Argument and Outline for the Sociology of Scientific (and Other) Careers

Abstract

Divisions between variable-oriented and person-oriented approaches in social and behavioral research are newly drawn. Yet few person-oriented approaches have been fully articulated; those that have are predominantly quantitative. This work presents an argument for a qualitative, person-oriented study of careers; an approach identified as careers in context. Based on a national study of scientists, this contextualist approach is grounded by three interacting, but analytically distinct, emphases to suggest how careers can be studied in and beyond science: (1) an emphasis on time and place as under-utilized dimensions on which to direct further study of careers; (2) an emphasis on the subjective career as a concept that qualitatively encapsulates temporal and spatial dimensions; and (3) an emphasis on career study in life course perspective. Subjectively (and objectively), careers are, of course, not static. By situating subjective careers in the times and places in which they occur, we are drawn to how those careers `play out' over the course of the lives of the people leading them. This paper concludes by stressing ways in which contextual studies of careers in and beyond science will advance our understanding in five larger domains of social process: identity construction; institution building; social—psychological differentiation; job satisfaction; and mystification of work.

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