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Reflections on a Sociological Career That Integrates Social Science With SO37-Frontmatter ARI 11 June 2011 11:38 by Harvard University on 07/21/11. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011.37:1-18. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org SO37CH01-Wilson ARI 1 June 2011 14:22 Reflections on a Sociological Career that Integrates Social Science with Social Policy William Julius Wilson Kennedy School and Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011. 37:1–18 Keywords First published online as a Review in Advance on race and ethnic relations, urban poverty, social class, affirmative March 1, 2011 action, public policy, public agenda research The Annual Review of Sociology is online at soc.annualreviews.org Abstract by Harvard University on 07/21/11. For personal use only. This article’s doi: This autobiographical essay reflects on my sociological career, high- 10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102510 lighting the integration of sociology with social policy. I discuss the Copyright c 2011 by Annual Reviews. personal, social, and intellectual experiences, ranging from childhood Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011.37:1-18. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org All rights reserved to adult life, that influenced my pursuit of studies in race and ethnic re- 0360-0572/11/0811-0001$20.00 lations and urban poverty. I then focus on how the academic and public reaction to these studies increased my concerns about the relationship between social science and public policy, as well as my attempts to make my work more accessible to a general audience. In the process, I discuss how the academic awards and honors I received based on these studies enhanced my involvement in the national policy arena. I conclude this essay with some thoughts about public agenda research and productive controversy based on my own unique experiences. In short, this auto- biographical essay shows how a scholar can engage academics, policy makers, and the media concerned with how sociological knowledge can inform a policy agenda on some of the nation’s most important social problems. 1 SO37CH01-Wilson ARI 1 June 2011 14:22 INTRODUCTION academic and research interests as a profes- sional sociologist—first at the University of As I was contemplating what to write about in Massachusetts where I began to explore the this prefatory essay, I mentioned to Herbert field of race and ethnic relations, and later at the Gans some ideas that I had for this piece. He University of Chicago where I began to focus on responded with these words: “I did the ARS urban poverty—were partly influenced by these piece last year, and made it totally autobio- childhood experiences. I say “partly” because, graphical for a variety of reasons. You should as I elaborate below, I perceive these childhood do the same; you are a very visible role model experiences as a mediating, rather than a direct, for a research and policy career that I think is motivating factor in the selection of these two becoming rarer among the young people and fields of study. that you should advocate by the example of your career” (personal correspondence, July 23, 2010). I thought about this advice and THE BLACK PROTEST decided to follow his thoughtful suggestion MOVEMENT AND THE with an autobiographical essay that reflects DEVELOPMENT OF on my sociological career, highlighting the THEORETICAL INTEREST IN integration of social science with social policy. THE FIELD OF RACE RELATIONS I am fully aware that my own subjective view Unlike many who select areas of specialization of the world may have resulted in the selection on the basis of graduate training, I did not pur- of particular events for discussion in this essay. sue race and ethnic relations and urban poverty But this does not mean that the relations I draw as major academic fields of study in graduate are untrue. It only alerts the reader to possible school at Washington State University. On the selective attention to certain events that I deem contrary, my graduate study focused on theory significant in my own intellectual and personal and the philosophy of the social sciences, partly life. Let me now turn to those events. because I was influenced by and impressed with the teachings of the late Richard Ogles, who was my senior adviser and a professor of the philos- THE INFLUENCE OF MY ophy of the social sciences in the Department of CHILDHOOD BACKGROUND Sociology at Washington State University. My Igrewupinasmalltowninwestern doctoral dissertation was an exercise in theory Pennsylvania. My father had a tenth grade edu- construction and concept formation. The title by Harvard University on 07/21/11. For personal use only. cation and worked in the western Pennsylvania of the paper I presented as part of my first job coal mines and the steel mills of Pittsburgh. He interview at the University of Massachusetts, died at age 39 with lung disease, when I was Amherst, was “Formalization and Stages of Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011.37:1-18. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org 12 years old. My mother, who lived to the ripe Theoretical Development,” and my first four old age of 94, also had a tenth grade education publications dealt with the logic of sociological and was left to raise six children after my father inquiry. However, although I still maintain an died—I was her oldest child. Our family was on interest in the philosophy of the social sciences relief—we call it welfare today—for a brief pe- (see, for example, Wilson & Chaddha 2009), riod before my mother supported us with the several developments would ultimately result in money she earned from housekeeping jobs. a gradual shift to significantly different fields of Some of the most lasting memories of my study, beginning first with race and ethnic rela- childhood have to do with enduring the physi- tions and followed by an intense study of urban cal conditions associated with deep poverty, in- poverty. Let me briefly elaborate. cluding hunger, and the experiences of racial In my last two years as a graduate stu- discrimination in a small town with relatively dent in the mid-1960s, I—like many African few African American families. And I do be- Americans—was caught up in the spirit of the lieve that the decisions I made to pursue Civil Rights Revolution and was encouraged 2Wilson SO37CH01-Wilson ARI 1 June 2011 14:22 by the changes in social structure that led to in- presents a comprehensive theoretical frame- creasing opportunities for African Americans. work that is applied to race relations in the I also followed with intense interest the ghetto United States and the Republic of South Africa. riots in Watts, Newark, and Detroit. And IwrotemostofPower, Racism, and Privilege although at this point I had not developed a while still a faculty member at the University serious academic interest in the field of race and of Massachusetts, Amherst, and I completed ethnic relations, I always had an intellectual the book while serving as a visiting faculty curiosity for the subject partly because of my member at the University of Chicago during experiences with racism as a child, years before the 1971–1972 academic year. However, by the passage of civil rights legislation. But the time the book was in press, and far too late the escalating civil rights protest heightened to retrieve, my thinking about race relations in this curiosity. As a student of sociology I was America had already begun to change. cognizant of the social structural changes Basically, I regretted not only that I had experienced by African Americans, and when I paid little attention to the role of class in un- accepted my first full-time academic job as as- derstanding issues of race, but also that I had sistant professor of sociology at the University tended to treat blacks as a monolithic socioeco- of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the fall of 1965, nomic group in most sections of Power, Racism, I had firmly decided to develop race and ethnic and Privilege. The one notable exception was relations as an additional field of specialization. a brief discussion, in one of the later chapters, What struck me as I became acquainted of a paper written by Andrew Brimmer (1970), with the literature on race and ethnic relations a consulting economist, on the deepening eco- in the late 1960s was the incredibly uneven nomic schism in the African American popu- quality of the scholarship. I read some clas- lation. I further elaborated on this theme in a sic works such as Myrdal’s (1944) An Ameri- book I coedited with Peter Rose and Stanley can Dilemma, Frazier’s (1949) The Negro in the Rothman (Rose et al. 1973) on black and white United States, Park’s (1950) Race and Culture, perceptions of race relations in America. In that and Weber’s (1968 [1911]) theoretical writings publication I was careful to emphasize the need on ethnic relations in Economy and Society.Ialso to disaggregate racial statistics and to recognize read the stimulating field research studies of the importance of both racial and class positions Gans (1962), Clark (1965), Rainwater (1966), in understanding the way that people respond and Liebow (1967). But I soon discovered that to different situations involving interracial in- a good deal of the scholarship on race relations teraction. But my discussion of the race/class by Harvard University on 07/21/11. For personal use only. published in the 1960s was ideologically driven issue at that time had not progressed much be- and laden with polemics and rhetoric. I was also yond the ideas advanced by Brimmer (1970). Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011.37:1-18.
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