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Maybe this is just relative to my area of work, but I often feel that the sociologists I work/am friends with are in a dangerous balancing act of attempting to
by cs2818 10y ago
Maybe this is just relative to my area of work, but I often feel that the sociologists I work/am friends with are in a dangerous balancing act of attempting to influence policy while also conducting unbiased research inquiries. While this isn't completely unique to sociology, I would argue that the area of study can make it difficult to form research questions and studies which are not confounded by current public policy or personal opinion.
To me it would seem intuitive to have an additional field or area of focus that emphasizes applying sociological findings to public policy.
- schoen 10y agoA particular elephant in the room here might be that economists also not uncommonly engage in policy advocacy, yet the stereotypical sociologist's political advocacy is left-wing and the stereotypical economist's political advocacy is right-wing, at least relative to one another. Maybe one part of that is that the two have fairly different understandings of what makes human societies tick.
- dredmorbius 10y agoEconomics has avoided this dilemma by disposing of unbiased research. W. Brian Arthur has pointed out that virtually all significant economic research explores specific policy questions of the day. Usually with a particular point of view in mind. The results can be ... amusing. https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chambers_encyclopaedia_editorial_statement/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chamber...