Criticism

Criticism
Not all those who practice sociology either as public intellectuals or as academic professionals subscribe to the specific version of "public sociology" defended by Michael Burawoy or to any version of "public sociology" at all. And in the wake of Burawoy's 2004 Presidency of the American Sociological Association, which put the theme of public sociology in the limelight, the project of public sociology has been vigorously debated on the web, in conversations among sociologists, and in a variety of academic journals.
Specifically, Burawoy's vision of public sociology has been critiqued both by "critical" sociologists and by representatives of These various discussions of public sociology have been included in forums devoted to the subject in academic such as Social Problems, Social Forces, Critical Sociology, and the British Journal of Sociology. These debates have produced both more interest in public sociology and more disagreement over what public sociology is and what its goals ought to be.
One of the most outspoken critics of public sociology was sociologist of the . Deflem argued that public sociology “is neither public nor sociology. Public sociology is not a plea to make sociology more relevant to the many publics in society nor to connect sociology democratically to political activity. Of course sociologists should be public intellectuals. But they should be and can only be public intellectuals as practitioners of the science they practice, not as activists left or right. Yet public sociology instead is a quest to subsume sociology under politics, a politics of a specific kind, not in order to foster sociological activism but to narrow down the sociological discipline to activist sociology.” . In opposition to the advent of public sociology, Deflem also privately maintained Applied sociology