1932

Abstract

My research so far has followed an interest in the classic concern about the social consequences of modernization, which led me to study urbanism, personal networks, the history of technology, and most extensively, American social history. A commitment to public sociology led me to a book on inequality, magazine, contributions to general media, a blog, and badgering sociologists about their writing. Some consistent themes include trying to address big questions with middle-range empirical work, focusing on ordinary lives and living, insisting on rigorous evidence whatever the method, and communicating with as wide an audience as lucidly as possible. The article closes with a few lessons learned.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-110419-023001
2020-07-30
2024-10-14
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/soc/46/1/annurev-soc-110419-023001.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-110419-023001&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Blum TC. 1985. Structural constraints on interpersonal relations: a test of Blau's macrosociological theory. Am. J. Sociol. 91:511–21
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Burawoy M. 2005. For public sociology. Am. Sociol. Rev. 70:4–28
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Burt RS. 1983. Distinguishing relational contents. Applied Network Analysis: A Methodological Introduction RS Burt, MJ Minor 35–74 Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Burt RS. 1984. Network items and the General Social Survey. Soc. Netw. 6:293–339
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Castells M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society Cambridge, UK: Blackwell
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Cohen PN. 2018. Public engagement and the influence imperative. Contemp. Sociol. 48:119–23
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Cohen PN, Ali S 2018. The Contexts Reader New York: W.W. Norton, 3rd ed..
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Drum K. 2019. Raw data: mass incarceration and the 1994 crime bill. Mother Jones May 28. https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/05/raw-data-mass-incarceration-and-the-1994-crime-bill/
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Edwards KG. 2001. ASA to publish new magazine; UC press gets the nod. Footnotes 29:41
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Feld SL. 1984. The structured use of personal associates. Soc. Forces 62:640–52
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Fischer CS. 1969. The effects of threats in an incomplete information game. Sociometry 32:301–14
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Fischer CS. 1975a. The study of urban community and personality. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 1:67–89
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Fischer CS. 1975b. Toward a subcultural theory of urbanism. Am. J. Sociol. 80:1319–41
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Fischer CS. 1976a. Alienation: trying to bridge the chasm. Br. J. Sociol. 27:35–49
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Fischer CS. 1976b. The Urban Experience New York: Harcourt
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Fischer CS. 1977. Northern California community study Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research Ann Arbor, MI: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07744.v2
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  17. Fischer CS. 1981. The public and private worlds of city life. Am. Sociol. Rev. 46:306–16
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Fischer CS. 1982. To Dwell Among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Fischer CS. 1988a. “Touch someone”: the telephone industry discovers sociability. Technol. Cult. 29:32–61
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Fischer CS. 1988b. Gender and the residential telephone in North America, 1890–1940: technologies of sociability. Sociol. Forum 3:211–33
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Fischer CS. 1990. Entering sociology into public discourse. The Rhetoric of Sociology: Understood and Believed A Hunter 50–61 New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Fischer CS. 1992. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Fischer CS. 1994. In search of the plot: American social history in the 1990s. Contemp. Sociol. 23:226–30
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Fischer CS. 1995. The subcultural theory of urbanism: a twentieth-year assessment. Am. J. Sociol. 101:543–77
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Fischer CS. 2010. Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Fischer CS. 2011. Still Connected: Family and Friends in America since 1970 New York: Russell: Sage
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Fischer CS. 2012a. Over-impacted. Made in America: Notes on American Life from American History Blog Jan. 24. https://madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/over-impacted/
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Fischer CS. 2012b. The loneliness scare: isolation isn't a growing problem. Boston Review Apr. 23. http://bostonreview.net/Fischer-loneliness-modern-culture
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Fischer CS. 2013. The elusive quest for research innovation. Symposium Magazine Aug. 4. http://www.symposium-magazine.com/the-elusive-quest-for-research-innovation/
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Fischer CS. 2014. Lurching Toward Happiness in America Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Fischer CS. 2017. The great settling down. Aeon Nov. 17. https://aeon.co/essays/the-increasingly-mobile-us-is-a-myth-that-needs-to-move-on
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Fischer CS. 2018a. Loneliness epidemic: an end to the story. Made in America: Notes on American Life from American History Blog Aug. 24. https://madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/loneliness-epidemic-an-end-to-the-story/
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Fischer CS. 2018b. The politics-religion vortex spins. Made in America Notes on American Life from American History Blog Sept. 17. https://madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/the-politics-religion-vortex-spins/
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Fischer CS. 2019. From the Northern California Community Study 1977–78 to UCNets 2015–19 Presentation at Personal Networks: Frontiers of Ego-Network Analysis, Kellogg School Evanston, IL: Sept 26
