Public Sociologists Research Articles

Коммуникативные характеристики социальной рекламы и ее влияние на поведение молодежи: социолингвистическое исследование

Social advertising is the most important channel of mass communication that shapes public opinion. However, its effectiveness is often questioned, which necessitates the search for ways to increase its communicative impact on the target audience. The most important is the study of the sociolinguistic characteristics of advertising influence in the youth environment, since at this age there are simultaneously risks of socialization and flexibility of thinking - a tendency to reflection, reassessment of values. The article presents the results of a study that reveals the main communicative characteristics of Russian social advertising and the mechanisms of its influence on the behavior of student. The empirical research methods were a questionnaire survey of students of the Financial University, as well as an analysis of advertising videos and comments posted under them on YouTube and VKontakte. As a result of the study, it was revealed that the youth audience is well versed in the concept of social advertising. At the same time, most of the students' attention is attracted by bright, provocative (shocking) social advertising, which is a mini-film about the life of real heroes. The most memorable topics relate to the fight against «bad» habits, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, compliance with the law. Based on the results of the study, as well as the experience of Russian and foreign scientists, the article concludes with recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of social advertising. The importance of adhering to the principles of unambiguity, conciseness and synchronism of social advertising, «soft» chrakter, honesty and openness is indicated. The findings of the study may be useful to specialists in advertising and public relations, sociologists and specialists in of social work.

Identifying Critical Issues in the Perception of Caregivers about Quality of Child Health Care Services Using a Modified Delphi Technique

Background: Identification of the elements of the perception users of health services is a critical step in the development of measurement scales to assess such perception. This study is the second of a three phase approach to create a validated tool for the assessment of caregiver’s perceived quality of child health care in Primary health care (PHC) facilities. The first phase was exploratory using qualitative methods to assess the perceptions of caregivers about quality of child health care services; it yielded 39 quality-of-care items. Method: In this current study, we subjected the 39 quality of care items to expert review using the modified Delphi method. This method is useful for providing evidence for content validity in quantitative scale design. A total of 33 experts, including public health specialists, pediatricians and medical sociologists, participated in three iterative rounds. In each round the experts awarded score to the items and consensus amongst experts was determined by calculating inter quartile range of the assigned scores. Results: At the end of the three rounds of expert review, the total number of question items that had shown consensus considerably amongst the expert reviewers was 23. Conclusion: For these 23 items, a three point Likert scale response format was framed appropriately as a quantitative scale for assessing perceived quality of child health services in PHC facilities.

Розвиток громадянського суспільства як об’єкт наукового дослідження

У статті проаналізовано стан і тенденції наукового дослідження розвитку громадянського суспільства у вітчизняному суспільствознавстві. Наведено розроблену М. Розумним періодизацію еволюції наукових поглядів на питання розвитку громадянського суспільства в Україні. Наголошено, що дані питання охоплюють широке коло проблем і носять міждисциплінарний характер. Подано стислий огляд колективних досліджень, наукових розробок, монографій, аналітичних доповідей та записок, які присвячені різноманітним аспектам розвитку громадянського суспільства. Запропоновано тематичний розподіл зазначених вище наукових робіт. Встановлено основні напрями дослідження зарубіжного, в першу чергу, європейського досвіду щодо розвитку громадянського суспільства, а також взаємодії органів державної влади з громадськістю як критерію ефективності механізмів державного сприяння цьому процесу. Виявлено недостатній рівень комплексного аналізу державної політики сприяння розвитку громадянського суспільства у вітчизняному суспільствознавстві, відсутність наукових дослідницьких робіт та монографій, присвячених цілісному, всебічному і ґрунтовному дослідженню її теоретичних та практичних аспектів. Зроблено висновок про необхідність більш глибокого, детального і ретельного вивчення питань розвитку громадянського суспільства з боку вітчизняної науки державного управління.

The Public Sociologist as a University-Community Hybrid: Lessons from Feminism

Feminism is well versed in conversations about engaged scholarship and has provided important critical commentary on Michael Burawoy’s campaign for public sociology in recent years. This paper draws from feminist perspectives to argue for reflexivity, praxis, and interdisciplinary work as key pillars for public sociology. I then draw from my own experiences doing feminist work in community-engaged settings to consider various limitations of Burawoy’s notions of traditional and organic public sociology. To move past this dichotomy, I put forward a conceptual model for understanding public sociologists as public intellectuals, community-engaged scholars, community educators, and/or advocates and activists. In considering how researchers might navigate these various roles, I argue that discussions of expertise and universities as value-laden institutions are important to build sustainable practices. Overall, the strength of public sociology is that it acknowledges these blurred boundaries and allows for the development of collaborative forms of expertise to address social problems. However, there is additional theoretical work to be done, as well as practical supports developed, to enable feminist researchers in particular to successfully navigate these roles.

