Community and Urban Sociology

Community-Engaged Research: What It Is and Why It Matters
Douglas Hartmann

At least since the movement emerged in the early 2000s, I’ve been a proponent and practitioner of all things public sociology. I edited Contexts magazine from 2008 to 2011 with Chris Uggen, fellow…

Research for, by, and about the People 
Rebecca A. London

My first experience with field research occurred in 1996 just after earning my doctorate. I worked for a small, progressive, woman-owned business in the San Francisco Bay Area that provided research … 

Working for Social Change in Texas
Nancy Plankey-Videla

Why do I participate in community-engaged research? I believe in producing useful knowledge to further social change and social justice. As 2019 ASA President Mary Romero wrote, “Sociological data is…

CER in Contentious Times: Some Reflections
Miriam Greenberg

As demonstrated by this special issue of Footnotes, there is a growing and welcome recognition in sociology and allied disciplines of the value of community-engaged research (CER) and of its…

Public Engagement through Community and Urban Sociology
Jan Lin

As a community and urban sociologist, publicly oriented sociology is a linchpin of my research methods through the practice of active participation observation with urban social movements and…

An Engaged Emancipatory Sociology
Leslie Hossfeld

I am a public sociologist and have been working as an engaged scholar for more than 25 years. I have found this to be some of the most satisfying and rewarding work I have done as a sociologist…

Critical Engagement: Deepening Partnerships for Justice
Steve McKay

Resurgent “culture wars” and American partisan politics have once again put higher education on the hot seat. Stoked by attacks from the Right, colleges and universities find themselves on the defensive…

Pedagogy in Participatory Action Research
Prentice Zinn

Through my role as the administrator for the research and community-organizing grants of the Sociological Initiatives Foundation, which supports social change by linking research to social action,.

Finding Professional Meaning in Community-Engaged Work
Cameron Whitley

A student recently asked me why I had switched my major from aerospace engineering to sociology and then years later left a career in finance to get a PhD in sociology. My response may sound trite, but it…

Expanding Graduate Education and Career Placement through CER
Julia McQuillan, Patricia Wonch Hill, and Meghan Leadabrand

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) is an R1 (doctoral granting and high research activity) institution with decades of experience with community-engaged research (CER). The UNL Sociology…

CER: A Learning Opportunity for Undergrads
Elizabeth Borland

Since 2013, Lee Smithey’s students in a Swarthmore College sociology elective called Gun Violence Prevention have been working with activists and local groups to research gun homicides in Delaware…

Academic Institutions: Roadblock or Ramps?
Gregory D. Squires

Engaged scholarship has become a buzzword in academia in recent years. But active engagement with the critical issues of the day has long been part of the sociological enterprise starting with the…