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Fischer CS, Bayham L. 2019. Mode and interviewer effects in egocentric network research. Field Methods 31:195–213
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Fischer CS, Hout M. 2006. Century of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years New York: Russell Sage
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Fischer CS, Hout M, Lucas SR, Sanchez Jankowski M, Swidler A, Voss K 1996. Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Fischer CS, Jackson RM, Stueve CA, Gerson K, Jones LM, Baldassare M 1977. Networks and Places: Social Relations in the Urban Setting New York: Free Press
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Fourcade M. 2010. Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain, and France, 1890s to 1990s Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Gans HJ. 1989. Sociology in America: the discipline and the public. Am. Sociol. Rev. 54:1–16
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Glenn ND. 1987. The trend in “no religion” respondents to U.S. national surveys, late 1950s to early 1980s. Public Opin. Q. 51:293–314
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Greeno JG. 1994. Gibson's affordances. Psych. Rev. 101:336–42
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Grossetti M. 2007. Are French networks different. Soc. Netw. 29:391–404
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Healy K. 2017. Public sociology in the age of social media. Perspect. Politics 15:771–80
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Hirschman D. 2018. For most people, sociology is just as authoritative as economics. Scatterplot Blog Dec. 11. https://scatter.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/for-most-people-sociology-is-just-as-authoritative-as-economics/
    [Google Scholar]
  46. House JS. 2019. The culminating crisis of American sociology and its role in social science and public policy: an autobiographical, multimethod, reflexive perspective. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 45:1–26
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Hout M, Fischer CS. 2002. Explaining the rise of Americans with no religious preference: politics and generation. Am. Sociol. Rev. 67:165–90
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Hout M, Fischer CS. 2014. Explaining why more Americans have no religious preference: political backlash and generational succession, 1987–2012. Sociol. Sci. 1:423–47
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Hunter A 1990. The Rhetoric of Sociology: Understood and Believed New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Kelley HH, Beckman LL, Fischer CS 1967. Negotiating the division of a reward under incomplete information. J. Exper. Soc. Psychol. 3:361–98
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Laslett P. 1971. The World We Have Lost New York: Scribner's, 2nd ed..
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Laumann EO. 1973. Bonds of Pluralism New York: Wiley
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Marin A, Wellman B. 2011. Social network analysis: an introduction. The SAGE Handbook of Social Network Analysis P Carrington, J Scott 11–25 Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
    [Google Scholar]
  54. McCallister L, Fischer CS. 1978. A procedure for surveying personal networks. Sociol. Methods Res. 7:131–48
    [Google Scholar]
  55. McPherson M, Smith-Lovin L, Brashears ME 2006. Social isolation in America: changes in core discussion networks over two decades. Am. Sociol. Rev. 71:353–75
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Merton RK. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure New York: Free
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Offer S, Fischer CS. 2018. Difficult people: Who is perceived to be demanding in personal networks and why are they there. Am. Sociol. Rev. 83:111–42
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Otani S. 1999. Personal community networks in contemporary Japan. Networks in the Global Village B Wellman 279–98 New York: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Packard V. 1972. A Nation of Strangers New York: McKay
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Pew Res. Cent 2012. “Nones” on the rise: one-in-five adults have no religious affiliation Washington, DC: Pew Res. Cent https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2012/10/NonesOnTheRise-full.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Pew Res. Cent 2019. Public Opinion on Abortion Washington, DC: Pew Res. Cent https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Putnam RD. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York: Simon & Schuster
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Putnam RD, Campbell DE. 2010. American Grace: How Religion Divides Us and Unites Us New York: Simon & Schuster
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Rainie L, Wellman B. 2012. Networked: The New Social Operating System Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Reisman D, Glazer N, Denny R 1950. The Lonely Crowd New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Small M. 2017. Someone to Talk To New York: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  67. van der Poel MGM. 1993. Personal Networks: A Rational-Choice Explanation of Their Size and Composition Lisse, Neth.: Sweets & Zeitlinger
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Vickers D. 1990. Competency and competition: economic culture in early America. Wm. Mary Q. 47:3–29
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Watts DJ. 2011. Everything is Obvious*: *Once You Know the Answer New York: Crown
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Wellman B, Quan-Haase A, Boase J, Chen W, Hampton K et al. 2003. The social affordances of the Internet for networked individualism. J. Comput. Mediat. Comm. 8:3 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2003.tb00216.x
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  71. Whyte WH. 1956. The Organization Man New York: Simon & Schuster
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Wirth L. 1938. Urbanism as a way of life. Am. J. Sociol. 44:1–24
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Wolfers J. 2015. How economists came to dominate the conversation. New York Times/The Dismal Science Blog Jan. 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/upshot/how-economists-came-to-dominate-the-conversation.html
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-110419-023001
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error