Editor’s introduction: “Reflections on graduate training in sociology”

Abstract

In this issue, we offer a set of reflections, grounded in personal experience, on the process of becoming a "working sociologist" in graduate school, with particular emphasis on informal and implicit norms, subtle cues, and unexamined practices. We hope that this will prove to be a valuable service to the discipline, and that the analyses here will stimulate a broader conversation among all those concerned with the contemporary state of professional education. Special thanks are due to Professors David Shulman and Ira Silver, whose earlier article on informal socialization in this journal provided the basis for this expanded discussion. They played a crucial organizational role by soliciting papers, by providing an initial response to authors, and by conveying my editorial concerns to contributors during the process of final revisions. Since David and Ira have already carried out my usual editorial task of providing an overview of the articles in the issue, I will offer a few thoughts and suggestions based on my own years of struggle as a graduate student. It occurs to me, first of all, that the experience of professional socialization, considered from the perspective of the student, might well be characterized as an "ordeal," in the older sense of a special type of testing that requires displays of skill and courage in the face of danger. Even though the relatively protected environment of universities does not involve the threats to life and limb that accompany ordeals in military settings and warrior cultures, still there is a great deal at risk, especially the very "selves" of the aspiring sociologists, most of whom have long cherished a self-image as "among the better students" of their generation, and have been seen by families and friends as possessing special talents in teaching and scholarship. Within the new setting of graduate school, however, such presumed talents must be "proven" in the face of competition, and subjected to the evaluative gaze of established practitioners of academic sociology. There is no guarantee of success, and, indeed, novices quickly learn horror stories about the failures of others in their position. I myself recall rather vividly an experience many years ago, when as an M.A. student in sociology at St. Louis University I stopped by the department to inquire about the results of a doctoral comprehensive exam taken by a classmate. To my shock and consternation, I was informed that my friend John had not shown up for the exam, but had simply left town, never to be seen again.