ABSTRACT
A big tent, sociology has lacked a cohesive center for some time: some sort of magnetic centripetal force. Some do qualitative work; others do quantitative. Some are interested in identity politics, oppression, and systematic inequality; others are interested in organizations, institutions, and isomorphic forces. Many in sociology have lost their romanticism, lost their wondrous pursuit of a “grand narrative” of sociology: humans, though diverse, share a cognitive and social unity which, daily, takes the forms of family, religion, economy, politics, love, revenge, and conflict. Theoretical visualization, formalization, and integration, across subfields, is a canary in the mine of disciplinary cohesion. Theory development is often intellectually challenging, sometimes illuminating, not often emotionally meaningful. Theory isn’t something “theorists” do. Theory is an emergent process, wherein each perspective delineates its propositions/hypotheses as precisely as possible. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