A Backstage Sociologist: Autoethnography and a Populist Vision

The first part is an autoethnographer’s account of a madcap journey through America's disciplinary institutions, ranging from a Mennonite colony and prison to the counterculture and mental hospitals, and on to political organizations and universities. Using Goffman’s distinction between front stage and backstage as a metaphor, the author is an embodied and embedded eyewitness—covertly conducting institutional ethnographies (Merleau-Ponty 2012 [1945]). With a backstage perspective, this rogue researcher pierces the front-stage veneer of social-control institutions. The second part is an audacious revisionist history of American sociology, a confounding counter-narrative that demystifies mainstream sociology’s hegemonic tale of self-congratulation. The author narrates and deciphers the successive sociological generations of the founders, scientific professionals, Sixties' insurgents, and the new, poseur public sociologists. The article concludes with a renewed vision of a populist sociology.​

Don’t Just Read Books, Write Them! Four Lessons Learned from a Multiyear Student-authored Book Project in Social Theory

This article documents the process of having students research, create, edit, and self-publish a book of social theorist profiles (arranged alphabetically from Adorno to Weber) for a required theory course I teach in the department of sociology. An ongoing project, it currently spans over three semesters worth of theory students with each class building on the work of the last. It is both a guide to implementing a similar project in any course (though particularly relevant to those specifically looking to engage students in their sociological theory course) and an analysis of the lessons I have learned along the way that may help others overcome a number of the inherent challenges. Although others are certainly implementing projects like this in their own college classrooms, the materials available in peer-reviewed journals are almost nonexistent. I assert that public sociologists, in particular, should consider taking on these kinds of projects as they both benefit larger communities and allow us to reconsider the long-term results of our teaching efforts.

Shopping to save the world? Reclaiming global citizenship within Irish universities

Patterns and causes of poverty and underdevelopment have shifted considerably over the last two decades. Growing global inequality within and between nations is now inextricably linked to both the exigencies and impacts of the global economy. In this article I argue that our universities, while developing students’ core skills and competencies to work within this global economy, fall short in providing them with the contextual competencies to critically engage with the multi-faceted challenges posed by it. In other words, our universities are failing to produce critically engaged global citizens. As universities opt to leave this contextual educational component to NGOs within the development sector – a sector with its own challenges and limitations – I go on to argue that global citizenship education as popularly promoted within this sector is also limited. In equating global citizenship and activism with consumerism, it depoliticises and individualises acts of engagement, thereby eroding the potential for collective, transformative action. I conclude by urging that, as teachers, mentors and public sociologists, we reclaim global citizenship as a collective project engaged in the political struggle for meaning and ‘truth’ within our classrooms and institutions.

Amphibious sociology: Dilemmas and possibilities of public sociology in a multimedia world

Public sociologists’ deep engagement with non-academic publics tends to give research findings greater empirical accuracy, relevance and influence, as well as provide a powerful source of motivation. However, it also creates constant risks of dispersion, loss of independence, lack of analytical distance and burnout. Based on the author’s experience with research and advocacy about socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America, this article dwells on these opportunities and risks. To take advantage of the former and tackle the latter, it makes a case for ‘amphibious sociology,’ an approach that embraces hybrid styles of writing and uses advances in multimedia technology to engage several audiences, while keeping the enterprise of public sociology afloat.

How Epistemology Matters: Five Reflexive Critiques of Public Sociology

This article analyses Michael Burawoy’s vision of public sociology in light of five distinct ‘epistemic strategies’, each of which generates substantially different expectations regarding the challenges and opportunities facing public sociologists. The five epistemic strategies range along a spectrum from methodological individualism at one end to holism at the other. Between these two poles, considerations of the social relativity of scientific knowledge arise. Constructionist theories highlight the performative dilemma entailed when science reveals itself to be one narrative among others. Hierarchical theories such as Marxism suggest that public sociology is torn by the irreconcilable contradiction between hegemony and counter-hegemony. Heterarchical theories address both of these two problems together. Heterarchy suggests that science’s claim to universality may interfere with public sociology’s social-transformative aspirations. However, the dynamic complexity of ‘public’ social struggles generates opportunities to rethink the place of difference in the production of scientific knowledge.

