{"id":1029,"date":"2026-04-06T13:33:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T13:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2026-04-06T19:50:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T19:50:42","slug":"methods-for-as-public-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/2026\/04\/06\/methods-for-as-public-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Methods for\/as Public Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amid attacks on higher education generally, and sociology, in particular, sociologists are feeling more pressure to show the value of their work outside the academy<\/a>. First Publics<\/em>, as part of our webinar series on teaching methods<\/a>, provided a space of reflection on teaching sociological research methods for\/as public engagement on February 23rd. With two interdisciplinary and publicly-engaged scholars, Arturo Baiocchi <\/strong><\/a>(Professor in the Division of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento) and Piper Sledge<\/strong> <\/a>(Associate Professor of Gender and Women\u2019s Studies at the University of Arizona), we explored the role of sociological methods in community-engaged work. During the conversation, we considered the practices and politics of engaged research, explored the tensions of being \u201cembedded\u201d sociologists, how storytelling can enhance sociological research, and how we can get students to think about the \u201cso what\u201d of their work. The full conversation can be seen here<\/a>; the following text focuses on some of the key themes we tackled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Embedded Sociologist<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embedded sociologists<\/a> sometimes work outside the professorate in policy or applied settings, while others navigate both the academy and broader publics. Both of our panelists discussed how sociological methods play a role in their work as bridge-builders between academic disciplines and community organizations. Baiocchi acknowledged the embedded positions that many of our students will find themselves in once they graduate: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAnd as the embedded sociologist, I\u2019m trying to get them [students] to think about their work as, you know, working in the community, engaging with meso-macro issues, not necessarily micro issues\u2026 Some of them are going to be embedded within state institutions, where they\u2019re going to be working on behalf of the state, and they\u2019re going to be seen as policy analysts, and there, they have to walk that advocacy more implicitly, or just be aware of how they’re presenting it.\u201d (36:35<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Baiocchi alluded to the very real tension that being an embedded sociologist can entail, navigating who we are in different contexts and to different stakeholders, as well as negotiating our role as advocates or social scientists. Baiocchi admitted that he frequently finds himself asking, \u201cAm I an advocate, or am I a researcher?\u201d (27:37<\/a>). Further, he noted: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cBut the tension I get is, quote-unquote, being labeled an advocate. I definitely am choosing the questions we\u2019re asking, and people know this is my orientation, I\u2019m in the School of Social Work, I\u2019m a sociologist.\u201d (27:03<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In addressing this shared tension, Sledge said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI do have a very strong commitment to the stories, and so I think I fully embrace being an advocate. I am always an advocate for the way of doing, seeing, hearing, perceiving, experiencing, embodying the world, when it is not the way that one is quote-unquote supposed to.\u201d (29:51<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Storytelling and Translation<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embedded sociologists who do community-engaged research often find themselves at the intersection where the technical meets the political. Both panelists emphasized that community-engaged research requires translation<\/em> across different \u201ccultures of evidence,\u201d timelines, and institutional pressures. Publicly-engaged methods are partly interactional labor<\/em>: translating concepts like \u201crigor,\u201d \u201cresearch question,\u201d and \u201cevidence\u201d across disciplines and institutions. Sledge commented: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cEssentially, the role I play across all of these different communities is that of translator. So it\u2019s about\u2026 in some ways, I think we\u2019re all sort of inherent methodologists, right? We\u2019re all observing the world, taking in information, doing something with it.\u201d (12:37<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The panelists shared a commitment to storytelling as an essential part of doing translational work. For Baiocchi, research drives storytelling and he urged us to remember \u201cthat data tells a certain story\u201d  (25:10<\/a>). Sledge emphasized that her \u201cmethodological commitments are to storytelling. So\u2026 When I say translation, what I really mean is telling stories, and telling stories in a way that people can receive.\u201d This applies not only between academics and publics outside academia, but also across disciplinary lines. Sledge elaborated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe folks reviewing our grant reports and our proposals and things, they\u2019re not sociologists. There are words that make sense to us that don\u2019t make sense to them… And there are situations where the words are the same, but have different meanings. So there\u2019s a lot of translation, and there’s a lot of storytelling that has to happen.\u201d (14:51<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Baiocchi described an ongoing documentary about homeless encampments in Sacramento which he is working on with students called The Right to Exist. For him, the documentary has been a \u201c<\/a>kind of a pivot\u201d from doing mainly quantitative estimates of homelessness to storytelling about a particular encampment in Sacramento called Camp Resolution. Baiocchi noted that there\u2019s \u201cthe story that officially exists about this camp,\u201d and then there\u2019s the story that the documentary tries to tell from the perspective of people who lived there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The documentary focuses on a group of about 50 women who formed an encampment on a parking lot that had been designated to become a tiny home community but was abandoned by the city when its plans were deemed too expensive. The women continued to squat there and refused to leave. The city ultimately gave in to the pressure and signed a lease with the women to stay on the parking lot. Baiocchi shared his experience, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c…when I was to find out about this, I was like, this is an amazing thing. Let’s go study it. And so \u2026 we connected with the women and we decided to hold class at the camp. We would do these field trips there, and the students would interview the women and people around the community about what was this project. And, it was really important for me for the students to get that kind of on-the-ground experience, and as social workers, they’re good at having conversations, so we leaned in as a kind of a qualitative ethnography-slash-open-ended interviews, and all the students wrote their theses basically about, you know, the experiences that these women were going through.