A few thoughts on the field from a 6th year sociology PhD student:
There are quite a few sociologists who would absolutely object to labeling sociology a science. This is generally because of anti-positivist, post-modern critiques of the social sciences. As someone said above, sociological data is all interpreted subjectively. You can’t really conduct objective experiments. Your subjective biases influence everything about your work, including the research questions you ask. Claiming to do objective, scientific research may do more harm than good. Better to be upfront about your subjective position and work with it. Etc.
A second issue is that there is a real disjuncture between the folks who do sociological theory and the folks who do sociological research. The theorists who tend to be most influential also tend to be anti-positivist and anti-quantitative research. Meanwhile, researchers increasingly borrow their theoretical underpinnings from other fields. In my specialty area, I see a lot of borrowing from economics and psychology, with some biology thrown in for good measure. I’m sure other areas draw from other fields.
There have been some comments upthread about sociology continually using “dusty” theories, but I just don’t see it. I think it’s important to read the early sociologists to understand where sociology came from and how it’s gotten to where it is, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a journal article trying to test Weber, Durkheim, or Simmel’s theories. I suppose there are some neo-Marxists out there, who I’m sure are enjoying the current global economic situation (at least from an academic standpoint).
I have the most recent issue of the American Sociological Review on my desk. (This is probably the premier general sociology journal.) It includes the following articles:
Types and Trajectories of Music Genres
Cultural Globalization and Arts Journalism
Hispanic Segregation in Metropolitan America
Patterns and Determinants of Racial Segregation at Multiple Geographic Scales
Spatial Dynamics of White Flight
Sibship Size and Educational Attainment in China
Immigrant Children’s Education Achievement in Western Countries
Changing Relationships between Education and Fertility
This is a fairly “science-y” group of articles. The first two are sort of soft, but the three on segregation and the three on education all use secondary, demographic datasets (along the lines of Census data). They all develop hypotheses and test them with the data that they have available. The last article is a good example. The general assumption - since the demographic transition - has been that more education means fewer children. The authors of this article test that assumption for men and women born between 1940 and 1964 in Norway (using Norway’s excellent vital statistics data) and find that it isn’t actually true. There’s no relationship between education level and number of children for women (when controlling for age at first birth). For men, there’s actually a positive relationship between education and fertility. These are important findings because much of Europe is in a panic about low fertility. The authors speculate that Norway’s family-friendly policies have contributed to the relatively high birth rate among highly educated people. I’d say that sounds like science, wouldn’t you??
And now I must get back to that pesky dissertation…