Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
During the last decade, in 1958 to be precise, an organizational confrontation took place: the essential issue before its membership was this: should the American Sociological Society (ASS) be rechristened the American Sociological Association (ASA). The results of the vote conclusively demonstrated that for a majority of the participants, it was preferable to be known as a group of ASA's rather than a bunch of ASS's.
1 The reader should be appraised of the fact that this paper represents one chunk of an ongoing effort to develop a sociology of sociology. For other related aspects of this effort, I should like to draw the attention of the reader to the following essays of mine:
“Establishment Sociology: The Value of Being Value Free”, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1963), pp. 129-140.
“Consensus, Conflict and Cooperation: A Sociological Inventory”, Social Forces, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Dec. 1962), pp. 177-188.
“Social Science Objectivity and Value Neutrality: Historical Problems and Projections”, Diogenes: International Review of Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, Vol. 39 (Fall 1962), pp. 17-44.
“Sociology and Politics: The Myth of Functionalism Revisited”, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 25, No. 4 (May, 1963), pp. 248-264.
“Sociology for Sale”, Studies on the Left, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer 1963), pp. 109-115.
“Anthropology for Sociologists: Cross Disciplinary Research as Scientific Humanism”, Social Problems, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall, 1963) pp. 201-206.
There is also a small, but impressive body of literature which has for its focus problems in the sociology of sociology.
Alvin W. Gouldner, “Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of a Value-Free Sociology,” Social Problems, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Winter, 1962), pp. 199-213.
C. Wright Mills, “Two Styles of Research in Current Social Studies,” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 20, No. 4 (October, 1953), pp. 266-275.
Samuel Stouffer, “Some Observations on Study Design,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 55, No. 3 (November, 1950), pp. 355-361.
Robert W. Habenstein, “Critique of ‘Profession’ as a Sociological Category”, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Autumn, 1963), pp. 291-300.
Talcott Parsons, “The Professions and the Social Structure”, Social Forces, Vol. 17, No. 4 (May, 1939), pp. 457-467.
William J. Goode, “Community Within a Community: The Professions”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1957), pp. 194-200.
Alfred McClung Lee, “Annual Report for 1962-1963 of the SSSP Representative to the ASA Council”, Social Problems, Vol. 11, No. 3, (Winter, 1964), pp. 319-321.
Robert K. Merton, “The Role of the Intellectual in Public Bureaucracy”, Social Forces, Vol. 23 No. 4 (May, 1945), pp. 405-415.