Sun, 16 Oct 1994 18:45:37 -0700 for <socgrad@ucsd.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 20:45:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: Melanie <mlowery@comp.uark.edu>
To: socgrad <socgrad@UCSD.EDU>


Hi Lisa,

I agree with you here, and I will seek out this article as well. I find 
that the professors in my department think that "debunking" popular 
conceptions is beneath sociologists. They do not like to discuss this in 
their classes, and they don't encourage it at the disciplinary level. How 
can we show people the difference between popular "understandings" and 
real sociological knowledge and research without this tool?

Melanie Lowery
University of Arkansas

On Thu, 13 Oct 1994, Lisa Eargle wrote:

> Something you folks might want to read in addition to the sociological
> Forum issue is "The Era of Sociology" by Albion Small in the July issue
> of AJS. It's a reprint of an article he wrote in 1895, when he created the
> journal.
> 
> Sometimes I hear people remark "Oh, sociology is nothing but common sense!
> Anyone can do what you guys are doing." It's interesting we still haven't
> been able to distinguish in the public's mind within the last 100 years the
> difference between Sociology (the research kind) and popular wisdom about
> social phenomena. Hence, we have trouble explaining why our work is needed
> or our usefulness.
> 
> Since the phenomena we study is easily observed by all, it makes us more
> vunerable, I suppose, to our legitimacy being questioned than that of other
> disciplines. One of the things I think we can do is to emphasize how common
> sense isn't always the right answer -- it just appears to be. So, we need to
> examine the phenomenon to see what is going on. We need to get that message
> to the public and one way we won't do that is to hide in the ivory tower.
> 
> --Lisa Eargle
>