Sociological Metatheory: A Defense of a Subfield by a Delineation of Its Parameters

Even though metatheory, and more generally metasociology, already encompasses a considerable and burgeoning body of work, it remains an ill-defined area within sociology. In spite of, or perhaps because of, its inchoate state, metatheory has recently come under substantial attack. The recent spate of assaults on metatheory by a number of important sociological theorists can be seen as evidence of the coming of age of metatheory as an area of thought and research. Were it not of increasing significance, metatheory would not have been singled out for attack by such thinkers. These critiques will be used in this paper as a springboard to begin to define and clarify sociological metatheory. It is also the aim of this paper to position metatheory in the context of meta-analyses in fields outside of sociology, metasociology in general, and other specific types of meta-analysis within sociology. Still another goal is to lay out some of the issues that metatheory needs to confront in the near future.

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