On the 25th anniversary of the European Academy of Sociology (EAS), a recent call for debate has outlined a new vision for the standards of sociology.
Published in Rationality and Society, the paper proposes three key principles to advance disciplinary standards in sociology: the integration of theory and empirics, open science practices, and cautious engagement with wider societal debates.
It is written by the Department's Ozan Aksoy; alongside Gianluca Manzo, Sorbonne University; Gunn Elisabeth Birkelund, University of Oslo; and Werner Raub, Utrecht University.
When the EAS – an international, non-governmental, and non-profit association – was founded in 2000, its aims were threefold: to promote and maintain rigour and excellence in European sociology; to integrate with the wider social sciences; and to provide advice on matters of sociological relevance to European institutions.
However, the authors argue that these objectives are still to be achieved. Competition for students across the social sciences and beyond has led to reduced enrolment in sociological programmes, and there remains much debate on the variable quality of sociological research; how to evaluate disciplinary quality; and sociology’s positioning between scientific methods and activism.
Considering the challenges (including artificial intelligence and populist attacks against science) and opportunities (such as new and advanced sociological organisations, courses and training handbooks) currently facing sociology, the paper proposes three key principles that could help achieve the original objectives of the EAS. These are:
- The integration of theory, methodology and data – the goal of theory is to explain and generalise the underlying causal processes behind social phenomena, not just describe empirical regularities. Models can be utilised to explain the mechanisms that generate social phenomena.
Sociology should embrace the growing consensus across the social sciences on causal inference methods, including advanced statistical techniques and experiments. However, the emphasis on causal identification must be balanced against the need to engage with substantively important questions through important qualitative work or careful description that may not yet be amenable to causal methods.
- The importance of open science – trust in science is facilitated through openness, transparency and replicability. The process through which a sociologist makes inferences should, as much as possible, be open for review by the scientific and the wider community.
These values will integrate sociology within the social sciences and maintain research quality in times of increasing competition for funds and academic visibility, and populist attempts to discredit or defund science.
- Careful engagement with pressing social issues – it is necessary to distinguish between academic work which produces sociological knowledge, and political action, aimed at making societal change. The principles summarised above apply to the former.
The authors believe it is important for integrity and transparency that the practice of sociology remains distinct from activism. The authors discuss social policy research and other possibilities for scholars to pursue change. They also note that sociological research need not always be orientated towards broader public or policy debates; valuable insights have emerged from research driven primarily by intellectual curiosity.
The paper concludes with a call for unity in basic disciplinary standards agreed by the sociological community, with diversity in research questions and methods for creative sociological explanations and descriptions.
Rationality and Society has invited readers to submit comments on the statement, which you can read in full here: https://doi.org/10.1177/10434631261444988.
