Scientific Discourse and Scientific Institutionalisation Processes in Sociology

Abstract

Different trends in sociology of science have often paid exclusive attention whether to the study of scientific discourses, or to that of the institutional structures and interactions which product them. This paper is an attempt to relate both levels of analysis, and to apply the outcomes to the sociological study of sociology. On the one hand, a conceptual system which tries to synthesize some contributions made by those tendencies is outlined. On the other hand, this system is applied to the empirical analysis of Papers; the aim of this analysis is to show that scientific discourses have to be related to the social practices of the communities which product them. The results of this analyris show the existence of undesired effects in the process of institutionalizatzon of catalan sociology along the last twenty years; these results suggest the necessity of re-examining the traditional models of scientific institutionalization.