Aspirations and opportunities

a career in sociology

Michael Banton

pp. 173-179

in: Judith Burnett, Syd Jeffers, Graham Thomas (eds), New social connections, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

In 1945, at the end of WWII, there was only one person in Britain, Morris Ginsberg, who held an appointment as Professor of Sociology. By 2001, according to a survey conducted by A.H. Halsey (2004: 225–32), there were 199 serving and 37 retired professors of sociology. Halsey threw his net widely, counting as sociologists persons who held posts in Social Policy, and others on the fringes of the subject, but nonetheless the figures testify to a truly remarkable expansion.