ABD vs. Postdoc/VAP

[haterade]

this might not be very sociological. but: i think some element of individual psychology might be at play here. specifically i'm thinking about the numbness, fear and anger referred to above and in the other thread that started this one. honestly, i wonder if that isn't a big part of the postdoc/VAP experience on the market. my CV is a lot better now that i have my degree, but i feel like search committees can somehow sense the bad vibes that accumulated after a few disappointing years on the market. it's a vicious cycle. "veteran candidates" have a bad attitude, and the committees begin to look askance at them, which justifies their hopelessness, and the cycle continues.

just makes me more depressed. and angrier. (the cycle just continued.)

[perspective]

Look, there is no "postdoc/VAP experience" on the market, same as there is no "ABD experience" on the market; our situations are our own, and we don't need to claim some wider conspiracy in order to make sense of our fortune (or lack thereof). There are ABDs who have had several interviews and gotten job offers, and there are many more who have not heard a peep. There are postdocs and emerging VAPs who are the flavor of the month, and others who are getting nervous about what the future holds. To people who are doing well, the issues with the market are an exaggeration; to those who are still searching, the improvement of the market is mythology. As sociologists, we certainly know better than to interpret reality based on n=1, so why lose our bearings on this board?

The bottom line is that it is a tough market for everyone, same as in previous years. Based on hires at the prized R1 positions, it appears that departments are favoring people with PhD in hand as long as they can demonstrate some degree of progress made since defense of the dissertation; citing the number of VAP jobs or underplacements that went to talented ABDs makes no sense, because these are not the goals that many entered the market hoping to meet. The anxiety of ABDs and VAPs is understandable because the window is smaller for those who hope to land tenure track jobs (few people will land the first TT position 5 years out of grad school), but let's not turn this into a case of some force working against one group or another. Again, EVERYBODY is having a hard time getting the jobs that are commensurate with what one would expect maybe 5 years ago.

[not just us]

Two additional points:

this anxiety is rampant in just about every field in higher ed right now. Sign of the times. Heard related horror stories from friends who went to MLA a few weeks ago, for example.

My advisor made a telling comment this fall about the quality of candidates and their CVs (that made me feel a little better, so I'm sharing) - that so many of us on the market have CVs that would have been sufficient to get us tenure at most places when s/he was coming out of grad school. As much as we'd each like to try to figure out what we're doing wrong or right, it's not on us.

[superguest]

Of course the market is not entirely random. The basic point is simple. In sociology we are less tethered to institutional support OUTSIDE our disciplinary boundaries. In other sciences, even other social sciences, the institutional environment--culture, political policy arena, funding agencies, etc--plays a more prominent role in what work is selected as "worthy."

In the sociology of scientific knowledge, this is what is meant by the social construction of knowledge. In sociology, we are so isolated from other organs of culture and government that we rely on prestige and reputation WITHIN our boundaries far more than we should. In the "natural" sciences, grant money and publishing in top journals means a whole lot, because somebody wants you doing this work: this is science-in-society. Just compare "impact scores" in our field to those in other social sciences. Ask yourself, when was the last time a sociologist published an article in Nature or Science.

This is why sociology is irrelevant to the public discourse, policy formation, and the administration of the most progressive president since WWII. We don't consistently address or produce graduates who address, questions that funding agencies, policy makers, he public and the corporate sector care about. It is a crisis that will be slow moving, but eventually sociology will be looked at as a "diversity" or "cultural experience" course in universities and our research will recede even further into the background. Maybe some top schools will have "real" research programs, but that is it.

There is a literature on this "caste" system in sociology. Just look at the arguments made in the American Sociologist or Val Burris' famous article in ASR. This is not pie in the sky stuff.

[exceptions]

Jan 26, 2012 15:33:06 GMT -5 @superguest said:

Ask yourself, when was the last time a sociologist published an article in Nature or Science.

This is why sociology is irrelevant to the public discourse, policy formation, and the administration of the most progressive president since WWII. We don't consistently address or produce graduates who address, questions that funding agencies, policy makers, he public and the corporate sector care about.

2 points:

1. Last Nature/Science one I can think of is Sampson et al and the Chicago Neighborhood data, but I'm sure there's a more recent one. Although Sampson is technically a criminologist in his pedigree (his degree is actually Criminal Justice), despite his distancing himself from that field/label over the last decade or so.

2. Criminology is a possible exception to the irrelevance in the public discourse/administration appointments, as the director of NIJ and BJS (Laub and Lynch, respectively) could both tell you (both are Criminologists/Professors appointed by the Obama administration). That said, with the economy in the shitter, I'm sure more economists will be landing administration appointments than Crim/Soc people any time soon.

[superguest2]

So you are arguing my math?

Interesting.

[ok]

There's also the older Duncan Watts article in Nature (Watts and Strogatz 1998).

[science]

Carter Butts had an article in Science in 2009....

I would disagree with superguest's line of reasoning entirely though. A significant part of why policy maker's ignore research findings is that it would force them to acknowledge that issues like race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. permeate every societal institution in complicated ways and that individual actions are strongly shaped by social structural forces beyond their control. American political discourse and policy debates operate at an absurdly low level and are based on base-pandering rhetoric rather than empirical data. One of the major political parties has a wholesale rejection of evolution by natural selection, which is the foundation of many natural sciences. Not mention climate change and a long list of other topics.

[exceptions]

Jan 26, 2012 15:51:03 GMT -5 @superguest2 said:

So you are arguing my math?

