Building a Community of Sociological Practice: Certifying Practitioners and Accrediting Programs

Abstract

Unlike psychology and economics, the discipline of sociology in the United States has not encouraged the training and practice of sociologists outside academia and scientific research enterprises. Certification and program accreditation attempt to return the discipline of sociology to its practice-oriented origins and build a professional community of practitioners. Individual practitioners may be certified as more than adequately trained and experienced, while teaching programs may be accredited as having the faculty, facilities, and curriculum necessary for a well-rounded education. This essay traces the growth of certification of sociologists by the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology and the accreditation of training programs by the Commission on the Accreditation of Programs in Applied and Clinical Sociology in the United States.

2020 Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology Membership Survey

“…Certified respondents to this survey (15.3 percent, n = 13) were nearly half (48.15 percent) of the population of all certified members ( n = 27) of the AACS. Common benefits of certification cited by the ASA, the AACS, and Lehnerer and Perlstadt (2018) include legitimation of practice to others, demonstration of having met established standards of practice in applied or clinical sociology, demonstration of having obtained the requisite knowledge and skill base for sociological practice, having a code of ethics to guide practice efforts, and solidifies one’s identity as an applied or clinical sociologist (ASA 2003; AACS 2021e; Lehnerer and Perlstadt 2018). Beyond being certified as a sociological practitioner, a few respondents reported to hold certifications in other areas including social work, counseling, organizational performance improvement, family life education, online teaching, and in human resources.…”

“…Since the formation of the AACS in 2005, sociological practice has expanded beyond the more traditional conceptualizations (see Bruhn and Rebach 2007; Carr 2002) of applied and clinical sociology (Fleischer and Winston 2018; Lehnerer and Perlstadt 2018). Examples of this expansion include public sociology (see Burawoy 2005), translational sociology (see Wethington 2015), and forensic sociology (see Kennedy 2013).…”

“…Examples of this expansion include public sociology (see Burawoy 2005), translational sociology (see Wethington 2015), and forensic sociology (see Kennedy 2013). Training programs in these and other areas of sociological practice may consider accreditation, and sociological practitioners in these and other areas of sociological practice may consider certification (Lehnerer and Perlstadt 2018). To this end, the AACS seeks to understand more about its members, their characteristics, and the value of AACS to its members by conducting a membership survey.…”

Reflections on Embeddedness in an Applied Sociology Project in Ontario

“…Our second claim is that engaging in applied sociology can provide scholars a window into how activists mobilize policy-relevant knowledge. This might be read as an extension of Lehnerer and Perlstadt (2018) when they call for a more interventionist sociology. In our case, we gave presentations to a range of organizations and their representatives.…”

“…In some cases, these studies were explicitly conceptualized within the larger transition between the archetypes of Fordism and post-Fordism, including flexible specialization (D'Apolito 2012;Kim 2010). Another subset of these papers was professional (Finkelstein 2012;Hirsch 2012) or pedagogical reflections (Bills 2008;Lehnerer and Perlstadt 2018) taking for granted the rise of precarious employment in the applied social sciences. Thus, while precarious employment has not been addressed by applied social scientists using this term, the concept and its material manifestations have been considered.…”