Public sociology in the age of Obama1

This article begins by describing the genesis of the idea of public sociology to better assess its meaning and significance. I then move from the particular account to a general formulation of the four types of knowledge that comprise the sociological field and its division of labor. All four types of knowledge are necessary ingredients for a flourishing discipline. From the general I return to the particular, pointing out different national expressions of this division of sociological labor and the conflicts they engender. Antagonisms notwithstanding, sociologists do share a distinctive project rooted in the defense and expansion of civil society, which brings me to the final point. With their roots in civil society, sociologists have a stake in responses to market fundamentalism and the economic crises it has caused. Inspired by these eventful times, public sociologists can now emerge from their academic shells to take their place in shaping the direction of society.

What Do Public Sociologists Do? A Critique of Burawoy

Michael Burawoy certainly seems to have the requisite organizational and marketing savvy to be a successful ‘public sociologist.’ Preaching from a few well-chosen pulpits, the ASA Presidency first among them, he has almost singlehandedly created a multinational cottage industry busily debating his ideas about the future of our discipline. The responses have been as varied as they have been numerous. While many have been quite critical, the criticisms have originated from a bewildering range of often entirely opposite positions on the ideological-philosophical spectrum, as well as from every imaginable position in between. Burawoy himself takes this multiplicity of position-takings to be evidence for the plausibility of his own ideas about different kinds of sociology and the possibility of a fruitful, collaborative division of labour between them (Burawoy 2007: 246). But we suspect it is more likely simply an expression of the depth and the breadth of our discord concerning the basic question of what we want with our discipline .

The Contribution of Economists to Understanding Racial Health Disparities in the US

Much research on the issue of health disparities in the United States has been produced by health services researchers across disciplines, particularly medical care providers, public health workers and sociologists. Many economists have also studied health disparities. This special issue of Atlantic Economic Journal highlights in particular the role of economic scholarship in this important national debate. This article, introducing the special issue, categorizes the contribution of many economists to the literature on health disparity. The literature reviewed ultimately includes 107 articles published between 1998 and 2008. Articles by any of the 932 economists that were members of the American Society of Health Economists in 2006 publishing about racial/ethnic health disparities as found in Medline, articles related to racial/ethnic health disparities published in Health Economics or the Journal of Health Economics or through searches in EconLit were reviewed for inclusion.

Creating Sociological Awareness: Public and Applied Sociology

Introduction The following review essay focuses on three books that demonstrate how the complexity of socio-cultural issues can be broken down into specific patterns of behavior and symbols that define and give meaning to human activ ity, attitudes, social structures, and gender identity. Each employs variations of applied sociological research methods combined with an approach that has recently been labeled public sociology. Sociologists for many years have successfully balanced the application of scientific rigor with sociological theory as the foundation for exploratory investigations into a range of social problems in order to create a more informed populous and to facilitate social change; public sociologists seek to reach out to multiple publics in a manner that both facilitates an understanding of sociolog ical subject matter and instills a sense of empowerment and awareness among mem bers of disenfranchised groups (Klayman 2007). Despite critics' somewhat obtuse descriptions of this hybrid sociological prac tice, public sociology incorporates the theo retical and methodological tools of the disci pline. It is not, as some would have it, a partisan unscientific enterprise (Deflem 2005). Several well-known books by public soci ologists, including Steven Fraser's (1995) The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence and the Future of America, Massey and Denton's (1993) American Apartheid and Ehrenreich's (2001) Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, influenced the popular socio political discourse at the time of their publi cation. These, as well as many other works of public sociology, have tempered the neolib eral rhetoric championing cuts in welfare and other social programs, the devastating impact of urban isolation and poverty, and stereo types of the working poor. As exemplary works of Public Sociology, these books spoke to people at both ends of the eco nomic spectrum and elucidated complex social problems.

Are We There Yet? Reflections on the 2008 Political Scene

Public sociologists have hit the trail this year in blogs, op-eds, essays, and designed to shine an analytic light on what feels-for better or worse-like the longest running presidential in history. Candidates have been no less prolific, pro viding the public more than one best-selling biography and assorted campaign books designed to lay out their political philosophies and the personal experiences that have led them to their convictions. Political sociologists work at the intersec tion of inequality and political participation (see Jeff Manza and Chris Uggen on felony disenfranchisement), or politics and social movements (from the classic works by Doug McAdam to the more contemporary analyses of Kenneth Andrews). Their are largely directed at a professional audience or the pol icy crowd that frequents the American Prospect or the recent addition to the pan theon, Pathways. Public sociology aimed at understanding the culture of modern politics is a different animal. It is more likely to trade on an insid er's vantage point, its authority deriving partly from the biography of the author or from extraordinary access seldom granted to the garden variety fieldworker. Todd Gitlin's engaging account of the forms of paralysis affecting both Republicans and Democrats, owes a great deal to his own history as an activist and political commentator. It rarely invokes sociology as an analytic framework, but it rests comfortably on the shoulders of organizational studies and social movements literature in ways that are recognizable to the disciplinary specialist. Its contribution lies in the clarity with which it points to contradic tions in political ideology, particularly among Republicans, although the Democrats come in for their fair share of critique. Gitlin is not aim ing to reframe the sociologists look at the modern political parties but, instead, to lead readers on a tour of the upheavals at the inter section of Clintonian third way politics and the radical right turn of the Bush administra tion. 7he Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals, by Todd Gitlin. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007. 336pp. $25.95 cloth. ISBN: 978471748533.

