Sociology Department Chair Andrew Cherlin originally intended to be an engineer. He completed an undergraduate degree in engineering, but the social sciences lured him away from that pursuit and into the world of teaching and research.
He took a few moments to discuss his transition into sociology and his experiences in the field with The News-Letter.
The News-Letter (N-L): Why sociology?
Andrew Cherlin (AC): Because I’m interested in social issues. I’m interested in why there is inequality between people in groups. I’m interested in why some people are advantaged and others not so advantaged. I’m interested in minority groups and how they’re fairing. Like most sociologists, I came to this field because I have an interest in society and how well it’s taking care of its citizens.
N-L: How long have you been teaching?
AC: I came here in 1976 as an assistant professor thinking I’d stay at Johns Hopkins for five or 10 years and here I am, still here in 2010, much to my surprise. So I’ve been at Hopkins for 34 years now.
N-L: Why do you like it here so much?
AC: Hopkins has been a very good place to do a combination of research and teaching. It allows the time to do some good research; it also allows you to teach interesting and intelligent undergraduates. It’s a good place to be a college professor.
N-L: What kind of research have you been working on?
AC: Most of my research has been about the huge changes that have happened to American family life over the last 50 years; the rise in divorce, the rising in living together outside of marriage, the increase in children born outside of marriage, and other changes which have turned upside down the American family from what it used to be like when I was a kid.
N-L: What sorts of things have you been discovering?
AC: I’ve looked at the effects of divorce on children and found that while most children cope successfully with a divorce it does raise the risk of not graduating from high school or college. I’ve looked most recently at the instability of children’s lives in this country, that is, the number of parents and parents’ partners who have come in and out of the household as a parent may marry, divorce and take on a boyfriend or a girlfriend. It looks to me as though the sheer number of transitions that children go through in their family life can be difficult for them.
N-L: Do your research findings influence your life at home?
AC: My research has made me understand my life at home. I’m not sure it’s influence what I do, but it has caused me to have a better sense of why I am doing what I’m doing.
N-L: You often write for major newspapers. Why?
AC: I like bringing my ideas to a general audience, if possible, so I’ve always sought to write pieces for newspapers and magazines as well as doing my academic writing.
I had an article in the Wall-Street Journal in September on the way in which working class Americans seemed to be hit hardest in the great recession we’re enduring. And how they are marrying less as a result, going to church less as a result and disengaging from the middle class in a troubling way.
So having found that out, I wanted to get that information out to the widest audience, so I’ve done that a lot. I also talk to reporters. Rare is the week that I don’t talk to a reporter from one national newspaper or magazine, mostly about trends in family life.
N-L: What are you hoping the general public will do with information?
AC: I’m hoping that general audiences will first be sensitive to the problems, that is, they’ll notice them.
And secondly that they’ll want to take some steps to help those who aren’t doing as well. I’m hoping to have a small influence on public policy as a result of what I write, but I have no illusions that I, myself, am going to greatly change public policy just because of what I’ve found. But if I could have a small effect sometimes in a limited way on policies surrounding families in the U.S., I’d be happy.
N-L: What have your findings encouraged you do idealize policy making?
AC: I’m fundamentally on the liberal side on most issues, but I try very hard not to let that influence my research.
I did some research on the effects of changes in the welfare laws on low-income families. I thought there was going to be huge negative effects of the new welfare laws on children.
Our research found that the picture was much more mixed. Some children did well some didn’t. But I reported my findings anyway. That’s what makes me a social scientist. An activist won’t report his findings unless they fit his biases. A social scientist reports them anyway.
So I want to be upfront about what I think, what my values are, but I want to try to make them not influence what I tell others about the facts.
N-L: How do you go about doing social science research?
AC: I’ve gotten a lot of support from government grants to do large-scale surveys of families, and I do mostly statistical work on them.
However, I’ve also partnered with people who are doing in depth observational studies, in which the sociologist spends lots of time with families. So of late I’ve been trying to combine two methods, doing the statistical demographic research that really I’m trained to do, but also observational more in depth research that anthropologists have been train to do. So I’m trying to put together both to get a picture of what’s happening.
N-L: Do you think policy-makers today take into account enough social science findings?
