Our studies, ourselves : sociologists' lives and work / edited by Barry Glassner and Rosanna Hertz.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Glassner, Barry.

Hertz, Rosanna.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sociology--Research--North America--Case studies.

Sociology.

Sociologists--North America.

Sociologists.

Sociology--Philosophy.

Sociology--Research.

North America.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

x, 278 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.

Summary:

What motivates a lifelong scholarly pursuit, and how do one's studies inform life outside the academy? Sociologists, who live in families but also study families, who go to work but also study work, who participate in communities but also try to understand communities, have an especially intimate relation to their research. Growing up poor, struggling as a woman in a male-dominated profession, participating in protests against the Vietnam War: facts of life influence research agendas, individual understandings of the world, and ultimately the shape of the discipline as a whole. Barry Glassner and Rosanna Hertz asked twenty-two of America's most prominent sociologists to reflect upon how their personal lives influenced their research and, vice versa, how their research has influenced their lives. In this volume, the authors reveal with candor and discernment how world events, political commitments, and unanticipated constraints influenced the course of their careers. They disclose how race, class, and gender proved to be pivotal elements in the course of their individual lives, and in how they carry out their research. Faced with academic institutions that did not hire or promote persons of their gender, race, sexual orientation, or physical disability, they invented new routes to success within their fields. Faced with disappointments in political organizations to which they were devoted, they found ways to integrate their disillusionment into their research agendas. While some of the contributors radically changed their political commitments, and others saw more stability, none stood still. An intimate look at biography and craft, these snapshots provide a fascinating glimpse of the sociological life for colleagues, other academics, and aspiring young sociologists. The collection demonstrates how inequalities and injustices can be made into motors for scholarly research, which in turn have the power to change individual life courses and entire societies.

Contents:

Studying the enemy / Kathleen M. Blee

Reflections on the intersection of research and politics in academia / Héctor L. Delgado

Working out class while studying elites / Susan A. Ostrander

World events and career experiences : a personal perspective / Mark S. Mizruchi

Searching for action research and teaching / William H. Friedland

From Vietnam till today / Howard Schuman

Making problems : reflections on experience and research / John Walton

My years in antipoverty research and policy / Herbert J. Gans

Unscripted : continuity and change in the gendered life course / Phyllis Moen

Confessions of an accidental sociologist / Arlene Skolnick

Writing as a democrat and a feminist / Jane Mansbridge

Decoding dichotomies and pushing the boundaries : a lifetime of research on women in the professions / Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Resisting institutional capture as a research practice / Dorothy E. Smith

The ins and outs of othering / Barrie Thorne

Musician, sociologist, and hearing person : a crisis of identities / Robert R. Alford

Social-class tensions and value conflicts in the disability world / Gary L. Albrecht

In defense of foxes / Christopher Winship

Feminist fieldworker : connecting research, teaching, and memoir / Sherryl Kleinman

Feminism in the field / Jody Miller

Professional rebellions and personal researches, or, How I became bored with myself / Joshua Gamson

The body of knowledge / Shulamit Reinharz

My life in social movements : from 1960s activist to lesbian den mother / Verta Taylor.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0195146611

OCLC:

50866886