Scholarly debate

Our reading for tomorrow, Promises I Can Keep, was part of an intense scholarly debate a few years ago. A respected African American sociologist, Eli Anderson, accused Edin and Kefalas of borrowing heavily from his work on African American young adults without properly crediting him. There were accusations on both sides, complicated by the fact that both Edin and Anderson were faculty members at University of Pennsylvania (where I received my PhD).

I know Eli and Kathy only casually. When I was at Penn I never had a class with Eli and knew only a little about his work. I've met Kathy a few times over the years, but don't know her well. Several prominent family sociologists came to Kathy's defense, and in doing so, probably overstating the nature of Eli's claims and understated the value of his work. This led to a second round of accusations and calls of dishonesty.

I've debated about whether to raise this issue in class, and if so, how. I think rather than talking about it when we discuss this material substantively, I'll talk about it when we discuss methods. the issue is really who owns ideas and how do we build on the work of others.

I've attached a link to the whole debate, for those interested.

http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes/v52/n07/spout.html