\u201d (38:16<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, a film crew was \u201ckind of buzzing around the camp\u201d but lacked access because they didn\u2019t have relationships with the women living there. For Baiocchi, this became an opportunity to take ownership and be involved in the filmmaking process, stretching himself beyond his typical identity as an \u201cegghead\u201d academic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI said, well, if you’re going to work with me and my students\u2026I wanna be a co-producer of this, and we gotta do this carefully, \u2026 we\u2019re gonna have an agreement with the women \u2026 and my students were part of that, so the filmmaking kind of ended up being a film about my class in this camp, but also about the story of this camp, as it existed.\u201d (39:41<\/a>)  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This project, he acknowledged, has pushed him into being more of an \u201cadvocate\u201d for the community, a role that has come with certain disadvantages but also some advantages. He elaborated: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI was okay with that, because I feel like the conversation about homelessness in the West Coast, but also in our country more generally, has switched to something very negative and very punitive, and I am concerned about this massive criminalization of people experiencing homelessness that we\u2019re seeing. So I thought this would be a great counter-narrative of, okay\u2026 Why are these women taking over this parking lot? And what is the city going to do? And so, we documented over a year and a half, kind of, what was going on in this parking lot\u2026. So that\u2019s the nice thing about being an academic, a sociologist: opportunities sometimes open themselves up, and I said, why not? Let’s try to do this.\u201d  (40:25<\/a>) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So What?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As embedded sociologists and the storytellers, both Baiocchi and Sledge are concerned with pushing students to see the value of sociological research beyond the academy. Being able to communicate sociological methods goes beyond considering other sociologists or scholars in the discipline, but thinking about how our interests connect to broader structures and to larger audiences. Sledge described that her teaching is driven by what she calls the two \u201cmost obnoxious but most important questions\u201d one faces during graduate school. Namely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSo what? And, what is this a case of? Which are really, really hard for students to cope with, I’ll say. And I hate asking them, because it feels kind of mean when somebody’s telling you about their interest and their research question, and you say, okay, so what, right? That doesn’t feel very good. But it’s in the service of making those connections that the things we’re interested in, we\u2019re interested for a reason.\u201d (44:14<\/a>) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

By asking students the \u201cso what\u201d of their work, the \u201cwhat is this a case of\u201d questions, instructors challenge students to connect across various levels of sociological inquiry. In doing so, students begin to understand the role of sociological research methods by addressing the larger implications of such work. She described: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAnd [students] connect to these macro-meso-level structural things, power things.\u2026It can be really hard to think beyond, okay, the only answer to \u2018so what\u2019 is, well, how can I influence policy, right? But when we’re thinking about public engagement, and we’re thinking about the audiences for our work, suddenly the \u2018so what\u2019 expands. It becomes much more than policy. It becomes much more than, is some other sociologist going to be interested in this. Particularly because a lot of what I do tends to be in areas that Kristin Schilt calls the not-sociology problem. You talk about your work, and people say, well, that\u2019s neat, but it’s not sociology, right? And one of the most, important things I think I do when teaching methods to students, is helping them see that their work matters beyond the academy and beyond their personal interests, that every question we can ask, everything we\u2019re curious about is actually connected to these more and more macro-level kinds of need to understand how the world is working, what\u2019s our place in it, and\u2026 how might our work be picked up by someone?\u201d (44:37<\/a>)  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Baiocchi expanded on this notion of going beyond policy implications when considering the \u201cso what.\u201d In doing so, he further reinforced the cyclical nature of what it is to teach and consider methods, not only focusing on the doing, but also on what it means to be responsible consumers and disseminators of knowledge. He said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cResearch, for me, is in the middle, is that, yes, you can mobilize research for advocacy or a policy, but to me, it’s understanding the limits of what you can and cannot say with research. And to me, I use this kind of framework of information literacy. What is the information out there? What does the evidence actually say about homelessness or poverty or inequality in California?\u201d (37:47<\/a>) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We find time and time again that teaching research methods isn\u2019t about methods alone; it\u2019s a complicated matter regarding the political environment in which we operate (Webinar 1<\/a>) and here it\u2019s about delivering and communicating stories of the community and the people we work with to the broader audience. We, sociologists, do not only teach students methods to seek social facts, but we also teach them to be publicly-engaged scholars, embedded sociologists, and storytellers who connect the two worlds of academia and the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid attacks on higher education generally, and sociology, in particular, sociologists are feeling more pressure to show the value of their work outside the academy. First Publics, as part of our webinar series on teaching methods, provided a space of reflection on teaching sociological research methods for\/as public engagement on February 23rd. With two interdisciplinary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2218,"featured_media":1045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dialogues"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/files\/2026\/04\/Webinar-Methods-foras-Public-Engagement-1-e1775504967689.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}