Structural problems and second sociology: A content analysis of discliplinary representations

Organized scientific practice exists in and is reproduced by its distinctive literary forms and strategies. "Journal science" is the basic and research-oriented scientific practice to which specific literary forms, namely journals and monographs whose audiences are primarily specialists, is connected. On the other hand, there are other forms for the purpose of teaching or popularizing scientific knowledge, mainly textbooks, having no direct connection with research-oriented practice. As professional self-presentations of disciplines, textbooks reflect the level of establishment and development of a scientific field. While the self-presentations of an organized discipline, which has certain criteria for evaluation and affiliation, benefit the power of the organization, textbooks in sociology, a discipline in incoherence and adhocracy, are eventually characterized by individuality and inconsistency. Moreover, the growing gap between research-oriented sociology and its presentations in textbooks has created the conditions in which two different sociologies exist and research-oriented practice is suppressed by the latter. In the present research, a Basic Content Analysis of 30 introductory sociology textbooks published from 1980 to 2015 is conducted, and detailed data, that is grouped in four different categories, is examined via bibliometrics and inferential statistics. Using standardized effect sizes and a simple meta-analytic comparison, we show that the problems with sociology textbooks aren't related to some national sociology profiles, but that the patterns are clearly general characteristics of "second sociology".