Nicholas Kristof’s infamous takedown of professors for marginalizing themselves included this dismissive description of sociology’s dismal record of dismissal:
Many academic disciplines also reduce their influence by neglecting political diversity. Sociology, for example, should be central to so many national issues, but it is so dominated by the left that it is instinctively dismissed by the right.
There is a nice roundup of responses to Kristof by Jessie Daniels here. I have just two small things to add. First, “instinctively” is clearly the wrong word here. I might say “reflexively,” but really it’s “conveniently,” and that convenience partly results from stereotypes like this.
Second, much of what sociologists do to bring their expertise to the public (besides, of course, teach) is not part of such an explicit left-right debate in which rational policymakers and economists casually dismiss hysterical leftist sociologists. Rather, it’s part of the general work of bringing research results and interpretation to the public, largely through the media, including, occasionally, the New York Times.
Many of us in our own corners of the discipline feel that the NYT and the other big media always quotes the same small set of experts in our areas: (e.g., Andrew Cherlin on family trends). So I was surprised to see that my Lexis-Nexis search for “sociology or sociologist” within 10 words of “professor” in the NYT in 2013 turned up 124 sociology professors quoted in news articles, reviews, or op-eds (I excluded letter writers and the subjects of wedding announcements and obituaries).
These are them:
Yasin Aktay
Khalid al-Dakhil
Elizabeth Armstrong
Robert Aronowitz
Jacob Avery
Jere Behrman
Andrew Beveridge
Roberto Biorcio
Vern Bullough
Deborah Carr
Hector Carrillo
Camille Charles
Andrew Cherlin
Margaret Chin
Philip Cohen
Dalton Conley
Thomas Cushman
Sarah Damaske
Michele Dauber
Nikos Demertzis
Justin Denney
Fiona Devine
Larry Diamond
Gail Dines
Mitch Duneier
Riley Dunlap
Nina Eliasoph
Irma Elo
Paula England
Thomas Espenshade
Yang Fenggang
Sujatha Fernandes
Nancy Foner
Menachem Friedman
David Gartman
Kathleen Gerson
Todd Gitlin
Nathan Glazer
Jeff Goodwin
Ross Haenfler
Jack Halberstam
David Halle
Laura Hamilton
Roger Hammer
Melissa Hardy
Samuel Heilman
William Helmreich
Darnell Hunt
Margaret Hunter
Richard Ingersoll
Hahm In-hee
Michael Jacobson
Colin Jerolmack
Arne Kalleberg
John Kattakayam
James Kelly
Shamus Khan
Michael Kimmel
Stephen Klineberg
Eric Klinenberg
Hans-Peter Kohler
Jerome Krase
Jack Levin
Harry Levine
Robert Lilly
Douglas Masey
Leslie McCall
David Meyer
Richard Miech
Ruth Milkman
Joya Misra
Phyllis Moen
John Mollenkopf
Ann Morning
Katherine Newman
Andrew Noymer
Aaron Pallas
Wes Perkins
Julie Phillips
Janet Poppendieck
Gerard Postiglione
Samuel Preston
Gretchen Purser
Jill Quadagno
Sean Reardon
Mark Regnerus
Jonathan Rieder
Jake Rosenfeld
Michael Rosenfeld
Preston Rudy
Robert Sampson
Nandini Sardesai
Mike Savage
Rachel Schurman
Morrie Schwartz
Greg Scott
David Segal
Markus Shafer
Mimi Sheller
Elizabeth Shove
Theda Skocpol
Sanjay Srivastava
Kevin Stainback
Pamela Stone
Kregg Strehorn
David Stuckler
Shruti Tambe
Pelin Tan
Thomas Tierney
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey
Zeynep Tufekci
Shiv Visvanathan
Alex Vitale
Jane Waldfogel
Oliver Wang
Mary Waters
Frederick Weil
Saundra Westervelt
JeffriAnne Wilder
William Julius Wilson
James Witte
Linda Woodhead
Brian Wynne
Cristobal Young
Without doing a whole content analysis, it looks to me that most (or at least a lot) of these stories were not quoting sociologists as part of an ideological debate, but rather as experts describing developments in their subject areas.
In addition, the Times published op-eds by at least 15 sociology professors in 2013:
Rene Almeling
Andrew Cherlin
Philip Cohen
Matthew Desmond
Jennifer Glass
Jeff Goodwin
Erin Hatton
Shamus Khan
Michael Kimmel
Monica Prasad
Sean Reardon
Jonathan Rieder
Scott Schieman
Juliet Schor
Patrick Sharkey
Wang Feng
I’m sure there are better ways to do this more accurately, but you can consider this a conservative estimate, since it omits those sociologists who go by another identification (like Brad “intact, biological marriage is still the gold standard” Wilcox, who sells himself as Director of the National Marriage Project), those randomly described as sociologists (such as Charles Murray), people who are said to “teach sociology,” and graduate students. These are just people specifically described as professors.
You don’t have to be an economist to know that economists are quoted more. But is this a lot of representation? I don’t know.
Family Inequality 
Don’t forget all the sociologists who work at places like Child Trends (me), Urban, etc. that may not have sociologist in their title.
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Right! (Also Census and other government offices.)
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Reblogged this on AS THE CROW FLIES.
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It would be useful to take your list of 124 sociology professors and identify the departments where they are located. That would indicate which departments tend to support the dissemination of sociological information, and which discourage it among their faculty members.
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as one of the 124, thanks for the revealing analysis phil. most sociologists i know are deeply involved in ‘public’ issues even when not the ‘subject’ of their research and writing. however, the lack of attention to scholars, intellectuals, etc by the media (unless they are ‘star quality’) reduces their public visibility beyond the places in which they are engaged. a few weeks ago 3 sociologists spoke on gentrification on diversity in public schools. didn’t make the times but was well-attended and well received. lots of us are also community and politically active. i think kristof’s bits have more to do with high stature ‘intellectuals’ like himself not getting regular lucrative op-ed page gigs.
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Not sure this worked so well, so as you said definitely a conservative estimate. Alice Goffman, Ashley Mears and Glenn Firebaugh all missing and are just a few that quickly came to mind.
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I think you’re thinking of 2014. I don’t see them in NYT in 2013.
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