Sociology prof integrates love of rock & roll into research

William Bielby had the unique distinction of performing with his recently reunited college band at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, of which he is the former president.

Of course it is the latter distinction, as well as being a highly respected scholar of organizational inequality and cultural production, that put Bielby at the top of the list of candidates for a senior position in Penn's Sociology Department last year.

Many thought that after spending over 25 years at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Bielby would not consider transferring to another institution. But Bielby said that Penn's Sociology Department and resources like the Wharton and Annenberg schools made the University a perfect match for him.

"We quickly decided that he was going to be a real catch for the department," said Paul Allison, chairman of the Sociology Department.

Besides conducting research in social inequality, Bielby has applied his knowledge outside of academia. About 15 years ago, he became involved as an expert witness in workplace discrimination class-action lawsuits involving chains like Home Depot and, currently, Wal-Mart.

"When [the court cases] came along in the '90s, it was really an opportunity for me to find out whether what I thought I knew as a social scientist was relevant in the real world," Bielby said.

His experience in the courtroom has led him to explore how the social sciences are used to frame legal battles in the real world.

And influencing that world was one of his primary motivations for becoming a scholar.

"Like many people that went to school in the 1960s, the initial draw of academic life [for me] was an opportunity to ... address issues that have to do with social change and social justice," Bielby recounted.

Perhaps the most peculiar of his current projects deals with the rise of amateur rock-and-roll bands in the 1960s -- a phenomenon he himself participated in as a teenager in the suburbs of Chicago.

"Basically what I am doing is looking at which kinds of young people were aware about the music and resourceful enough to put together rock-and-roll bands before there was any certain model for doing so," Bielby said.

Subtle dynamics of race, class and gender provide the project with a unique sociological perspective. For example, Bielby is exploring why teenage girls did not participate in the phenomenon, since this was before the notion that rock and roll was male-dominated had formed.

Besides producing interesting sociological results, the project has made Bielby reevaluate his own life choices. Having heard the tough stories of dozens of musicians, he now knows for certain that he made the right decision by getting involved in music while he was young and then coming back to it when he could afford to do it at his leisure.

Bielby's multidimensionality does not seem to have gone unnoticed.

"He is a rare guy in the sense that he does a lot of things that are usually not packaged in one person," Associate Dean for Social Science Herbert Smith said.

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