The Sociology of W.E.B Du Bois
Concepts like public sociology, the sociological imagination, policy sociology and methodological triangulation are terms frequently used in modern sociology. Sociology student are encouraged by their academic advisors to supplement their class work with practical field experience. For instance, research to evaluate the effectiveness of social programs can be extremely useful. The question of whether sociological research can have a positive effect on society is particularly relevant in the modern day. Researchers have to ask themselves whether the work they are doing have implications for public policy. Furthermore, students are expected to bring different theoretical approaches to their examination of social issues, as well as multiple methodologies. While this approach to sociology might sound like a recent phenomenon, that is not the case. An examination of the work and legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois makes it clear that he pioneered many concepts used in public and policy sociology today, as well as the use of methodological triangulation. The following paper will examine the details of his work.
The contributions of Du Bois to the field of sociology in the United States are considerable. Many consider him to be one of the founders of American sociology(Wortham a 19), and he was particularly influential when it came to the sociology of religion (Wortham b 84). Du Bois wrote and published The Philadelphia Negro in 1899 a full two decades before other studies of the urban environment by other scholars like Burgess and Park. Emile Durkheim's suicide proceeded this study by two years, but Du Bois' work is equally rigorous methodologically speaking. Yet despite this, Durkheim's work is widely quoted and respected, while the study of the African-American population in Philadelphia by Du Bois has largely drifted into obscurity. Published in 1903, Du Bois' The Negro Church is unquestionably sociology's first empirical study of religious-based organizations (Zuckerman et al. 198).
The outline for the undergraduate and graduate sociology programs that Du Bois assembled at Atlanta University was comprised of one year of economic studies followed by another year of sociology. Instead of relying on the standard textbooks and sociology, pace that required his students to carry out extensive research in the library by examining primary sources. In addition, fieldwork was included as a key aspect of the learning process, with students receiving training in various research methods and approaches. Students were particularly expected to master statistics, ecological analysis and ethnography. Much of the data collected by the students was later published selectively in annual conference proceedings. The 1903 study of religion is a primary example of this.
The use of methodological triangulation is a principal feature of The Negro Church, as well as Du Bois' effective use of students to help carry out research and gather data. In this study, Du Bois used a range of sources, including ethnographic descriptions, student research, survey information and census data. This meticulous attention to detail was typical of Du Bois' work.
Ecological Research
The 1890 census data regarding religious bodies was particularly useful for Du Bois. In looking at the state of Negro churches in 1890 (Du Bois 48), he included a chart considering the various denominations that had African-Americans as members. Within each of these denominations, data about membership numbers, the size of the churches and the property value were all recorded. According to the census, in 1890 there were more than 20,000 Negro churches, and they had a membership of approximately 2.6 million individuals. On the other hand, since these churches had a seating capacity of nearly 7 million it seems clear that most of them were using less than 40% of their seating capacity. This point is actually quite fascinating, particularly given that the percentage of seats filled in primarily African-American churches today is estimated to be between 40 and 60% (Johnstone 46). All of this data is further subdivided by the specific denomination and state in question.
Du Bois and Survey Analysis
The study mentioned above also incorporated data collected regarding over 1300 African American school children living in the Atlanta, Georgia area. An examination of this data showed that not only did most of these children attend church on a regular basis, most of the ones that did enjoyed it. Du Bois' data also seems to fit with the more recent theory about rearing children in a religious atmosphere (Bainbridge, 1990). For example, over 30 percent of these young people considered themselves to be Christian and many of them believed that this meant that service to others should be a part of their lives. Also based on the data, Du Bois recognized that children of different ages understand and express the religious experience differently. This difference was described by later by Fowler (79) as "the stages of faith."
One section of The Negro Church incorporates research conducted by graduate and senior students at Atlanta University of more than 50 Negro churches in the Atlanta area. The students gathered demographic information and created ethnographic descriptions for the membership in each church. Currently, the latter procedure is referred to as "congregational analysis" (Woolever and Bruce 109) While the procedure is typical of the "neighborhood analysis" carried out later by the Chicago School. The data is students collected related to claimed membership, active membership church income and the value of the church property. With regard to claimed versus active membership, the research found that just over 10% of members were actually active in the church. According to Du Bois, since Atlanta's African-American population was just under 36,000 in 1900, this meant that roughly 45% of this population were officially members of churches. By extension, this meant that less than 25% were active members of churches.
The results of this research conducted by Du Bois and his students and to support more recent sociological research on the subject. Some researchers have noted that polling data indicates that 40% of Americans claim to be active members of churches, while active membership numbers based on actual visits to the church demonstrate that active membership is actually closer to 20% (Hadaway 751). It should be noted that the student data collected for black churches in the Atlanta area indicates that active church membership among African-Americans at that time in the Atlanta area was only a few percentage points higher than these later numbers.
