Demystifying the hidden magic of producing sociologists

Abstract

We are pleased to introduce this special issue of The American Sociologist entitled "If We Only Knew Then What We Know Now: Explorations of Informal Professionalization in Sociology." A great deal of the important professional socialization that transpires in graduate school occurs informally through faculty mentors, individual entrepreneurship, and to some degree, chance. However, little of this experience and knowledge has been analyzed formally. We believe that more of it ought to be. Understanding the informal professional norms through which people actually practice the sociological craft is im portant. Graduate students must learn to manage relations with faculty, graduate student peers, and publishing gatekeepers; they must develop their research so that it can be published; and they must learn types of impression management and emotional labor that are critical in crafting identities as sociologists. One way to support the next genera tion of sociologists, then, is to acknowledge, assess, and teach our professional culture more explicitly. The contributors to this volume agree that the norms of informal professionalization have received surprisingly little public dialogue and formal class room attention among sociologists. Their papers aim to remedy this omission. The papers from these contributors articulate some hidden aspects of our profes sional culture in revealing ways. Michael Burawoy and Allan Schnaiberg, in their re spective papers, reveal the thoughts of Ph.D. mentors on supervising different types of students. They address how mentors think, the various research orientations of students and the interactions between thesis supervisors and students that produce different types of dissertations. Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler identify and analyze the sequential social roles that graduate students must tackle as they complete graduate school and enter the profession. Gabrielle Ferrales and Gary Alan Fine illuminate how reputations are appraised in graduate school, and comment on what graduate students can do to