The Field of Sociology

The study of sociology must look backward to the history of the field and outward to the current state of specialization in order to grasp the evolution of the field of sociology and gain a sense of where it is headed. One method to measure this evolutionary process is by analyzing the presidential addresses delivered by the presidents of the American Sociological Association. These addresses are printed usually in the February issues of the American Sociological Review.

For the purposes of this research, a series of presidential addresses have been collected and analyzed to show patterns of change in the field of sociology over the last 20 years. Many of the most fundamental changes in the discipline occurred in earlier decades, especially since World War II. For comparison sake, one earlier presidential address, which summarized the growth of the field of sociology, is included in this study.

Most students of sociology agree that the history of the field during the first third of the century was strictly guided by the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, known as the "Chicago School." A journal out of the University of Chicago, the American Journal of Sociology, functioned as the official voice of the American Sociological Association until 1936, giving the Chicago school extraordinary control over the direction of scholarship. In the course of the 1930s, however, the discipline of sociology began to expand, embracing numerous scholars spec

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rch areas in which data is easily available, will result in narrowly-focused, perhaps even meaningless, research efforts and publications. Younger students of sociology learn that careers are more effectively advanced by through quantity of research rather than quality of analytical thinking. This leads to an emphasis on methodological rigor, not on theoretical substance. In the immediate future, this spells stagnation for what sociology has to offer to our understanding of the world. And in the longer term, it means growing irrelevance of the field to human understanding altogether. Three years later, President Amos Hawley (1978) indirectly reiterated many of Coser's fears, a message that is equally pessimistic but in a very different light. Hawley did not directly assess the issue of change in the field of sociology. Instead, he addressed the issue of historical change in the structure and behavior of society as a whole. But the sheer scope of the speech betrays a preoccupation with theoretical analysis of social problems rather than an emphasis on scientific methodology. The objective of Hawley's address was to document patterns of cumulative change in social behavior through history and attempt to identify the forces of that

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