Social lens or inherently social phenomenon? The study of food in Swedish sociology

Sociology’s tendency to branch into applied scientific disciplines is regularly debated. This debate focuses either on the organisation of sociology in academic institutions or on how the content of sociologically informed interdisciplinary research diverges from disciplinary sociology. This article bridges these debates in a study of the sociology of food in Sweden. The aim is to analyse how Swedish food sociology reflects the tension between disciplinary sociology and interdisciplinary research. The data comprise the doctoral dissertations and post-PhD career paths of Swedish sociologists whose dissertations are about food. The article finds that these dissertations treat food either as an inherently social phenomenon or as a social lens (i.e. a social phenomenon viewed as instrumental for analysing something else). Second, it is found that sociologists whose dissertations treated food as an inherently social phenomenon were more likely to pursue careers in food sociology but also to hold affiliations outside of sociology departments. The article concludes that the academic locus of Swedish food sociology is organised outside sociology departments but that its approaches are not necessarily any less sociological. Thus, the analysis questions the basis for arguments that interdisciplinary research represents a threat to the critical and analytical core of sociology.

Teaching for a Data-Driven Future: Intentionally Building Foundational Computing Skills

Despite the centrality of data analysis to the discipline, sociology departments are currently falling short of teaching both undergraduate and graduate students crucial computing and statistical software skills. We argue that sociology instructors must intentionally and explicitly teach computing skills alongside statistical concepts to prepare their students for participation in a data-driven world. We illuminate foundational concepts for computing in the social sciences and provide easy-to-integrate recommendations for building competency with these concepts in the form of a workshop designed to introduce sociology undergraduate and graduate students to the logic of statistical software. We use our workshop to show that students appreciate and gain confidence from being taught how to think about computing.

“That machine from hell”; Word Processing in Sociology

Scholars spend much of their time processing words with the help of a computer. Yet not too long ago, scholars would have typed or even written their lectures and articles by hand, and often a secretary would have (re)typed the final version.This paper examines the transition from one set of socio-technical relationships to another, focusing on resistance to change and the closure that has led to the current ubiquity of word processors. The article draws on insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS), and on material from email and telephone interviews conducted with older and retired members of university sociology departments in the English-speaking world.

Sociology Departments and Program Review: Chair Perspectives on Process and Outcomes

Sociology faculty are accountable to multiple stakeholders to demonstrate that our academic programs are effective and that students are learning. Despite the ubiquity of mandated program review practices, which often include the assessment of student learning, research is lacking on the extent to which these efforts lead to improvements in departmental outcomes and student experiences. Similarly, little research exists on how department leaders experience and evaluate the utility of these efforts. This article uses data from a national survey of sociology departments to document how program review and assessment are enacted in sociology departments and to explore chairs’ perspectives on program review processes and its outcomes. The article concludes with a series of recommendations for improving these processes so that faculty time is used well and the experiences of sociology students are enhanced.

Testing a Modified Version of Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire to Measure Organizational Values in a University Context

Schwartz developed his Theory of Basic Human Values and corresponding instruments, the portrait values questionnaire (PVQ) and the Schwartz values survey (SVS), in order to measure personal values. He uses these instruments (in a slightly modified form) in conjunction with his Theory of Cultural Value Orientations to measure cultural or societal values. His theoretical work is also used in studying organizational values; however, none of these instruments seem suitable to compare personal and perceived organizational values. If the PVQ is widely used to measure personal values, and we need commensurate measures of the person and organization for comparative analysis, then can we not minimally adjust the PVQ to measure organizational values? In this article we discuss the testing of one such adjusted PVQ used for gauging universities’ organizational values. We developed the PVQ-uni to measure university values as perceived by students. We collected data from sociology departments at two universities, one in Austria ( n = 133) and one Nigeria ( n = 156). We then tested the reliability and the validity of the new instrument. Based on the data collected, we found that the PVQ-uni is a reliable and valid instrument; however, further refinements are needed for the instrument to be used successfully in Africa.

Sociology Engaged in Social Justice

This article expands on my presidential address to further bolster the case that sociology has, from its inception, been engaged in social justice. I argue that a critical review of our discipline and our Association’s vaunted empiricist tradition of objectivity, in which sociologists are detached from their research, was accomplished by a false history and sociology of sociology that ignored, isolated, and marginalized some of the founders. In the past half-century, scholar-activists, working-class sociologists, sociologists of color, women sociologists, indigenous sociologists, and LGBTQ sociologists have similarly been marginalized and discouraged from pursuing social justice issues and applied research within our discipline. Being ignored by academic sociology departments has led them to create or join homes in interdisciplinary programs and other associations that embrace applied and scholar-activist scholarship. I offer thoughts about practices that the discipline and Association should use to reclaim sociology’s social justice tradition.

“Bewitched by the History Behind the Walls”

This chapter examines how urban sociology in and of China is interconnected in historical and disciplinary terms with Robert Park and the Chicago School. It analyses four dimensions thereof: 1) personal relations between Robert Park and Chinese students and colleagues who enabled his visit to China, namely Xu Shilian, Wu Jingchao and Wu Wenzao; 2) institutional embeddedness of the sociology departments at both the University of Chicago and Yanjing University within the funding structures and strategies of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1920s and 1930s and amongst competing approaches to research in (urban) sociology; 3) empirical fieldwork and comparative community studies in the form of Fei Xiaotong’s research on small towns in China (early 1980s) and his conceptualization of rural urbanization which built on his earlier classic rural community study and influenced official Chinese urbanization strategies until the recent National Plan on New Urbanization (2014-2020); and 4) theorizing China’s “villages in the city” (城中村‎) in light of previous debates inspired by the Chicago School on “cities within cities” (Park 2015), the “slum” and “urban villages”. Based on these four perspectives the chapter addresses questions of legacy, creative impetus and possible limitations arising from Park’s program vis-à-vis urban sociology in China today.

Integrating Community-based Research into a Senior Capstone Seminar: Lessons Learned from a Mixed-methods Study

This article describes a senior capstone, Neighborhoods and Health, which used community-based research (CBR) as its primary pedagogy. Students in the course drew upon multiple research methods and forms of data to provide our partner, the Urban Farming Institute of Boston, with an array of research products in support of the revitalization of a historic farm in the Boston neighborhood of Mattapan. Based on pre- and posttest assessment and analysis of students’ reflections in their journals, we identify how a multimethods approach—combined with a commitment to producing usable research products—simultaneously contributed to students’ research methods proficiency and their understanding of complex social processes. For both sociology departments and interdisciplinary majors that draw on sociological perspectives, CBR offers a compelling means of providing seniors with meaningful capstone experiences while adding capacity to the important work of community-based organizations.