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The "new" policy partnership: academic researchers and government officials partnering toward social equity
Edited by Mary Gatta and Kevin P. McCabe
How can academia become more engaged in affecting social change? How can researchers build partnerships to better inform social action and agenda setting? What facilitates or constrains building relationships with other organizations? These and many other questions have been raised by many disciplines and fields as universities seek to become more engaged and as academics look for ways to influence policy and action.
When we think of external partnerships, rural sociology is not the first example to come to mind. It is a small field and even within sociology can be overlooked. But it is also a unique field. Its roots began in social action, working in partnerships beyond the academy, and these continue today. Through research and the cooperative extension system, rural sociologists work with governmental and nongovernmental bodies, bridging the worlds of the academy with the public sector.
This is the story of the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life, a unit of the US Department of Agriculture from 1919 to 1953. The Division was the first unit in the federal government devoted to sociological research. It was a pioneer in applying sociological knowledge to policy and action, and it was a leader in the development of rural sociology. In the story of the Division's 34 year history are important lessons about working with government and external partners. This article draws on a larger project analyzing the work of the Division ([45] Larson and Zimmerman, 2003) to examine lessons that are relevant today as academic disciplines seek to engage more in public scholarship and build relationships beyond the academy[1].
Introduction
Academic researchers have long debated and pondered how to be effectively engaged in public issues and social action (e.g. [70] Taylor, 1946). In our own time, debates and reflection over the role of the university, the academy, and different forms of scholarship have spurred new thinking (e.g. [8] Boyer, 1990). Disciplinary debates have emerged (e.g. [10] Burawoy, 2005) resulting in symposiums and academic journals with a wide array of responses. Some are more theoretical (e.g. [19] Etzioni, 2005; [18] Ericson, 2005), whereas others are grounded in experience (e.g. [63] Stacey, 2004;...