Department of Sociology

James L. McCartney
Professor Emeritus  

James McCartney stepped down from department chair in 1999 after six years of service. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and been in our department since 1965. His specialty areas include science studies, social organization, and East Asia.

Research Interests

My primary research interests are in the sociology of science and relate to the effects of funding on scientific research. For the most part I have concentrated on the social sciences, with an occasional foray into the natural sciences (astronomy). My initial question was how the conditions of available funding had affected patterns in research, both substantively and in terms of methods used. Later I became interested in how certain disciplines were able to articulate their needs with new vocabularies of funding and budgeting.

One paper from this line of research remains to be published. I presented a paper at an international science conference on how astronomers were able to reconfigure their research and instrument needs to fit into the concept of "establishing priorities", a feature of Planned Program Budgeting Systems. This paper needs revision before it is submitted to a sociology journal.

More recently I have explored ways to combine my interests in the sociology of science with my newly emerging interests in East Asia. I traveled to Korea in 1991, 1992 and 1996, and explored plans with Korean scientists and journalists to collect data on the Korean government's effort to recruit expatriate Korean scientists. Since I have been chair of the Sociology Department for the past four years, I have had little time to pursue these initial contacts. I plan to return to Korea and attempt to reestablish contacts and identify data sources to address the "reverse brain drain" issue.

Courses Taught

Senior Seminar
Social Deviance

312 Middlebush Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211-6100
(573) 882-8331
Fax: (573) 884-6430