Accredited Programs: Models for Training the Next Generation of Social Change Agents

Practicing applied, clinical, and more recently public sociologists have most often become involved in social change activities because of a learning environment that combined a change oriented classroom experience with a positive field experience. How does a sociology program create such a learning environment? In this paper, I will cover three models used by practice programs in sociology accredited by the Commission on Applied and Clinical Sociology to train change oriented students. Although accreditation is not essential for training the next generation of social change agents, it is one means by which like minded sociologists can pursue their common educational interests. Accreditation is also a way by which the discipline of sociology can return to its practice oriented roots.

Speaking `Truth' to All Forms of Power

The political and socioeconomic transformations across the globe in the last two decades make it necessary for public sociologists to bring their collective accumulated knowledge and methodological skills to an engagement with subalterns on the political strategy appropriate to this historical epoch. They must recognize that subaltern groups have insights into their subjugation, and solutions to transcend it. Public sociologists must deploy their skills in an inclusive way to engage the issue of political strategy: how to subvert power in favour of the agendas of subaltern groups.

Dynamique interdisciplinaire autour d'un réseau de soins : évaluer et construire en même temps

This article reports on the evaluation experience of a multiple sclerosis care network in the Midi-Pyrénées region (MIPSEP). It shows how an evaluation team composed of public health doctors and sociologists progressively and naturally evolved from having a purely external observation role towards having a collaborative role actively working with the network's members and partners. A qualitative method was chosen for the data collection through interviews with the network's actors, and the frameworks for reference were constituted from official texts which defined the networks and their missions. Coming from a curative and healing culture, the network's actors were concerned primarily about how to organise themselves in order to better respond to the needs expressed by the patients. The various professional backgrounds and cultures, faced with different perspectives from innovation and confronted with the related difficulties, participated in a collective expertise exercise and collaborated in the construction process. This example supports an open, qualitative, evolutionary evaluation approach which is done in close proximity to the field and work on the ground. The study is timely given the current explosion of debate on evaluation methods. With a great deal of exchange and reflection on suitable tools and indicators as well as the respective roles of researchers, care givers and decision-makers, the results of this study advocate to favour multidisciplinary approaches, including opening up this process to funders and planning authorities rather than over-theorising about it, which only serves to enclose and paralyse a process that, on the contrary, should aim to be more inclusive. This could be a useful way to decompartmentalise and break down existing barriers within the health system.

Bookmarks for public sociologists1

The British Journal of SociologyVolume 56, Issue 3 p. 373-378 Bookmarks for public sociologists† Amitai Etzioni, Corresponding Author Amitai Etzioni The George Washington Universityemail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author Amitai Etzioni, Corresponding Author Amitai Etzioni The George Washington Universityemail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 09 September 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2005.00067.xCitations: 20Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume56, Issue3September 2005Pages 373-378 RelatedInformation

The Vacant "We": Remarks on Public Sociology

I am temperamentally incompatible with public sociology. As an introvert who prefers to deal with things and ideas rather than with people, I avoid activities that engage some public sociologists. When William Gamson and Charlotte Ryan describe their participation in countless meetings over several years discussing media strategies with grass-roots community organizations, my eyes glaze over. I want to go home and take a nap. I feel relief when Burawoy writes there is no implication that we should all become public (Burawoy et al. 2004:125). Thank you, Michael. Public sociology is not for me. I will happily remain in my professional cell. If public sociology is so much a question of personal choice, what could possibly be the matter? Researchoriented professional sociologists have, in fact, legitimate concerns with public sociology. There are concerns with assumptions of a common moral political agenda for sociologists, with the Marxist roots of public sociology, with its emphasis on advocacy, and with the role of public sociology within the American Sociological Association (ASA). I will discuss each of these issues in turn.

Family Planning and Population Programs: A Review of World Developments

This volume consists of a collection of 61 papers presented at the International Conference on Family Planning Programs held in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1965. The conference, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Population Council, attracted experts from around the world to discuss problems of population control. Included are papers by physicians, public health workers, demographers, economists, educators, sociologists, and behavioral scientists. The topics covered are divided into several main groupings: national programs of population control, organization and administration of programs, contraceptive methods, and research and evaluation. Contraceptive technology has now achieved such a degree of so