Research, with a capital ‘R’, is a subject of considerable concern within South African ruling circles. There's not enough of it. and it's not the right kind, or so the argument runs. Recognising the importance of the material conditions of the researchers and the need for a bottom-up approach to developing research priorities, this paper focuses on the state of sociology research in South Africa today. It demonstrates that, over the past twelve years, a marked increase in the output of masters and doctoral graduates has been accompanied by a decline in the level of completed research by qualified sociologists. In terms of publications, there has been a significant increase in the proportion produced by women, but a negligible change in the number by black scholars. The paper rejects pessimistic assessments of the state of South African sociology. It concludes by arguing that the discipline should place itself at the centre of an integrated and engaged social science by drawing diverse strands together at a local level.

This study describes the objectives, structures, and outcomes of a one-semester, required sociology research capstone course as taught at three institutions. Pre- and postquestionnaires from students, syllabi from instructors, and a random sample of final research papers were analyzed. Results indicate that the main foci of the course are to conduct research, produce a paper or thesis, develop writing and presentation skills, and integrate past learning. Instruction in this course includes numerous best practices from the literature on teaching and learning. There appears to be an underemphasis, however, on helping students to apply theory in their projects. The theses reveal a wide range of topics, methodological approaches, and quality, with the introduction/literature review and discussion/conclusion sections receiving the lowest quality scores.

AbstractThis project provides an explication of moral ecology, tracing its roots from 19th-century scientific approaches to its 20th-century critical-cultural focus, and introducing its latest moral-psychology incarnation for future media research. While the rich media ecology scholarship has focused primarily on the realm of effects, emerging applications of the moral ecology concept are shifting that focus onto the sociological processes and organizational structures involved in the formation of moral dispositions and standards. This project promotes an argument for why moral ecology should be considered an essential focus of media sociology research in general and media ethics scholarship in particular. Such a focus spotlights the organizational-level factors that serve to help or hinder the ability of media workers to act virtuously and uphold professional norms.

Many types of argument claims and supports (premises) are made in a research paper. The study analyzed the types of claims and supports used in the Abstract and Introduction sections of sociology research papers, and the common argument patterns. Seventy papers were sampled from ten sociology journals with the highest impact factor in InCites Journal Citation Reports. The research papers were categorized into three types of research: Investigative research, Development and evaluation research, and Descriptive research. A coding scheme of claims and supports was developed. Sequential association rule mining was used to identify textual argument patterns. The study identified significant differences in argument profile across the three types of research papers, and differences in argument patterns. For example, Investigative research papers typically follow the basic argument pattern of (General statement or Research gap) … Research objective … Research method … Research result … (General result or Research contribution/recommendation) in the Abstract. However, Development & Evaluation research and Descriptive research Abstracts often modify the basic pattern with Concept/theory/model-related claims and Research idea/approach. Methodology contributions of the paper include the coding scheme for argument claims and supports in research papers, and the method of analyzing argument patterns. Different types of sociology research tend to follow different argument strategies. As there is substantial overlap between argument elements and rhetorical functions, the common argument patterns identified in this study suggest common rhetorical move/step patterns as well.

Critical race theory (CRT) is a powerful framework and methodological tool for sport scholars and practitioners to incorporate into their work. While CRT tenets vary depending on discipline, individuals utilizing the framework understand the permanence of racism and how it is institutionalized within various social structures. In honor of the 40th year of the Sociology of Sport Journal, we conducted a review of the journal to assess how CRT has been used among sport sociologists. After reflecting on the 40-year history of Sociology of Sport Journal, we argue for the continued use of CRT and CRT extensions to fulfill the maximum potential of this foundational framework to achieve its goals of emancipation, social justice, and racial equity. We conclude by discussing the future of CRT in sport sociology research and practice in a post “racial reckoning” society, specifically within the U.S. context.

