Bringing in Theory Building and Social-Political Context to Understand and Reduce Inequality: A Commentary

Abstract

The ambition to move from understanding inequality to (also) reducing inequality is laudable and important for the field of sociology. Discussing the contributions to this special collection, the author encourages current developments in our field to identify causal effects of interventions. However, the author has two concerns with this development, partly shared with the contributions to this collection. First, to bridge the split between the certainty a policy maker wants and the uncertainty that is fundamental to scientific knowledge, we should be focused more on theory building and hypotheses testing, using various methods to study similar research problems, collaborating with organizations in the fields that we study. Second, we could be more concerned with the social and political context within which reforms may or may not be implemented. Policy makers and researchers can be more specific about the values underlying proposed interventions or in society at large.