Responsibility and community: Sociology, social action, and policy making at the local level

How will sociology fare in the twenty-first century? We love what we do. The problem seems to be in communicating the value of what we do to lay people outside the discipline. Sociology’s future in part will be dependent upon its practitioners demonstrating its utility in the marketplace of everyday life, assessment and decision making. This paper offers a twenty-year perspective of one sociology department’s work in a rural Appalachian region. While providing a brief overview of a series of initiatives, it explains in depth our involvement and contributions to a community-based health project.