Interesting.

No, especially not for the Science/Nature question.

I am, however, saying there needs to be some distinguishing between soc and crim if you're going to lament the lack of administration representation. Crim is quite well represented in the Obama Administration, in current policy debates, etc.

[hey now]

Jan 26, 2012 16:08:26 GMT -5 @science said:

One of the major political parties has a wholesale rejection of evolution by natural selection, which is the foundation of many natural sciences. Not mention climate change and a long list of other topics.

Hey now, you leave the Democrats alone! They just don't know any better...

[hkhhhlkhl]

Jan 26, 2012 15:33:06 GMT -5 @superguest said:

Ask yourself, when was the last time a sociologist published an article in Nature or Science.

Four months ago, at most.

www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6051/1878

[well]

Jan 26, 2012 16:08:26 GMT -5 @science said:

Carter Butts had an article in Science in 2009....

I would disagree with superguest's line of reasoning entirely though. A significant part of why policy maker's ignore research findings is that it would force them to acknowledge that issues like race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. permeate every societal institution in complicated ways and that individual actions are strongly shaped by social structural forces beyond their control. American political discourse and policy debates operate at an absurdly low level and are based on base-pandering rhetoric rather than empirical data. One of the major political parties has a wholesale rejection of evolution by natural selection, which is the foundation of many natural sciences. Not mention climate change and a long list of other topics.

But the potential relevance of sociology to policy making is not confined to these large issues of structure vs individual action. In fact, there are several branches of the bureaucracy that are very "friendly" to these sorts of issues. When I was a grad student, I frequently consulted for a private firm that does public policy evaluation. In terms of world view, both the people in the firm and the bureaucrats they dealt with were very open to approaches that looked at race, gender, coercion, etc. etc. And yet there was not a single sociologist on staff at any of these locations. It was all psychologists, economists and even anthropologists.

And the issue is self inflicted. It is like Bourdieu's "Distinction" applied to science, where applied issues are less valued as research subjects than these more detached issues. Imagine this hypothetical: what do you think would be more highly valued in the discipline: an extremely applied paper generating alternative measures of cost benefit analysis for a certain set of policies, or one that deals with symphonic orchestras in the 19th century?

[not obvious]

And the issue is self inflicted. It is like Bourdieu's "Distinction" applied to science, where applied issues are less valued as research subjects than these more detached issues. Imagine this hypothetical: what do you think would be more highly valued in the discipline: an extremely applied paper generating alternative measures of cost benefit analysis for a certain set of policies, or one that deals with symphonic orchestras in the 19th century?

How sure are you really that the reason that sociology suffers the self-inflicted wound of irrelevance in the policy world is because the discipline places too damn much value (i.e. prestige, pay, jobs!) on historical and cultural analysis thereby, presumably, drawing away the talent that would otherwise redound to your preferred Really Important Research Area (RIRA)?

I'm not so confident that obscure historical and cultural subjects are the bogeyman you seek for the lack of interest in what sounds like terribly small bore applied stuff (I kid!). Apply away, that's great (actually great), but if you think that there is a prima facie order of disciplinary prestige in your hypothetical, well get thee to a sociology journal (e.g., especially, ASR).

Just to be clear: 1) disciplinary diversity is our strength (I take your argument to imply that it is in fact our weakness, all this frivolous crap); 2) I think it's fine if we are locked out of the halls of power -- all the better to hurl our analytical engines against the walls and our sappers built of theory and critique to undermine the foundations of the sedimented contingencies that pass as common sense; and 3) if the only way to save sociology from wandering off into the desert of irrelevance is to internalize the view that "policymakers" have the real line on what kind of research is valuable, well my choice is obvious, but I admit the corollary to that is get tenure while the getting's good!

[superguest3]

Of course sociology's wounds are not entirely self-inflicted. There are issues of cultural resonance, but I wonder if we play a part in that too. I have never argued, nor would I, that policy makers and funding agencies should validate knowledge. Instead, and really this is a well accepted idea in science and technology studies, scientific knowledge is mobilized by Actor Networks (see Latour and Callon). These networks, including publics, governments, funding agencies, other disciplines, private corporations etc., do not DETERMINE what counts as science, but they are key stakeholders. They, along with our discipline, socially construct what is valued as knowledge. We are not above other fields in how we operate, we emulate them but mis-recognize the actual process. We use status (departmental/pedigree) as a proxy for "worthiness" and not article publication or grant capacity. Prestige is our leading factor when it should be these other things, and I think that is because we are not accountable to Actor Networks. No one cares except other prestigious sociologists, who are reinforcing their position.

My argument is simple. Sociology is no longer as attentive to large public issues and governance as it should be and once was. I also wonder if, by opting out of the argument entirely to preach to the choir about diversity race, gender and class etc., we have done more harm than good. If a sociologist yells structure in a fancy hotel filled with other sociologists, does the sociologist really yell at all?

I think the problem with our discipline is also evident in the arguments put forward here. The first instinct we have is to build a straw man and call it "the self-inflicted wound" thesis. Bottom line is people like Neil Gross and J. Alexander are just not that bright and yet they have tremendous power and prestige in our discipline. I've heard them talk, it is really sad. We aren't producing high quality intellectuals because we are too concerned with cultural capital and pedigree.

The relationship may be reciprocal, institutions became less concerned with our ideas do to political shifts (1980s), so we became less attentive to these systems. But the end point is the same, is it not?

[ultraguest]

Sorry, not drinking the ANT Kool-Aid.