Heeft de sociologie een toekomst? Over de hardnekkige onvolledigheid van de sociologische beroepsopvatting

Samenvatting

The academic position of Sociology is seriously threatened by the steady decline of student enrollment. Although we concentrate on Dutch Sociology, we think this problem is of world-wide significance. We suggest an explanation for this lack of attractiveness that takes the incompleteness of the discipline's professional identity as the main cause. Sociology never succeeded in defining and securing a professional role for its practitioners outside academia. This unfortunate fact is sustained by three routinely invoked principles that seem self-evident to most sociologists, but that are nevertheless exceptional among the social sciences: (1) Value-freedom (the discipline does not aim at providing a normative basis for practical advice); (2) Scientism (an approach towards knowledge production and diffusion that is heavily oriented to the natural sciences and neglects the relevance of cumulated practical practical experiences); (3) Unboundedness (the idea that Sociology can build its identity on a specific approach, or a specific method, instead of a clearly demarked domain). We argue that Sociology, in order to establish a complete professional identity, should choose the 'primary social order' as its proper subject and direct its efforts towards the enhancement of social welfare. A route of ten practical steps towards professionalisation is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Mens en Maatschappij is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)