The race relations problematic in American sociology: A case study and critique

Abstract

This article reports the results of an analysis of all racial and ethnic relations articles published in the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Social Problems, from January 1969 through December 1995. The analysis identifies by journal: 1) major methodological orientation(s); 2) how the concepts of “race,” “ethnicity,” and racial and ethnic relations are operationalized, which is useful for examining tendencies toward, or against, reification; 3) substantive content—that is, what a sociology of racial and ethnic relations is; and 4) primary context—that is, are racial and ethnic relations treated as a substantive subdiscipline in their own right, or are they merely a topic of interest for other subdisciplines such as social psychology? In brief, although some differences exist between the journals, all four journals publish disproportionately racial and ethnic relations research that: 1) is highly quantitative as opposed to theoretical, conceptual, or sociohistorical; 2) reifies U.S. Census definitions of race and ethnicity as opposed to critically evaluating such definitions; 3) social psychologizes racial and ethnic relations, or subsumes such relations under stratification processes; and 4) subsumes the racial and ethnic relations problematic under subdiscipline rubrics other than a sociology of racial and ethnic relations. The conclusion discusses the implications of these findings; for example, by virtue of what they publish, these journals construct a paradigmatic frame that gives precedence to, or legitimizes, some views and excludes, or de-legitimizes others.