Ethnographic Results
As mentioned before, the study of black churches in the Atlanta area also considered the ethnographic makeup of each of the studied congregations, including the character and educational history of the leadership in the church. These questions were particularly important to Du Bois, since he felt that the many of the leaders of these churches were lacking in both character and education (Du Bois 28). The ecstatic emotionalism frequently seen in black churches throughout the South was also a significant problem from Du Bois' perspective, but the study noted that this was a little seen in many of these churches in the Atlanta area. When examining the occupational and educational background of church members, it seems clear that many of these churches drew in the middle and upper class on the outer American population. This points to a class division and class distinctions in black churches that Du Bois noted throughout his career. The following quotation illustrates this point is a description of a small Atlanta church (Du Bois 37):
“The leader and pastor is a man of questionable character. The members are mainly the middle working classes of average intelligence. Very little charitable and relief work is done because the church has a hard time to keep on its feet. The church drew out of No. 37 [an African Methodist Episcopal church] in 1897 and established this church, and since that time the young church has been struggling for existence. The church building is a large barn-like structure, roughly finished on the outside and rather crudely furnished on the inside. It will accommodate about 400 people.”
It was Du Bois' opinion that these African-American churches could be useful in improving the economic and social conditions in their communities, but he felt that their leadership would have to be improved and their financial management solidified before this could happen. In both The Philadelphia Negro and The Negro Church, Du Bois contended black churches were at the core of African-American daily life. It was in these churches that social norms and rules were established, culture was passed on and protected, leadership and educational opportunities were provided in support networks created.
The Atlanta Sociological Laboratory
While the data about the Atlanta sociological laboratory needed was being gathered by undergraduates who were running the basics of social research, the graduate program focused on original research. As Du Bois intended, the graduate students played a large part in the work being done by the sociological laboratory (Du Bois 31). As part of this, he created a program in which the graduate students would each year focus on a specific problem in the African-American community (which he termed the "Negro problem"). For instance, they might choose to focus on education, crime in the black community or family dynamics. In the process of curing out this scientific study, survey protocols and instruments would be created and disseminated, with the data collecting taking place over a period of 6-8 months. At the end of each year-long study, a meeting would be called to discuss and analyze the results of the study, with a final report being published later.
The goal of the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory was to provide a center in which the problems faced by African Americans could be empirically examined in a way that would allow policies (for potential policies) to be based on rigorous scientific findings rather than on subjective opinions or political ideology. It was Du Bois's opinion that by characterizing the underlying causes of inequality in a public way, steps could be taken to all these problems. For this reason, every volume of Atlanta University's annual Study on the Negro Problems incorporated a section that examined the implications of various policies. Over. Of 10 years, each of nine different subjects would be considered, with each band being re-examined in the following 10 years. This cycle of studies made it possible to determine whether any changes (either positive or negative) had occurred in that subject area over the ensuing 10 years (Wright 37). Two such 10 year series of studies were completed.
Du Bois resigned from Atlanta University in late 1910 to become the editor of the NAACP's principal publication, The Crisis. Nevertheless, Du Bois continued to participate in the Atlanta sociological laboratory annual publications for three more years. However, since he was the driving force behind the effort, only two more volumes were published after 1913. The final volume was published in 1917, although the work of the laboratory continued into the 1920s (Wright 38).
Despite his new leadership position at the NAACP, the work he did at the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory had a tremendous effect on Du Bois even later in life. He later referred to it as being his "real life work, and a period in which he discovered his true interest and passion. Moreover, he established lifelong friendships, while at the same time coming to better understand the nature and scale of racial inequality in the United States. In fact, whereas the work he had done on the problems faced by average Americans living in Philadelphia had been carried out in a detached and scientific way, his experiences at Atlanta University had made him more passionate about the subject of inequality.
For instance, Du Bois used a contextual method in studying the problem of crime in Georgia, focusing on the link between social status and crime. Du Bois contended that high crime rates among African-Americans were directly linked to (and the consequence of) their social position in society. This position (according to Du Bois ) was a consequence of the inherent inequality they faced following slavery and their marginalized position in American society after emancipation. More, beyond linking crime to inequality, Du Bois also suggested that it was related to the need for prison labor and a lack of training centers for young people. A slightly weaker link was suggested between literacy and crime.
In essence, paste that was arguing that crime among Blacks in the South, " is a symptom of wrong social conditions – of a stress of life greater than a large part of the community can bear" ( Du Bois 8). These ideas about crime and social status closely resemble similar concepts founded by later researchers, particularly the immediate theory referred to as structure-strain (Merton 184). It could be argued that paste that was one of the first researchers to empirically test and rule the connection between poverty and crime and various fans of structural inequality. Clearly, he noted the fact that such crime may be a consequence of a disconnect between our society's objectives and the means by which those objectives are achieved.
