The Cognitive-Historical Origins of Conceptual Ambiguity in Social Theory

Ližardo, Omar

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-78205-4_28

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…James House (2019, p. 21) recently asserted that "it is increasingly difficult to achieve even a Quaker consensus as to what sociology is." Sociologists often cannot agree on the definition of core concepts that are nevertheless widely used in the field (see also Lizardo 2021, Abend 2023. Perhaps putting his finger on the problem directly, Arthur Stinchcombe once joked that other social sciences were "monogamous" in their outcomes of interest while being "promiscuous" in examining independent variables, sociology was uniquely promiscuous in its choice of dependent variables as well.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociology for Beginners

Manza

2023

Annu. Rev. Sociol.

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This article examines the teaching of the introductory course in sociology. The first section sets the context of the teaching of introductory sociology in American higher education. The second turns to an examination of the written materials of introductory sociology: the textbooks used in the vast majority of these courses. Their widespread use provides a window into how introductory sociology has evolved over time. These texts also provide a view of what certain stakeholders—publishers and a select group of authors—have taken as central for beginners to master. The third section considers the scholarship on teaching and learning (SOTL) literature in sociology, which has produced research on current pedagogical practices and on strategies, techniques, ideas, and solutions to problems that contemporary introductory instructors face. A short conclusion offers a reflection on the implications of these issues for the future of teaching in the discipline. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 49 is July 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociology for Beginners

Manza

2023

Annu. Rev. Sociol.

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Drawing Out Definitions

Stoltz,

Wood

2024

Am Soc

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Defining social scientific concepts can contribute to scholarly advancement in many ways. Definitions, which we define as a description of a word or phrase using terms for which the meaning is well known in the community, can contribute to inclusive discussion by welcoming outsiders, mitigate misunderstandings among insiders, encourage theorists to commit to the (sometimes surprising) entailments of their theories, and provide starting points and new pathways for future research. A necessary feature of definitions is "boundaries"to define is to bound. But, it is precisely in boundaries that definitions get us into problems: the meanings of words are inherently fuzzy and changing; exceptionless definitions are elusive. We elaborate a process of "definition work" which is inherently "community work." The process recognizes that meaning is a dynamic and fuzzy community property and uses theory visualizations -specifically, property spaces, schematic networks, and dynamic spanning trees -as definition tools to explore this fuzziness, while also communicating definitions along with their indeterminacy.

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The Cognitive-Historical Origins of Conceptual Ambiguity in Social Theory

Cited by 2 publications

References 47 publications

Sociology for Beginners

Sociology for Beginners

Drawing Out Definitions

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