Broadly speaking, sociology is the study of society and its institutions (such as the family, government, politics, and education), and human interactions. It also seeks to understand and explain the forces behind people’s actions and behaviours, and the consequences of such actions and behaviours.
According to Michael Burawoy (2004), sociology can be categorized into four types: public sociology, policy sociology, professional sociology, and critical sociology. Policy and public sociologies concern mainly with the sociological knowledge produced for audiences outside of the academy or university, while the knowledge produced for those inside the academy belongs to either the category of professional sociology or critical sociology (McLaughlin & Turcotte, 2007). The four types listed are not mutually exclusive and can overlap, and are often complementary to one another. Since this blog is devoted to “doing public sociology”, I will use the paragraphs below to talk briefly about public sociology.
Public sociology is a branch of sociology that aims at bringing sociology into dialogue with the public, outside of the university arena. Public sociologists strive to develop conversations with the public and to communicate their work to the public. By “communicating”, public sociologists not only look to disseminate their research findings or other work that they have done, but also invite the public to engage in the discussions and to be “involved” in whatever issues being discussed. These “issues” often times revolve around the goals and values that are shared by both sides – sociologists and the public. Through this process of reciprocity each side can make necessary adjustments so that better results or outcomes can be achieved.
At the same time it must be emphasized, however, that it is not easy to arrive at a consensus as far as what are shared goals and values. Professional sociologists are aware that it is difficult to decide what is meant by shared goals and values, and whose goals and values are we talking about. This is a complex issue indeed, and one which I believe will make for a good topic of discussion in a later post.
A Sociological Perspective -- Góc Nhìn Xã Hội Học 