By the powers vested in me by the Ghost of Karl Popper, I deem this to disprove your first thesis.

“Another problem with this is that it is hard to define what counts as “culture”…”
May I humbly suggest you start with Terry Eagleton’s The Idea of Culture.

I’d note that these are my subjective impressions. I’d love to see data prove or disprove any of them. For example, if there’s a grand stream of grant money for studies of habitus or cultural toolkits, I’d love to see it. Also, if you can show me that armies of undergrads are *not* demanding criminology and yearn for Harbermas, please show me! I want to meet these people.

On a more serious note, let me address the “tech” issue. I’d agree that qualitative research requires skill, because I’ve done it and published it myself. However, that’s different than the perception that things that require math or stats are more “high tech.” All around academia, outside the humanities, “high tech” is not defined by skill, but by hard to understand things, like math. Any speciality that does not have fancy gizmos built into it likely suffers in the American academic system.

You also mention the massive list of buyers for culture PhD’s. I would certainly agree that *some* firms have hired soc of culture PhD’s but is that really the average outcome? Also, with regard to b-schools, I think they hire “whatever is good in sociology,” they don’t hire culture PhD’s specifically. So if culture is now a strong specialty in soc and people in that area approach org/work, then they get hired. But if attention shifts elsewhere, I doubt that b-schools would demand a “return to culture.” They’ll just go with whatever specialty produces good work/org/market scholars.

Another problem with this is that it is hard to define what counts as “culture” so we can choose example that support/poke holes in various ideas…. maybe this is a good topic for some enterprising professions grad student.

The first claim, that cultural sociology doesn’t bring big grants (without sponsors) is an empirical one for which I’d love to see evidence. I am able to think of many folks with multi-million dollar grants, from the major agencies, but I both don’t have a sense of the comparison group’s performance (social movements scholars?) nor any idea if I’m biased from exposure to the top end of the field.

The second claim, that cult soc is not “in demand” by undergrads needs similar data, made difficult to gather by the fact that your third claim (it is not on offer in many big departments) could be the root cause of demand. I believe that someone on the crazk team over at socrumormill hiremedotcom has been gathering data on job ads, so perhaps we might find out an answer to that part of the question. I would add, and you know, that grant funding levels (relative to unstated disciplinary peers) and undergraduate demand are not the only…perhaps not even the main…rationales for hiring in many departments.

The “culture is low tech” argument admittedly hits a nerve. I work across multiple methods–networks, some “normal” quant stuff, interviews, content analysis, GIS mapping, etc.–and in my experience there is no simple comparison between them viz “difficulty”. (Perhaps it is my nerves, or your language, but I feel this claim actually naturalizes the very stratification system your post seeks to understand.) Content analysis or interviews are not low tech, they’re differently teched. There is no low barrier to entry, rather, the skills are analogical & social, not quantitative. You most certainly CAN impress people with your technique when using purely qualitative analysis methods…witness the wild usefulness, but irreplicability of many classic ethnographies.

Moving on.

There are a kazillion “outside buyers for culture” including the culture industries, non-profit organizations, and, to stay within your education-based examples, professional schools of art performance & theory. I would hasten to add that we know several “cultural sociologists” who work at org schools, and ed schools.

I will wholeheartedly agree with the final claim–that culture is associated strongly with the humanities, and that these are low prestige for most social and hard scientists.

I’m sorry that I can’t also do the work of throwing out more ideas for why the perceived marginality persists. I’m glad to see some hypotheses. I’m also glad to try to poke holes in them!