From fringe to core? The integration of environmental sociology

Abstract

The extent to which environmental sociology remains a fringe specialty or a leading area of research and practice within the larger discipline is frequently commented on, but rarely examined systematically. This paper assesses environmental sociology’s integration with the core of the discipline with an analysis of environmental publications in the US sociology’s most prestigious mainstream journals between 1970 and 2014. We draw on the theory of scientific intellectual movements (SIMs) to develop a coherent narrative of this integration process and develop testable hypotheses about its extent and timing. Findings indicate that environmental sociology has a growing presence in the top-tier US journals, especially after 1990, and that a unique core of knowledge, focused on the relationship between society and the physical environment has increasingly come to characterize the literature in environmental sociology. A key finding is that growing acceptance of the field by the sociological mainstream was critically facilitated by increased attention to core sociological concerns of stratification and inequality within environmental sociology literature. We also find that cross-national research and global environmental concerns receive notably increased attention in top disciplinary journals over the observation period, especially after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.