Professional Documents
Culture Documents
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Oxford University Press and Society for the Study of Social Problems are collaborating with
JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Problems
HOWARD S. BECKER
Northwestern University
To have values or not to have only read the results. Will the research,
we wonder,
values: the question is always with us. be distorted by that sym-
When sociologists undertake to pathy?
study Will it be of use in the con-
problems that have relevance to theof scientific theory or in the
struction
application of scientific knowledge to
world we live in, they find themselves
caught in a crossfire. Some urgethe them
practical problems of society? Or
not to take sides, to be neutral and
will thedo
bias introduced by taking sides
spoil it
research that is technically correct for those uses?
and
value free. Others tell them their We work
seldom make the feeling ex-
is shallow and useless if it does not
plicit. Instead, it appears as a lingering
express a deep commitment to a value worry for sociological readers, who
position. would like to be sure they can trust
This dilemma, which seems so pain- what they read, and a troublesome area
ful to so many, actually does not exist, of self-doubt for those who do the
for one of its horns is imaginary. For research, who would like to be sure
it to exist, one would have to assume, that whatever sympathies they feel are
as some apparently do, that it is indeed not professionally unseemly and will
possible to do research that is uncon- not, in any case, seriously flaw their
taminated by personal and political work. That the worry affects both
readers and researchers indicates that
sympathies. I propose to argue that it
is not possible and, therefore, that the it lies deeper than the superficial differ-
question is not whether we should take ences that divide sociological schools
sides, since we inevitably will, but of thought, and that its roots must be
rather whose side we are on. sought in characteristics of society that
affect us all, whatever our method-
I will begin by considering the prob-
lem of taking sides as it arises in the ological or theoretical persuasion.
study of deviance. An inspection of If the feeling were made explicit, it
this case will soon reveal to us features would take the form of an accusation
that appear in sociological research of that the sympathies of the researcher
have biased his work and distorted his
all kinds. In the greatest variety of sub-
ject matter areas and in work done by findings. Before exploring its structural
all the different methods at our dis- roots, let us consider what the manifest
posal, we cannot avoid taking sides,meaning of the charge might be.
for reasons firmly based in social struc- It might mean that we have acquired
ture.
some sympathy with the group we
We may sometimes feel that studiesstudy sufficient to deter us from pub-
lishing those of our results which
of deviance exhibit too great a sym-
pathy with the people studied, a sym- might prove damaging to them. One
pathy reflected in the research carried can imagine a liberal sociologist who
out. This feeling, I suspect, is enter- set out to disprove some of the com-
tained off and on both by those of us mon stereotypes held about a minority
who do such research and by those ofgroup. To his dismay, his investigation
us who, our work lying in other areas, reveals that some of the stereotypes
are unfortunately true. In the interests
of justice and liberalism, he might well
*Presidential address, delivered at the an-
nual meeting of the Society for the Study be tempted, and might even succumb
of Social Problems, Miami Beach, August, to the temptation, to suppress those
1966. findings, publishing with scientific
candor the other results which con- have still not proved it false. Recog-
firmed his beliefs. nizing the point and promising to
But this seems not really to be the address it eventually, I shall turn to
heart of the charge, because sociologists the typical situations in which the
who study deviance do not typically accusation of bias arises.
hide things about the people they When do we accuse ourselves and
study. They are mostly willing to grant our fellow sociologists of bias ? I think
that there is something going on that an inspection of representative in-
put the deviants in the position they stances would show that the accusa-
are in, even if they are not willing to tion arises, in one important class of
grant that it is what the people they cases, when the research gives credence,
studied were originally accused of. in any serious way, to the perspective
A more likely meaning of the of the subordinate group in some hier-
charge, I think, is this. In the course archical relationship. In the case of
of our work and for who knows what deviance, the hierarchical relationship
private reasons, we fall into deep sym-is a moral one. The superordinate
pathy with the people we are studying,parties in the relationship are those
so that while the rest of the societywho represent the forces of approved
views them as unfit in one or another and official morality; the subordinate
respect for the deference ordinarily parties are those who, it is alleged,
accorded a fellow citizen, we believe have violated that morality.
