Rigour in Sociological Practice

We tell graduates that sociology can be used to improve the delivery of social services, that it can better shape social policy, that we can use it to mediate conflict to achieve social justice. Yet, once we enter our paid professional life, practitioners often encounter the perception that applied sociological work is less rigorous. Why do our academic colleagues not recognise applied sociological excellence?

Through my work as former convenor of the Applied Sociology Thematic Group, as well as through my personal networks, I have often heard applied sociologists often complain that our academic peers sometimes distrust the quality of our work because it is not seen as rigorous. If we are practising sociology as we are taught to do, is that not an outcome of our theoretical and methodological training? Sociological classes teach students that sociology can change the world for the better.

In their study of rigour as a methodological concept, Deirdre Davies and Jenny Dodd find that the concept of rigour is loosely defined as “good” research practice. Specifically, it is most often used in sociological textbooks as synonymous with traits usually associated with quantitative research methods: “objectivity, neutrality, reliability, replication, and validity.” 

The researchers see that qualitative approaches are positioned as the opposite because they are necessarily flexible, contradictory, and incomplete (as opposed to structured). Everything that is not rigorous is “therefore lacking in credibility.”

The same limited view of rigour is sometimes used on applied sociology because it is conducted in less than ideal conditions – outside of university settings, existing beyond the view of the peer-reviewed publication system, which is one measure of academic rigour. 

Textbooks also assure readers that applied sociological practices can be rigorous, alluding to the idea that we should take extra steps when using sociology outside academia, presumably because our work is inherently non-rigorous.

In this Sage podcast, sociologist Corey Dolgon talks about higher education, civic engagement in the USA and public sociology. Dolgon addresses the criticisms of public and applied sociological practices, particularly the idea that those of us who work outside the academy are less rigorous. Dolgon notes that these criticisms are driven by conservative politics. Such criticisms undermine both academic and applied sociologists, because the idea that sociology can only be used to answer specific questions within university settings actually limits the scope of what sociology can achieve in civic society.

Social change cannot be pursued in only one context. Sociology is necessarily flexible and adaptable to different social problems, questions and social settings.

Read Dolgon’s full paper free on the Journal of Applied Social Science.