UBC Okanagan campus takes centre stage on public sociology debate in Canada

March 2011

Sociology is an academic term for many of us, but UBC Okanagan campus is at the Canadian forefront of moving sociology into the public sphere. Public sociology seeks to bring sociological topics of public importance into conversation with the broader public community. While seemingly a simple task, public sociology is a strongly debated and contested topic among sociologists.

A special workshop took place at the campus last week that brought together nine esteemed sociologists from all across Canada to further the discussion and debate on public sociology. The Public Sociology and Ethics workshop was the first of its kind in North America and was an enormous success.

The ideas presented and discussed at the workshop, are built on those first outlined by Michael Burawoy, former president of the American Sociological Association. In his 2004 presidential address, For Public Sociology, Burawoy questioned what role the knowledge of sociologists should play in bettering humanity. At the heart of the workshop was this debate about the political and ethical obligations of doing sociology.

“Are we as sociologists collecting knowledge for the sake of knowledge, or should knowledge be used to support social change?” asks Ariane Hanemaayer, co-creator of the workshop.

Hanemaayer, a doctoral student at the University of Alberta, teamed up with Christopher Schneider, assistant professor of sociology in the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences at UBC’s Okanagan campus, to organize the workshop.

“Traditionally, sociology emerged from the concern to fix social ills,” says Schneider. “Sociologists are now working in the private sector and other areas, and we have to examine the relationship between academic knowledge and social change, and what obligation, if any, we have as sociologists and as public servants to the broader public community.”

Many of the nine presenters and contributors at the workshop published important pieces in the Canadian Journal of Sociology in 2009 - an edition entirely dedicated to public sociology. The workshop built upon ideas from those papers. Hanemaayer and Schneider, who also presented at the workshop, will be compiling the works delivered last week into an anthology that UBC Press is set to publish next year.

“The anthology will be the first collection of public sociology research published in book form in Canada,” says Schneider. “This, along with the workshop and the new public sociology course offered at UBC Okanagan campus this semester has really put UBC on the map and at the forefront of the public sociology debate in Canada. UBC has become the Canadian epicentre of this important debate.”

The class Schneider is referring to is one he designed and is now teaching. Students can take his public sociology course for credit, but what makes it unique is that members of the public are also encouraged to attend free of charge and join in the debate. Notable sociologists present their research for the first half of each class, and in the second half, students, members of the public and the guest sociologist engage in discussion and debate. The course is a huge success, with about 50 members of the public attending each session.

UBC recognizes the importance of public sociology and supports the innovative approaches Schneider and his colleges are taking to teach and debate it. Schneider’s Public Sociology class was funded through a $10,000 Curricular Innovation Award from the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences. The Barber School was also the major funding supporter of the Public Sociology and Ethics workshop, along with the UBC Provost and Unit 6 – Economics, History, Philosophy, Political Science and Sociology.
 

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