to the history of the field. In this comment paper, however, I raise questions about two of its core claims: that the feminization of American sociology prevented its collapse, and that the discipline has a two-tiered status structure, with activist scholarship located primarily in the lower tier. We should be sure that Turner is right about these points before we accept his evaluation of the current state of the field.
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Notes
Other data, from the NCES, show that just under 80 % of bachelors degrees in psychology are awarded to women, as are three out of every four doctorates.
Frickel and Ilhan show, using data on degree completions in Carnegie classified colleges and universities with total enrollments of over 200 students, that the number of academic units awarding sociology bachelors degrees dropped from 1004 in 1978 to 887 in 1988—an 11 % decline. A recovery was already evident by the early 1990s. In 1994, 957 departments awarded sociology degrees, about the same number as in 2008, when their data series ends.
References
Frickel, S., & Ilhan, A. (2013). “Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Change in the Social Sciences: A Longitudinal Comparsion.” Unpublished manuscript.
Pittman, D. J., & Boden, D. (1989). “Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis: History and Reflections, 1906–1989.” The American Sociologist, 20, 305–321.
Sica, A., & Turner, S. (Eds.). (2005). The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Gross, N. Comments on American Sociology: From Pre-Disciplinary to Post-Normal . Am Soc 46, 11–17 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-014-9245-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-014-9245-6