that they are at least as good as anyone Though deviance is a typical case,
else, more sinned against than sinning.it is by no means the only one. Similar
Because of this, we do not give a bal-situations, and similar feelings that our
anced picture. We focus too much on work is biased, occur in the study of
questions whose answers show that theschools, hospitals, asylums and prisons,
supposed deviant is morally in the rightin the study of physical as well as
and the ordinary citizen morally in the mental illness, in the study of both
wrong. We neglect to ask those ques- "normal" and delinquent youth. In
tions whose answers would show that these situations, the superordinate par-
the deviant, after all, has done some- ties are usually the official and profes-
thing pretty rotten and, indeed, prettysional authorities in charge of some
much deserves what he gets. In conse- important institution, while the subor-
quence, our overall assessment of thedinates are those who make use of the
problem being studied is one-sided. services of that institution. Thus, the
What we produce is a whitewash of police are the superordinates, drug ad-
the deviant and a condemnation, if dicts are the subordinates; professors
only by implication, of those respecta-and administrators, principals and
ble citizens who, we think, have madeteachers, are the superordinates, while
the deviant what he is. students and pupils are the subordi-
It is to this version that I devote
nates; physicians are the superordi-
the rest of my remarks. I will look nates, their patients the subordinates.
first, however, not at the truth or All of these cases represent one of
falsity of the charge, but rather atthe
thetypical situations in which re-
circumstances in which it is typicallysearchers accuse themselves and are
made and felt. The sociology of knowl-accused of bias. It is a situation in
which, while conflict and tension exist
edge cautions us to distinguish between
the truth of a statement and an assess-
in the hierarchy, the conflict has not
ment of the circumstances under which become openly political. The conflict-
that statement is made; though we ing segments or ranks are not orga-
trace an argument to its source in the nized for conflict; no one attempts to
interests of the person who made it, we alter the shape of the hierarchy. While
to their
charge of bias, in account of how and
ourselves the adultothers
world credence
by refusing to give treats them. But why
and do we not
defer
ence to an established
accuse other status
sociologistsorder,
who study in
which knowledge
youth of truth
of being biased in and
favor ofth
right to be heard are
adults? Mostnot equally
research dis-
on youth, after
tributed. "Everyone knows"
all, is clearly that
designed to find out whyre
sponsible professionals know
youth are so troublesome mor
for adults,
about things than
ratherlaymen,
than asking the that polic
equally inter-
are more respectable and their
esting sociological words
question: "Why do
adults
ought to be taken make so much
more trouble for
seriously than
those of the deviants and criminals youth ?" Similarly, we accuse those who
with whom they deal. By refusing to take the complaints of mental patients
seriously of bias; what about those
accept the hierarchy of credibility, we
sociologists who only take seriously
express disrespect for the entire estab-
lished order. the complaints of physicians, families
We compound our sin and furtherand others about mental patients ?
provoke charges of bias by not givingWhy this disproportion in the direc-
immediate attention and "equal time" tion of accusations of bias? Why do
to the apologies and explanations we
of more often accuse those who are
on the side of subordinates than those
official authority. If, for instance, we
are concerned with studying the way who are on the side of superordinates ?
Because, when we make the former
of life inmates in a mental hospital
accusation, we have, like the well
build up for themselves, we will natu-
socialized members of our society
rally be concerned with the constraints
and conditions created by the actionsmost of us are, accepted the hierarchy
of the administrators and physicians of credibility and taken over the
who run the hospital. But, unless weaccusation made by responsible officials.
also make the administrators and The reason responsible officials make
physicians the object of our study the(aaccusation so frequently is precisely
possibility I will consider later), we they are responsible. They have
because
will not inquire into why those con- been entrusted with the care and opera-
ditions and constraints are present. tion of one or another of our important
We will not give responsible officials
institutions: schools, hospitals, law en-
a chance to explain themselvesforcement,
and or whatever. They are the
give their reasons for acting as theyones who, by virtue of their official
do, a chance to show why the com-
position and the authority that goes
plaints of inmates are not justified.with it, are in a position to "do some-
It is odd that, when we perceive thing" when things are not what they
should be and, similarly, are the ones
bias, we usually see it in these circum-
stances. It is odd because it is easily
who will be held to account if they
ascertained that a great many morefail to "do something" or if what they
studies are biased in the direction of do is, for whatever reason, inadequate.
the interests of responsible officials Because they are responsible in this
than the other way around. We may way, officials usually have to lie. That
accuse an occasional student of medical is a gross way of putting it, but not
sociology of having given too much inaccurate. Officials must lie because
emphasis to the complaints of patients. things are seldom as they ought to be.
But it is not obvious that most medical For a great variety of reasons, well-
sociologists look at things from the known to sociologists, institutions are
point of view of the doctors? A few refractory. They do not perform as
sociologists may be sufficiently biased society would like them to. Hospitals
in favor of youth to grant credibility do not cure people; prisons do not re-