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022 _a1468-4446
100 _aChattoe-Brown, Edmund
_9122712
245 0 _aIs it time sociology started researching incompetence?
260 _bThe British Journal of Sociology
260 _c2024
300 _a219-231
520 _aThere appears to be a mismatch between apparent incompetence in the world and the amount of sociological research it attracts. The aim of this article is to outline a sociology of incompetence and justify its value. I begin by defining incompetence as unsatisfactory performance relative to standards. Incompetence is thus intrinsically sociological in being negotiated and socially (re)constituted. The next section foregrounds how widespread and serious incompetence is. This renders effective sociological understanding crucial to welfare. The article then systematically analyses uses of the term in the British Journal of Sociology (a good quality general journal) to assess the current state of research. This analysis fully confirms the neglect of incompetence as a research topic. The next section proposes suitable methods for preliminary incompetence research addressing distinctive challenges like the stigma of being incompetent. These sections then allow incompetence to be better contextualised by other contributing concepts like power, bureaucracy and meritocracy. The final section justifies suggestions about directions for future research.
650 _a Incompetence
_9122713
650 _a Performance Standards
_9122714
650 _a Power
_98679
650 _a Secrecy
650 _a Spoiled Identity
_947830
650 _aHarm Reduction
_9122715
856 _uhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-4446.13077
999 _c134338
_d134338