if something, like, totally great happened, would sociology cover it?

Sociology is often seen, with some justification, as the discipline of muckrakers. If there’s racism or sexism out there, you bet sociologists will be on top of it. This has led people, including myself, to criticize the discipline for negativity bias. In a previous post, I even used the term “museum of dysfunction” to gently poke at our collective tendency to focus on the negative. Like most sociologists, including myself, would agree that social status is ever present in social life and it has bad effects, but can that insight be pushed too far?

To answer that question, I asked, how would the discipline of sociology respond to genuinely positive developments in American society? For example, how have sociologists responded to these genuinely positive developments in society?

• The decrease in the absolute poverty rate from about 23%% to 12%. Source: Reeve Vanneman’s Soc 441 web site/US Census data.

• The decrease in violent crime rates, such as homicide. Source: Wikpedia entry/US Bureau of Justice data.

• Life expectancy has increased over time. Source: Centers for Disease Control.
• The abolition of legalized discrimination against women and Blacks.
• The de-stigmatization and legalization of same-sex relationships.

You would think every introduction to sociology class would begin with “Hi, everyone, this is soc 101, the scientific study of society. In this class, I’ll tell you about how American society is moving in some great directions as well  as some lingering problems.” You’d also think our journals would have articles like “Top 5 Ways Life Expectancy Increased in America” or “Fun fact: Everyone used to get murdered all over the place.” But somehow, I don’t think this is an accurate depiction of our discipline.

Of course, I’m being flippant. There are pockets of sociology that do focus on improvements in population averages rather than inequality studies. For example, there are some sociologists who focus on the origins of the industrial revolution, like Jack Goldstone. Within social movement research, there are actually a fair number of people who study who movements that generate positive outcomes, like the Civil Rights movement.

If sociology is truly a broad social science, and not just the study “social problems,” then we might encourage more research into the undeniably positive improvements in human well being.

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