Classification and hierarchy. The inequalities structure of the UAB Department of Sociology (1998-2003) as seen through the analysis of the structure of relationships (in Catalan)

Finalist work in the IX Young Sociologist Catalan Competition (2005). Published in Revista Catalana de Sociologia, 2006, volume 21: 77-112.

The purpose of this work is to describe some of the instituted inequalities in sociological field in Catalonia. With this finality the case of the Department of Sociology at Autonomous University of Barcelona along the period from 1998 to 2003 was analyzed —using Social Network Analysis, Crosstabs and Chi-Square Test— to determinate the structure of the network of citation relations established by the members of Department. This indicator of the social capital (in a Bourdieuan sense) can provide a useful approximation to symbolic inequalities depending on material inequalities, because the established relations of citation are, in fact, indicators of the material resources associated to the positions occupied by agents, and not exactly an indicator of the prestige of the agents, since the object of this analysis has not been the perceived quality of the contributions but its amount: and it is plausible to think that those that are more citated are those that have more material resources to do research, that are, also, those that can publish more. Results suggest the importance of some differences that can imply greater or smaller inequalities: the degree of division of labour (artisan sociology vs. specialized sociology), the subspeciality (empirical sociology vs. theoretical sociology), the different research areas (with the predominance of labour market sociology, industrial sociology and research in quantitative methods), and, very specially, the sex of the sujet d’investigation, one of the most important inequality axis in the Department, constituting itself a truly cleavage of gender.