Abstract. In this essay, I draw on a professional life history to suggest how sociological knowledge is generated by encounters with changing research opportunities

In this essay, I draw on a professional life history to suggest how sociological knowledge is generated by encounters with changing research opportunities, here called targets of opportunity. In my case, a study of rural communities led to unanticipated conclusions concerning buffering mechanisms that protected authorities by absorbing dissatisfactions and rebellions. Wartime research in a military setting identified sources of group solidarity and effective performance under stress. Major societal changes in racial/ethnic relations provided opportunities to develop new concepts and empirical findings. Synoptic studies of post–World War II American society led to extensive research on values and institutions. These macrosociological analyses of ethnicity and social systems, in turn, led me to a new sociology of war and interstate relations. I also offer here some critical reflections on recurrent issues and chronic controversies in American sociology. Final sections of the review deal with the continuing search for conceptual clarity and cumulative knowledge. I note the obstacles of disciplinary fragmentation, but my closing judgment is that sociology now has the base of substantial scientific knowledge and methodological expertise necessary for investigating crucial twenty-first century problems.

Блок 3.

1. David McCallum, Jennifer Laurence. Psy-knowledge, history and the sociology of law The case of juvenile justice // Journal of Sociology June 2008 vol. 44 no. 2 115-131

Abstract

This article examines the application of the psy-sciences to the conduct of juvenile justice in Victoria in the period 1940—80, in order to reassess assumptions in contemporary sociology of law concerning psy-knowledge and judicial administration, welfare and justice, and their relations to liberal or conservative political mandates. It seeks to understand the implications of shifts in the production of knowledge of the child in the justice system, by reporting on analysis of both clinical and administrative files of the Children's Court Clinic in this period. The article documents how particular kinds of offenders became known in order to be properly managed, and questions the extent of separation between science and juvenile justice administration.

2. Carol J. Greenhouse. Durkheim and Law: Divided Readings over Division of Labor // Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Vol. 7: 165-185 (Volume publication date December 2011)

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