This is a fantastic piece by @EbooPatel On a personal note, Geoffrey Walford was also my doctoral co-supervisor, so I'm delighted to see this: “I’m failing at this,” I told my PhD advisor, Geoffrey Walford. “I can’t seem to be present at the moments where racism occurs, or even get them to discuss it much in my interviews with them. Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions? Maybe they don’t trust me?” “Or maybe,” Geoffrey offered, “your theory is wrong. Maybe they don’t see racism impacting their lives as much as you expected—or as much as you want racism to have impacted their lives.” He added: “Remember, sociology is meant to explore how your subjects understand their own lives, not how you want them to understand their lives. The cardinal sin of the social researcher is squeezing the world into his worldview.” persuasion.community/p/we-mu…

We Must Save Sociology From Itself

A field that once illuminated scarce truths has become an ideology in search of evidence.

persuasion.community

Aug 17, 2026 · 10:22 AM UTC

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Replying to @ProfAliceS @AudreySuffolk @EbooPatel
What a refreshing article!! Thank you for circulating it.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Th This is very good, a BIG IDEA: "not only are qualitative sociologists interested in the same things that everyone else is (Why is there inequality? How do the social worlds of women differ from the social worlds of men?), but we basically use the same tools that are available to other people: observation and conversation. The only way that the field of qualitative sociology can justify academic standing is if our conclusions are more accurate than the conclusions of others. If we aren’t more accurate than others, we’re no better than the guy on the next bar stool spouting off opinions. And then the field loses credibility. That is the beginning of the end."
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Racism in America is much like Witchcraft in Africa. Some people think there is Witchcraft everywhere, and Witches everywhere, and it explains everything that goes wrong, They even murder Witches.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
1980s University level Sociology focus: • Theory and perspectives: Classical theorists structural-functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. • Methods: Research design, quantitative/qualitative approaches, basic statistics • Core social processes: Culture, socialization, groups and organizations, social structure. • Inequality and institutions: Class/stratification, race/ethnic relations, family, education, religion, politics/economy, deviance/crime, urban issues, demography, collective behavior, and social movements.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Patel doesn't have an aesthetic or cultural sense, despite is obvious high IQ and other insights. Biryani instead of turkey is inappropriate. What you do is have turkey with biryani (or kimchi, or miso) on the side. And if you are celebrating a South Asian holiday, you don't serve turkey.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
great article! that was something i found when i was at oxford, too - there is still an expectation of great rigor in the humanities and social sciences, and these higher expectations force students (and professors) to produce much better work
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Patel's article is a very good step in the right direction even if he regrettably sprinkles his progressive personal bona fides in places, poss. to immunize himself against attacks from the Left. He links to an great paywalled WSJ which I gift you here:wsj.com/us-news/education/is…

Essay | Is It Time to ‘Liquidate’ the Study of Sociology?

Sociology has long been tasked with investigating society’s most pressing challenges. But these days, sociologists’ greatest obstacle may be themselves.

wsj.com
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
If there is one positive thing to come out of the recent story in Cambridge is to shine a light on the nature of some academic departments, and for the public to question whether they are worthy of tax payer's funding. So much of this academic output seems to be of very low intrinsic merit with zero societal benefit and for an undergraduate zero use in terms of future career. I am all for academic freedom, but would hope that in future sociology and similar subjects are fully self-funding (through benefactors and without tax payer backed student loans). The tax payer (and undergraduates) can get a much better return on investment on e.g. nanobio, next generation microchip design, drone warfare, nuclear technology etc.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Sociology for many is the drawing of a straight line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @JonnyWorst @EbooPatel
Yes, that’s a very good piece. I’m going go add it to the reading list for my grad research design course next year. Thanks for sharing it.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Although not a sociologist myself I’ve know Geoffrey since I was an undergraduate in 1984. He’s been something of a mentor through my career, often challenging what I say and making me think.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @VeniceLaura @EbooPatel
In a university in a galaxy not far from our own you can study ‘queer sociology’ or ‘queer anthropology’ which will teach you to discover the hidden queer across world history. If as a good Catholic you taught Christian Sociology and did the same a mob would rise up ag’in you…😏
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Sociology is important, how society actually IS. Its also hard slog, collecting boring data, analysing it, doing it again.. Or you can interview 8 posh kids in Pakistan. Yes a whole 8. @hilarycremin is surprised Kids like being rich not poor! tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
I knew someone doing sociology and Ed. He went into school to do research on kids,he wanted disillusioned alienated kids. Local primary was full of happy well adjusted lovely kids, he was totally flummoxed
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Would that university leaders would keep this in mind when eliciting and digesting feedback from students. Absolutely blatant examples of statistics being misrepresented to support particular policies - and no interest being shown for the silent/cend voices, ever.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Captures the problem with “theory”-driven balderdash.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
This is a really good summation - but stops short of saying why. I think it's clear that at some point sociology lost status amongst our intellectual peers in terms of explaining behaviour. So we drifted into power dynamics and post-structuralism. Language became everything.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Sosh is one of the most woke-captured disciplines. Not sure it's salvageable. Good luck!
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Willie Horton was given a vacation from prison because Dukakis vetoed the very law that would have prevented Horton from going on prison furlough. Horton raped a woman. But Patel thinks it's a racist trope to mention the Dukakis-Horton debacle. Raped woman? Unimportant.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Teach this first.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
What a fantastic quote. Wisdom in action!
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
People have been trying for decades to save sociology. It ain't gonna happen. The problems that Peter Berger himself identified as fatal in his essay "sociology: a disinvitation?" Have only grown worse with time. Sociology is a junk science that has no place in higher education.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
For me the awakening was brought about with the realisation of what the various disadvantages attached to social class meant in education. That was 1963 and the issue was known but sociology provided the evidence and the depth.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Web2 sociology was a boondoggle. Web3 sociology looks set to fix at least some of that. Will Web2 sociologists be resistant to their field(s) being 'saved' or will they offer resistance based on ideology & psychology, rather than on new sociological findings? "sociology is meant to explore how your subjects understand their own lives, not how you want them to understand their lives. The cardinal sin of the social researcher is squeezing the world into his worldview." Well stated. Yet it raises the question: what is 'sin' to a Web2 sociologist?
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @SpencerJCox @EbooPatel
@Danigsanders
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Racism is so 1950s.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Indeed, we learn from research participants.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
"One could argue that such obsolescence is not a great intellectual disaster, since what sociology originally had to offer has been largely incorporated into the corpus of other fields." Berger, 1992 - it seems funny to me that we have never really dealt with this well.
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
The problem with most of that work e.g. this assuming bias, then interviewing people and finding bias.
Martin Myers@DrMartinMyers
Jul 27
'Collegiality' & 'Citizenship' in HE... "operate within a White hegemonic normative framework to benefit White groups perpetuate White supremacy...they are exclusive concepts weaponised against academics of colour who fail to conform to White standards" tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…
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Replying to @ProfAliceS @EbooPatel
Great points. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think even "critical" theory has something to it if you go back to Stuart Hall etc. But sociology became unable to critique itself.
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