I studied sociology in Spain. Here going to uni you can't choose much what you want to study so you have to go through every roadblock and eat that theory timesinks.
There's too much activism in the field. I know people in social sciences hate to talk about this because they see as an attack from outsiders that they don't understand the limitations of current methodology, but it's true. It's too much to deal with.
My university had some ideological diversity among professors, yet I was subject to veiled attacks from professors who feeled that I asked to many questions or that I wasn't aligned with them. Such as talking about me to other classes in a demeaning manner, saying I was too liberal, and trying to frame me.
I went to uni in my mid 20s and I am actually someone who was poor, who comes from an unstructured family, and who had to do all the route from basic education to uni by myself, while working and living in less than desirable places, so I'm one of those "oppressed folks", and I clearly saw that being from that background and confronting them didn't sit them too well. And I wasn't unpolite or anything, I just had questions and wasn't 18, nor shy.
This of course translates to other dynamics, like publications and grants. In Spanish there are some publications who I would classify as "serious" in the field (like REIS) yet some obvious ideological BS slips from time to time.
There was also plenty of network effects for getting money for research, and some other professors, which I personally considered more... professional, or serious, or whatever you want it, where affected by this dynamics because their personality didn't allow them to play office politics. It was a shame, and seeing that is one of the main things that prevented me to pursue an academic career.
One of my professors told me once something that IMO is very true. Fields like sociology are in desperate need for outsiders. Not everything is activism nor far-left propaganda (google functionalism, symbolic interactivism, systems theory to name theree schools of the top of my head) but if nobody who's willing to fight BS stays (like myself), it will just perpetuate, and there's an actual need for this field to develop further.
There's too much activism in the field. I know people in social sciences hate to talk about this because they see as an attack from outsiders that they don't understand the limitations of current methodology, but it's true. It's too much to deal with.
My university had some ideological diversity among professors, yet I was subject to veiled attacks from professors who feeled that I asked to many questions or that I wasn't aligned with them. Such as talking about me to other classes in a demeaning manner, saying I was too liberal, and trying to frame me.
I went to uni in my mid 20s and I am actually someone who was poor, who comes from an unstructured family, and who had to do all the route from basic education to uni by myself, while working and living in less than desirable places, so I'm one of those "oppressed folks", and I clearly saw that being from that background and confronting them didn't sit them too well. And I wasn't unpolite or anything, I just had questions and wasn't 18, nor shy.
This of course translates to other dynamics, like publications and grants. In Spanish there are some publications who I would classify as "serious" in the field (like REIS) yet some obvious ideological BS slips from time to time.
There was also plenty of network effects for getting money for research, and some other professors, which I personally considered more... professional, or serious, or whatever you want it, where affected by this dynamics because their personality didn't allow them to play office politics. It was a shame, and seeing that is one of the main things that prevented me to pursue an academic career.
One of my professors told me once something that IMO is very true. Fields like sociology are in desperate need for outsiders. Not everything is activism nor far-left propaganda (google functionalism, symbolic interactivism, systems theory to name theree schools of the top of my head) but if nobody who's willing to fight BS stays (like myself), it will just perpetuate, and there's an actual need for this field to develop further.
Hm, idk if I should post this, it's too personal.