Some Animadversions on the Americanization of World Sociology

Samenvatting

An examination of the process of Amer'ization as experienced by sociol the world over. US sociol, the latest comer of the soc sci's in the US took over fields to which older-establishments did not lay claim; later, they also invaded these disciplines. US sociol can therefore be more easily defined by what it does not include than by what it includes. It is a heterogeneous discipline, & its influence on other countries is determined by what part of it they take over. Thus, Israel's sociol was molded on the model T. Parsons. Objections are expressed to Parson's theoretical & positivistic sociol: it runs against the pragmatic & practical bent of the best of US soc studies; it is of not much use in analyzing a society, primitive or sophisticated; it vitiates our understanding of soc causation (this is illustrated by the effect of Burgess' study of parole prediction on parole officers who tend to swamp the individual candidate for parole in all kinds of data, relevant & irrelevant); it leads to the invasion of soc studies by people not necessarily well qualified to conduct them; it makes it difficult for sociol'ts to control their own bias. However, it is not theory that is most characteristic of US sociol as a method based on polling, a statistical approach pioneered by the US Census Bur. It is argued that there are signif diff's between the work of the Census Bur & sociol'al enquiries founded on the poll method: census officials are civil servants subject to law; there are no such limitations on sociol'ts. They may not respect the privacy of responses (example: A. J. Vidich & J. Bensman, (see SA 8299); they arouse resentment abroad (Project Camelot in Chile); their range of questions is not based on an understanding of the soc & cultural background of the subjects (a SE survey organized by the U of Ceylon); they may distort reality by sacrificing depth to width (James S. Coleman, THE ADOLESCENT SOCIETY). A sampling of some odd papers read at 1965 meeting of the Amer Sociol Assoc illustrates the dangers of the heterogeneous approach. I. Langnas.