# Are there any prominent conservative sociologists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 3, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036 "2010-08-03T18:34:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/21 "2010-08-04T13:23:59Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Doesn’t Education in general tend to make people more liberal? > (Or people who are more liberal tend to go further in higher education?) > > Most studies I’ve seen, and even common polls that are sub-divided by educational level, seem to show that the group with the higher education level tends more toward the ‘liberal’ position. These seem to be commonly correlated – education and ‘liberalism’. I believe it is correct to say that post-graduate education tends to correlate with liberal attitudes, but not under-graduate. That is to say, Republicans/conservatives and moderates predominate up to and including bachelors degrees, but after that liberals predominate. No doubt there are a number of reasons for this. One is something mentioned before - tenured liberals will tend to select grad students who agree with them. (No doubt the same would be true for tenured conservatives, but good luck finding any such in the soft sciences or humanities departments at any major university.) Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/22 "2010-08-04T16:04:42Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No doubt there are a number of reasons for this. One is something mentioned before - tenured liberals will tend to select grad students who agree with them. (No doubt the same would be true for tenured conservatives, but good luck finding any such in the soft sciences or humanities departments at any major university.) I supposed there must be at least one tenured, conservative prof in an economics department that might remind everyone that correlation isn’t causation. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/23 "2010-08-04T16:18:22Z")
Technically speaking, he would be wrong - correlation isn’t _always_ causation. However, when there is as much indication that [something](http://spartacus.blogs.com/spartacus/2004/01/measuring_liber.html) [is](http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/2004_11/ind_004352.html) [going](http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-hoac&month=0411&week=c&msg=j15TAqkdMYr/Z5vq/wu7yA&user=&pw=) [on](http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/liberal-bias/liberal-bias-campus-classroom-education-academia/quotes/liberal-bias-academia-quotes) then whether it is causative or merely correlative can become a subject of discussion. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/24 "2010-08-04T16:25:54Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > [@Cagey\_Drifter](#): > > > > why the poor stay poor > > My understanding of the Steven Levitt/Roland Fryer region of things is that poor financial values are taught to children by their parents, encouraging them to stay away from banks, to not invest, to not take on debt, etc. I don’t know what their view of their personal politics is, but telling parents to tell their kids to trust The Man and play the stock market doesn’t sound like a terribly left-wing answer. The argument about how the poor stay poor is one about the differential acquisition of cultural capital among classes, not about the nature of specific life strategies. A quick example: poor people are far less likely to, say, be able to know how to hobnob with upper-crust folks, and won’t be able to dress as well in front of them either. The lack of these specific pieces of cultural capital prevent them from being able to make connections with people who have access to economic capital; that is the cultural capital of the “have nots” does not meet the accepted standards of the “haves”, and thus cannot be easily converted into the social and economic capital of the “haves.” Therefore, the poor will be forced to remain in their own social strata because their lack of certain pieces of cultural capital effectively prevents them from maneuvering upwardly. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/25 "2010-08-04T16:40:02Z")
> [@Cagey\_Drifter](#): > > > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > > My understanding of the Steven Levitt/Roland Fryer region of things is that poor financial values are taught to children by their parents, encouraging them to stay away from banks, to not invest, to not take on debt, etc. I don’t know what their view of their personal politics is, but telling parents to tell their kids to trust The Man and play the stock market doesn’t sound like a terribly left-wing answer. > > The argument about how the poor stay poor is one about the differential acquisition of cultural capital among classes, not about the nature of specific life strategies. A quick example: poor people are far less likely to, say, be able to know how to hobnob with upper-crust folks, and won’t be able to dress as well in front of them either. The lack of these specific pieces of cultural capital prevent them from being able to make connections with people who have access to economic capital; that is the cultural capital of the “have nots” does not meet the accepted standards of the “haves”, and thus cannot be easily converted into the social and economic capital of the “haves.” Therefore, the poor will be forced to remain in their own social strata because their lack of certain pieces of cultural capital effectively prevents them from maneuvering upwardly. There’s one problem with your argument - and it’s not with the structure or sense of it, it’s that it puts things in terms of classes. Unless an academic is quite a ways left to begin with, s/he just does not acknowledge any cultural characteristics coming from one’s economic status. Social, perhaps - but it has to be kept to hard metrics. ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/26 "2010-08-04T16:45:25Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > There’s one problem with your argument - and it’s not with the structure or sense of it, it’s that it puts things in terms of classes. Unless an academic is quite a ways left to begin with, s/he just does not acknowledge any cultural characteristics coming from one’s economic status. Social, perhaps - but it has to be kept to hard metrics. Fair enough; clearly, the concept of class has been one that sociology has had a very difficult time grappling with. I tend to agree with [Bourdieu’s conceptualization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourdieu#Bourdieu.27s_theory_of_class_distinction) that takes into account social and economic capital in the formation of cultural capital and sense of taste. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/27 "2010-08-04T16:48:15Z")
