‘First publics’ as knowledge producers

While public sociology has enjoyed a resurgence and rigorous debate since Michael Burawoy’s celebrated 2004 American Sociological Association presidential address, one area that has curiously lacked attention has been what most agree is academic sociology’s ‘first public’ – undergraduate students. Recent writings on public sociology recognize students as one of multiple publics; however, it is a public often defined as distinct and separate, acknowledging students as potential knowledge producers, but only in the context of their courses and in relation to their faculty. So compartmentalized, students often are not included in the central debates animating discussions about the future of public sociology. This chapter demonstrates how we might organically integrate undergraduates into public sociology as knowledge producers and how this approach can help address gaps and debates in the current conceptualization of public sociology more broadly. We draw on a multi-year local research project on the affordable housing crisis in Santa Cruz County, California, and outline an extended model of organic public sociology we call Community Initiated Student Engaged Research or CISER. The CISER model brings together three key groups of actors – undergraduate students, university researchers and community organizations/members – drawing on and extending the powers of previous cooperative ‘dyads’ between them.

Business · Political science · Publics · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Innovative Teaching Methodologies in Social Sciences · Law · Social and Cultural Dynamics

• In Medias Res

  Open Access•Andrés Besserer Rayas•Sociological Forum•2023

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