Who will speak, and who will listen? Comments on Burawoy and public sociology.

Guide for the Perplexed : On Michael Burawoy ’ s “ Public Sociology ” 1

The American Sociologist / Fall/Winter 2005 Steven Brint is professor of sociology at the University of California, Riverside. Among other works, he is the author of The Diverted Dream (with Jerome Karabel), In an Age of Experts, and Schools and Societies. His work has won prizes from the American Educational Research Association, the Association of Colleges and Universities, and the American S...

From Max Weber to Public Sociology

Growing up in a political as well as an intellectual environment, Max Weber not only sought to comprehend the world but also to change it. Arguably, he took Karl Marx’s 11th. Thesis on Feuerbach that “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it,” far more seriously than its author. Marx, after all, did not reflect, in any systematic fashion...

The Turn to Public Sociology : the Case of U . S . Labor Studies

Sociology as Public Discourse and Professional Practice: A Critique of Michael Burawoy*

In this article I discuss Burawoy’s (2005) argument for public sociology in the context of the sociologist as both citizen and as social scientist; that is, as simultaneously a member of any ‘society’ being researched and as researcher claiming validity for the knowledge produced by research. I shall suggest that the relation between citizenship and social science necessarily places a limit on ...

No Path to Paradise: Deconstructing the Promise of Public Sociology

This essay treats Burawoy’s advocacy for public sociology as a social problems claim. Using a social constructionist approach, I examine the rhetorical strategies Burawoy uses to construct the discipline in a way that makes public sociology seem not only relevant, but integral to what sociologists do. Sociology’s history, ethos and practitioners are framed in ways that make its commitment to th...