Week 24 Lecture 1 (Public Sociology) PowerPointv

Question 1

SOCIOLOGY AS A VERB

Answer 1

How can we think of sociology as a verb?

• Sociology as something we do rather than something that simply is.
• Sociology as a tool for social change
• Social change comes from knowledge, but also the actions we take based on knowledge
• How can you take action based on what you’ve learned this term?

How can you apply what you’ve learned in your daily lives?

Question 2

PROFESSIONAL VS.
PUBLIC SOCIOLOGY

Answer 2

• Professional (or ’pure’) – concerned with the
  development of new knowledge regarding
  society and social life (sociology for sociologists)
  *focus on producing knowledge
• Public (or ‘practical’) – interested in attempting
  to understand and improve society (sociology
  for society)
  *Focus on improving society
• Key components of a public sociology:
• Accessibility
• financial
• open access journals - this means researcher has to pay for publishing
• alternative forms of knowledge mobilization - accessable to average reader not in universities
• Bringing sociology beyond the university
• who is research im producing for?
• just for sociologists or other members of community
• Community engagement
• not doing research for community or on community; it’s doing research with a community

Question 3

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN RESEARCH

Answer 3

3 central features of community engagement (Marullo and Strand 2004 – also noted in Breeze 2011):

1.A collaborative enterprise between academic
researchers and community members
- yay working together

2.The democratizing of knowledge by validating multiple sources of knowledge and promoting the use of multiple methods of discovery and dissemination
- reporting on findings rather than just seeing peer-reviewed journal articles as valid

3.The goal of social action for the purpose of achieving social change and social justice
- issues for marginalized groups
- WE NEED to promote social change because there SHOULD be practical implications of work

Question 4

RECONCEPTUALIZING SCHOLARSHIP
TO PROMOTE PUBLIC SOCIOLOGY

Answer 4

Ernest Boyer (1990) – argued we need to enlarge and re-map how scholarship can be perceived
Why do we need to do this?
- Not something can just take place at indivudal level
- Tenyar track - research outputs and funding
pure sociology - peer reviewed journal
Tenyar is like fully protected by union
- this means pressure to publish peer reviewed journals
- Reconceptualize scholarship for what we deem valuable and legit.

How can we think about sociology in the context of policy?
- goverment and institutional decision making
- sociology impact policy
- we can start to see why what we deem as scholarship as such
- ex. any crim class: you know what causes crime but if the only people reading this research are other criminologist, how are we gonna this information to change policy

Question 5

BRINGING THINGS FULL CIRCLE

-Where am I situated on scale of tratisfication

Answer 5

• How has sociology reproduced unequal social structures?
• Who has been oppressed in or excluded from society/sociology?
• Who has resisted exclusion?
• How can sociology help bring about social change?
• How can sociology foster an inclusive society?