Non-Traditional, Non-Formal and Non-Professional Applications and Practices of Sociology in Organizational Settings by Social and Organizational Change Agents

A Proposal for a Panel or Session at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Sociology, Sacramento CA, October 17-20, 2002

Organizer: Benjamin Mordecai Ben-Baruch (bbenbaruch@earthlink.net)

Sociology has long had the concept of "participant observation". Perhaps we also need the concept of "participant application" to capture and understand the practice and application of sociology and sociological skills in those areas of social life that actually motivate many (perhaps most) people who take multiple sociology courses and work to acquire sociological skills. Understanding the systematic and disciplined application of sociological skills and the "sociological imagination" can enhance our work in organizational settings, contribute to the sociology of sociology and the sociology of knowledge, and assist sociologists in reconceptualizing the profession and its professional boundaries.

I am organizing a panel comprised of people with formal sociological training who apply this training in a disciplined and systematic way to their work as social or organizational "problem solvers", e.g.

1. organizational consultants,
2. community activists,
3. community or labor organizers,
4. social change agents
5. etc.

I am organizing a panel of people with MAs or Ph.D.s in Sociology working in these areas (professionall or non-professionally). I could see a panel comprised of a professor of sociology who is also active in a leadership capacity in a social movement or non-profit organization, a labor or community organizer, a politician, a social activist, and a business consultant. These people would be charged with talking about the disciplined and systematic application of sociology in their work. The panel might also include a respondent who will be charged with attempting to synthesize the panelists' presentations and draw out implications.

Method: Panelists would be assembled by a panel organizer. Panelists would be asked to commit to participating in a conference call to clarify the task and to generate ideas and to preparing written notes to be shared with other panelists and the organizer prior to the meeting. The purpose of this is to provide mutual assistance in giving the panel a focus.

Requests of Prospective Panelists

1. A commitment to attending the session at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Sociology, October 17th to 20th in Sacramento CA (exact time and date not yet set)
2. Submission of a short non-formal statement of interest and and initial thoughts about how your work falls within the scope of the this panel session
3. A commitment to spending a short amount of time in the early fall collaborating on organizing the panel so that we can most efficiently use the time allotted. (I envision this collaboration as being via phone and/or email.)

1. Reflections on their "participatory application" of sociology
2. Formal analyses and statements of their disciplined and systematic applications of sociology to their work
3. Reflections about their conception of sociology as a practice
4. Refelections on their sociological training and its usefulness to the ways in which they apply it