Looking Backward,Moving Forward: Expanding Sociological Horizons in the Twenty-First Century: 2000 Presidential Address to the Pacific Sociological Association

Two research stories provide a means of looking backward at our discipline over the twentieth century and of thinking about moving forward in the twenty-first. These stories recount individuals' quest for control when their moral status is threatened. Both research stories and sociological stories render reality, subscribe to rules for such renderings, contain an inner logic, and make moral claims for credibility. When looking backward at the discipline, sociologists need to build on the classical theorists, not dismiss them. At the millennium sociological theory and methods are contested; and challenges to foundational assumptions that gained momentum in the late 1960s have recently been raised anew. Moving forward in the twenty-first century means recommitting ourselves to empirical inquiry and basing our moral claims on it. I call for acknowledging the diversity of sociological approaches, agreeing on strong standards for each approach, and recognizing and examining our disciplinary moral claims.