SummaryContributions of Rural Sociology Research and Evaluation to Extension Development in the United StatesThe development of rural sociology in the United States as a scientific discipline corresponds in time to the development of extension work (advisory services). An understanding of the characteristics of the extension services among the states and of changes made over time facilitates understanding the contributions of rural sociology to extension development in the United States. The institutional setting in which rural sociology has developed also helps to explain the contributions which the discipline has made to extension.Five categories of sociological contributions to extension may be identified. In the broadest sense, sociology contributes ‘understanding’ to extension about problems, situations requiring policy decisions, and about extension itself. In the narrowest sense, sociology may contribute a single item of data or a specific methodological technique which may be utilized for extension purposes.The five categories of contributions are: (i) understanding of basic concepts relevant to extension, such as adoption and diffusion of new farm ideas and practices, social action, leadership, locality groups, and informal groups; (2) techniques ‐ developed by sociological research ‐ which may be applied by extension, such as locality group identification and delineation techniques and the sociometric technique for locating informal groups and their leaders; (3) understanding of general problem situations about which broad policy decisions must be made for the extension system; (4) understanding of specific problem situations about which operating or procedural decisions must be made; and (5) research on the extension system itself, along with evaluation of the extension organization, program, methods, and results. Included in the last category is sociological research and evaluation of basic experimental approaches or programs undertaken by extension. Illustrations of these contributions are cited.The direction of changes made by extension has created increased need for sociological knowledge.

þis article examines the research activity in sociology by faculty at liberal arts col-leges. We used Sociological Abstracts to compile a list of journal articles published from 1960 to 1999 for which the first author's affiliation was among the 161 schools classified as liberal arts colleges by the Carnegie Foundation. We rank the colleges by the number of journal publications over the whole time period as well as a subset of the last ten years, and provide information on which journals are the most frequent outlets for liberal arts faculty. Finally, we provide some evidence that this research output is linked to teaching effectiveness. During the past fifty years there has been an amazing development of the colleges and universities of this country. They have grown in numbers, in size of faculties, in enrollments of students, in scope of work....It has seemed worth while to attempt to secure a rating of the graduate schools in the different lines of study based on the opinions of a considerable group of college professors....Such a rating also seems proper and desirable in printed form, so that any one interested can turn to it readily for a rough estimate of the work in a given field. (Hughes 1925)

This paper presents an investigation of the research methods curriculum in public sector sociology courses. It is based on an analysis of CNAA course documents for degrees in sociology and the social sciences, and undertaken with the aim of contributing to the current debate on the content of the undergraduate curriculum in sociology. The survey results suggest several trends in curricular policy: in particular an increasing emphasis on practical competence and familiarity with procedures and techniques, and a greater recognition of `methodological pluralism', although qualitative methods are still given only a marginal place in many courses. There was little evidence of progress in the teaching of quantitative skills, nor was computing yet seen to be a core element of the curriculum. The documents also revealed a continuing problem over the place of methods teaching as a whole in relation to other parts of the curriculum as reflected both in time allocation and in assessment weighting. It is argued that if the claims of sociology to practical and vocational relevance are to become genuine for students wishing to pursue research in a variety of careers, then research methods teaching needs to be brought out of the ghetto. It is the contention of the authors that this is not just a pragmatic consideration: such a change would also benefit sociology as a discipline.

AbstractWhen writing a research paper, the author has to select information to include in the paper to support various arguments. The information has to be organized and synthesized into a coherent whole through relationships and information structures. There is hardly any research on the information structure of research papers, and how information structure supports rhetorical and argument structures. Thus, this study is focused on information organization in the Abstract and Introduction sections of sociology research papers, analyzing the information structure of research objective, question, hypothesis, and result statements. The study is limited to research papers reporting research that investigated cause–effect relations between two concepts. Two semantic frames were developed to specify the types of information associated with cause–effect and comparison relations, and used as coding schemes to annotate the text for different information types. Six link patterns between the two frames were identified—showing how comparisons are used to support the claim that the cause‐effect relation is valid. This study demonstrated how semantic frames can be incorporated in discourse analysis to identify deep structures underlying the argument structure. The results carry implications for the knowledge representation of academic research in knowledge graphs, for semantic relation extraction, and teaching of academic writing.