ART AND SOCIETY(e.g., Britt 1989), or more fundamental theoretical
shifts take place in a manner described by Kuhn
(1961). When problems cannot be studied using
existing methodological and statistical techniques,
new techniques are developed. For example, the
computer was developed under a contract from
the Census Bureau so that the 1950 census could
be conducted, and advances in area sampling theo-
ry were stimulated by the Department of Com-
merce needing to get better unemployment esti-
mates (Rossi 1986). Ragin (1987) developed
qualitative comparative analysis to permit the rig-
orous analysis of relatively rare events such as
revolutions. Yet the applied implications of being
able to study the alternative combinations of con-
ditions that might give rise to particular outcomes
has immense applied value (Britt 1998).
The continuing pressure on applied sociology
to adapt to the needs of clients has had two impor-
tant second-order effects beyond the development
of theory and method. The nature of graduate
training for applied sociologists is changing by
virtue of the wider repertoire of skills needed by
applied sociologists, and the dilemmas faced by
sociologists vis-à-vis their clients are being con-
fronted, and norms regarding the appropriate-
ness of various courses of action are being developed.
A universal component of graduate applied
education is the internship. Learning by doing,
and experiencing the array of problems associated
with designing and conducting research under
time and budget constraints, while still having
supportive ties with the academic program, are
very important. The range and depth of coursework
in qualitative and quantitative methods and statis-
tics is increasing in applied programs to prepare
students for the prospect of needing to employ
techniques as varied as structural equations, focus
groups, archival analysis, and participant observa-
tion in order to deal with the complexity of the
problems requiring analysis.
There have been corresponding changes in
the area of theory, with more emphasis given to
moving back and forth from theory to applied
problem. And there have been increases in courses
designed to train students in the other skills re-
quired for successful applied work: networking,
problem decomposition, and dealing with client-
sociologist dilemmas.
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quality and the Possibilities of Church–based Inter-
vention. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 23, (forthcoming).DAVID BRITTART AND SOCIETY
There is no consensus as to what art is nor, until
the 1970s, had sociologists expended much energy
on its study or on the development of a sociology
of the arts. While in Europe art had longer been of
interest to sociologists than in the United States,
even there it had not developed into an identifi-
able field with clear and internationally accepted
parameters. As recently as 1968 the term sociology
of art was not indexed in the International Encyclopaedia
of the Social Sciences, which sought to sum and
assess the thinking and accomplishments in the
rapidly expanding social sciences of the post-World
War II period. Yet by the end of the century the
study of art had moved into the mainstream of
sociological theory and was rapidly becoming a