AC: I think social science has some influence on government, but not a lot. In the end I think much of policy depends on people’s values and I can’t tell people what values to have, I can only tell them what I think is happening. So, I know that social science can only have a limited effect, but a limited effect is better than no effect in my view.
N-L: What kind of person would be suited to study social science?
AC: Someone who’s got an interest in what’s happening in the social world, who wants to get a high level of expertise in how to study what he or she sees is going on around him or her in the world.
I think you have to have a strong interest in the world around you to be a good social scientist, but it’s easy to do that because most of us do, in fact, have an interest in what goes on around us.
I also think social scientists have to be willing to master some technique that takes time and study, such as statistical modeling which is important although not the whole story. You have to be willing to take the time to develop a set of tools to better study what is happening to the individuals and groups around you.
And if that sounds good to you, than maybe you should be a social scientist.
N-L: How did you decide it was the right profession for you?
AC: I was an engineering major as an undergraduate, but discovered late in my undergraduate career that I really cared more about social science. I came from a largely white suburb and I was interested in integration and educational inequality. Those issues grabbed me and pulled me in the direction of social science. I actually taught high school for a couple of years, teaching social science and then went on to get a PHD.
N-L: What are some of the differences you noticed between teaching high school and college?
AC: College students are better behaved and usually do the homework. High school students are all over the map.
But the way you teach students is, I think similar, for high school students and college students. The way you explain things, try to draw them in, get them involved, is similar, and I’ve found that high school teaching was great experience for managing classrooms in college. I think the art of teaching is similar for high school and college students. High school teachers learn how to handle large groups, problems and difficulties better than others, so I think it’s actually good training.
N-L: How do you devote your working time to teaching, writing, and research?
AC: I think it’s divided pretty equally. I’m teaching introductory sociology to 80 undgrads right now, which takes some time but I enjoy it.
I’m also chairing the department of sociology, which takes some time. I’m running the research center, and I’m doing my own research.
So most professors you’ll find here work fairly long hours, teaching, research and administration and that’s because they like doing what they’re doing. So I think basically being a professor at Hopkins breaks down to more or less equal amounts of teaching and administration on one side and research on another.
N-L: What are your goals for the next few years?
AC: I’m interested now in what’s happening to people who have a high school degree, the young adults who have a high school degree but no college education, because those are the ones who have been hit hardest by the changes in our economy as factory jobs have moved over seas.
I’m interested in what their young adult lives are like. Why and whether they marry, and if not why not. Why and whether they go to church, and if not, why not.
I’m getting a sense that their lives are very difficult right now, in that their really disengaging from the college educated, so that the gap between college educated young adults and high school educated young adults is growing bigger.
I want to investigate why that is and what the results are and perhaps in a few years write a book about that.
N-L: Have you written books before?
AC: Yes, I have. I’ve written several books as a matter of fact, one of which came out in 2009 that I just did a provost lecture for.
The provost has been doing these lectures this semester where he sends professors from one campus to another and just last night I did a provost lecture at SAIS, the School of Advanced International Studies.
N-L: How does writing a newspaper article compare to writing a book?
AC: There is no comparison. A book for me takes years, it takes a very broad view of a situation, it takes lots of reading and research and is a much bigger deal than an article. Articles can be difficult, but at least they are limited in what you say and what you have to know. A book is a big deal.
N-L: How is it to interview people personally for your research?
AC: It’s fun, but it’s almost as if you need three pairs of eyes when you interview someone as a social scientist — the first two to see them, the third eye just to notice what you’re seeing and notice what they’re saying to keep in the background and to keep you thinking about what’s happening and what it means.
So it’s more difficult than casual conversation because you have to concentrate hard on what’s happening and why. It’s an art, but it’s one that’s necessary if you want to be a good social scientist.
N-L: What are the trends in social science like?
AC: Yes. In sociology there used to be a virtual war between the statistical sociologists and the ones who went out and spent lots of time with the people they were studying. Now, scholars are combining both methods, seeing them as complimentary and putting them both together to get a broad view of the problems they study.
N-L: Do you have any remaining thoughts for students?
AC: I’ve been here 34 years and am still enjoying Johns Hopkins very much and perhaps more than ever. Because of the good students, because of our new dean who is a sociologist and because of the interesting research I’m still doing.