Ronald Reagan dual majored in economics and sociology in college - and while he may not have become prominent as a sociologist he did become a prominent conservative. ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/28 "2010-08-04T20:00:11Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > There’s one problem with your argument - and it’s not with the structure or sense of it, it’s that it puts things in terms of classes. Unless an academic is quite a ways left to begin with, s/he just does not acknowledge any cultural characteristics coming from one’s economic status. Social, perhaps - but it has to be kept to hard metrics. I’m pretty sure that most sociologists are OK with sloppy definitions of social class that conflate social, economic, and cultural aspects of class. I know I do it all the time. (I also come from a Bourdieusian perspective, though.) ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/29 "2010-08-04T20:38:08Z")
> [@GHO57](#): > > > [@Derleth](#): > > > > Do you have even a hint of a rational reason to think this is the case, or is it just unfounded personal prejudice with a side of nationalistic jingoism? > > Mostly just a hyperbole. But in general terms, I’ve noticed that the average American seems to have trouble distinguishing “social” from “socialist” and by extension any word beginning with “soci” is assumed to be one step away from communism,; people here, perhaps not so much. If you admit to having a social agenda, it’s hardly unheard of to be called a communist. OP did call sociology left leaning… and I would contend sociology is based on value neutral observations. Speaking globally, it’s usually the politically right-wing people who criticize sociology as being left leaning, usually because the results rarely agree with their poltical agenda. I’ve never seen a self-confessed liberal make that claim outside the US. > > Why? Do you have evidence of the opposite? I’d be interested in taking a look. It is true that most Americans don’t use online social communities because they think that they represent communism. That’s why there are very few Americans on Facebook. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/30 "2010-08-04T22:23:49Z")
I can only name one academic American sociologist: Charles Murray. Probably certain people consider him a dangerous leftie, but I wouldn’t want to meet them. > [@Cagey\_Drifter](#): > > …A quick example: poor people are far less likely to, say, be able to know how to hobnob with upper-crust folks, and won’t be able to dress as well in front of them either. The lack of these specific pieces of cultural capital prevent them from being able to make connections with people who have access to economic capital; that is the cultural capital of the “have nots” does not meet the accepted standards of the “haves”, and thus cannot be easily converted into the social and economic capital of the “haves.” Therefore, the poor will be forced to remain in their own social strata because their lack of certain pieces of cultural capital effectively prevents them from maneuvering upwardly. Very well put. ---
**Author:** ![aspendougy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@aspendougy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aspendougy)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/31 "2014-09-16T22:24:05Z")
Do sociologists actually come up with successful solutions to social problems? I live in Los Angeles, where there is perpetual talk about the cycle of poverty and violence among inner city black young men. It still appears to me that the cycle has not been effectively addressed. Sociologists can make observations about oppressed groups, etc., but what about solutions which actually work on a large scale? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2014, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/32 "2014-09-16T22:55:23Z")
Back in the 1990s the traditional welfare program AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) was ended due to a bipartisan consensus (partially replaced by a more restrictive program to provide temporary support TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), but the big change was a massive increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit). I thought there was significant academic support for this decision. Such support would have been from conservative academics since AFDC had been part of the liberal agenda since the 1930s. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/33 "2014-09-17T00:20:16Z")
> [@aspendougy](#): > > Do sociologists actually come up with successful solutions to social problems? I live in Los Angeles, where there is perpetual talk about the cycle of poverty and violence among inner city black young men. It still appears to me that the cycle has not been effectively addressed. Sociologists can make observations about oppressed groups, etc., but what about solutions which actually work on a large scale? Do doctors actually cure diseases? Some problems are complex and chronic, and not easy to cure. But a quick look at US society now as compared with just about any time in our past shows we are doing something right. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/34 "2014-09-17T01:35:35Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Doesn’t Education in general tend to make people more liberal? > (Or people who are more liberal tend to go further in higher education?) I hesitate to answer this since it’s GQ. You might want to start a GD topic (or search for one, since it’s surely been done). However, I would expect that education makes people less religious as they learn about the wider world, and perhaps more libertarian/anarchist as they shrug off other social mores that were part of their upbringing. Both of whose would move someone out of certain aspects of Conservativism, but wouldn’t necessarily make the person a Liberal. Whether a person thinks that people should help themselves or be helped is more closely related to their personality (e.g. their level of sociopathy, empathy, etc.) than anything teachable (IMHO). But of course, for someone who thinks that there’s a strong value in helping people, that helps to counter a lower wage as an academic than you would get in the private sector. Basically, I’d say it’s less straightforward than that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036/35 "2014-09-17T01:44:29Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I hesitate to answer this since it’s GQ. You might want to start a GD topic (or search for one, since it’s surely been done). > > However, I would expect that education makes people less religious as they learn about the wider world, and perhaps more libertarian/anarchist as they shrug off other social mores that were part of their upbringing. Both of whose would move someone out of certain aspects of Conservativism, but wouldn’t necessarily make the person a Liberal. Whether a person thinks that people should help themselves or be helped is more closely related to their personality (e.g. their level of sociopathy, empathy, etc.) than anything teachable (IMHO). But of course, for someone who thinks that there’s a strong value in helping people, that helps to counter a lower wage as an academic than you would get in the private sector. > > Basically, I’d say it’s less straightforward than that. Very sagely put! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-prominent-conservative-sociologists/549036.md?page=1)