One concern that Merton had went carrying out his work on crime is that the 1890 census data might be inaccurate and of low quality. For instance, he thought it might be the case that males might have been overrepresented and that there might be inaccuracies in how crimes were categorized and reported. He found a number of statistics regarding African-Americans and crime disturbing, such as the fact that while African-Americans (at the time) represented only 1/8 of the US population, they supposedly committed 1/5 of the crimes (Du Bois 16). In addition to this, all those African-American males in prison at the time, 80% of them lived in the South. Roughly half of them were aged 20-30. Concerns about discriminatory practices and bias in arrests, prosecution, conviction and sentencing are still an important concern for sociologists today (Kornblum et al. 102).
When examining the local, county and state data for the state of Georgia, paste that and his team found that crime levels and the heterogeneity of the population were directly related (Du Bois 64). Perceptions about African-American crime also differed based on race, with white Americans being more likely to believe that African-American crime was becoming more common. At the state level, Du Bois noted a decline in the amount of African-American crime, demands for prison labor and the number of lynchings. At the same time, African-American property ownership and literacy were increasing. Referring to what is now described as the "stratification hypothesis," paste that suggested that crime among African-Americans would decline as African-Americans achieved greater equality in our society (Stark 74).
The crime study also has a section that attempts to consider how African-American children perceive the police, courts and laws (Du Bois 55). The data supports the idea that most young children understand the basic goals and functions of the laws and the US court system. 70% of these children believe that such laws exist in to maintain order and offer protection to the people. 60% of these young children understood that it was up to the court to determine innocence or guilt and to provide punishment for the guilty. Most of the children were also accepting of the goals and purpose for the police, but there was greater disagreement here when it came to how the police were perceived. While 60% of the students why to believe in a policeman's job was necessary, only 40% of you the police as kind and helpful.
In modern-day sociology, social issues are frequently addressed from a structural and/or cultural perspective. As far back as the beginning of the 20th century, Du Bois and his team were employing both perspectives when generating policy recommendations for their studies regarding crime, including the ways in which the crime problem can be addressed. While suggesting that the majority of crime committed by African-Americans could be blamed largely on their marginalization in our society, a flawed judicial system and limited job opportunities, paste that also argued that youth centers, job training centers, schools and black churches could all play a part in reducing crime among African-Americans. Furthermore, progressives in the white community could work with those in the African-American community to support rehabilitation efforts, eliminate the use of prison labor and encourage reform in the judicial system. Unfortunately, while paste that felt that reform would be a natural consequence of clearly laid out scientific facts, he did not necessarily recognize at the time that fear and ignorance can easily ignore scientific facts.
In conclusion, an examination of the sociological contributions and theories of W.E.B. Du Bois makes it clear what role he played in the operation of the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory. Furthermore, it is difficult to argue with those scholars who feel that the "Atlanta School" can justifiably be described as the first American sociological school. In building and nurturing the training program at this university, Du Bois hope that it would create an entire generation of sociological researchers who could promote and document progress made in achieving racial equality in the United States. The pioneering empirical studies carried out by Du Bois and his students laid the groundwork for much of the later work done in sociology on social issues, urban life, crime and religion (Wortham a 24). Because of this, Du Bois is gradually coming to be recognized as one of the founding fathers of sociology in the United States.
Works Cited
Bainbridge, William Sims. "Explaining The Church Member Rate." Social Forces 68.4 (1990): 1287. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Mar. 2016
Du, Bois W. E. B, and Isabel Eaton. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. New York: Schocken Books, 1967. Print.
----- The Negro Church: Report of a Social Study Made Under the Direction of Atlanta University ; Together with the Proceedings of the Eighth Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems, Held at Atlanta University, May 26th, 1903. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2003. Print.
-----The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia Library, 1996. Internet resource.
-----Some Notes on Negro Crime Particularly in Georgia: Report of a Social Study Made Under the Direction of Atlanta University : Together with the Proceedings of the Ninth Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems, Held at Atlanta University, May 24, 1904. Atlanta, Ga: Atlanta University Press, 1904. Internet resource.
Fowler, James W. Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981. Print.
Hadaway, C. Kirk, Penny Long Marler, and Mark Chaves. "What The Polls Don't Show: A Closer Look At U.S. Church Attendance." American Sociological Review 58.6 (1993): 741-752. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.
Johnstone, Ronald L. Religion in Society: A Sociology of Religion. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1983. Print.
Kornblum, William, Joseph Julian and Carolyn Smith. Social Problems, Eleventh Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. 2004. Print.
Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure, Third Edition. New York: Free Press. 1968. Print.
Stark, Rodney. Sociology. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1992. Print.
Woolever, Cynthia, and Deborah Bruce. A Field Guide to U.s. Congregations: Who's Going Where and Why. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. Print.
Blasi, Anthony J. Diverse Histories of American Sociology. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Internet resource.
Wright II, Earl. "Using The Master's Tools: The Atlanta Sociological Laboratory and American Sociology, 1896-1924." Sociological Spectrum 22.1 (2002): 15-39. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.
Zuckerman, Phil. 2004. The Social Theory of W.e.b. Du Bois. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2004. Internet resource.
