TEACHING SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE - A LABORATORY REINFORCEMENT OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL HERITAGE

Sociology was founded in the nineteenth century as a discipline for th e scientific study of social order. Recently this scientific foundatio n has been attacked by both liberals and conservatives. The attacks ha ve left the discipline vulnerable both inside and outside academia. Th is paper argues that other sciences have faced similar problems. By fo llowing their example and by teaching sociology courses as laboratory sciences, we are most likely to legitimate the knowledge of the discip line and overcome public and student skepticism. Improvements in compu ter software offer a growing number of laboratory options for classroo m use, including surveys of students, which permit scientific demonstr ations of social facts. Although such surveys are not new to the disci pline, they should be used more frequently to overcome students' skept icism and to motivate students to pursue independent social investigat ions.