Post:	Emeritus Professor
Location:	Freeman Centre
Email:	J.Platt@sussex.ac.uk
Telephone numbers
Internal:	2446 or 8890
UK:	(01273) 606755 ext. 2446 or (01273) 678890
International:	+44 1273 606755 ext. 2446 or +44 1273 678890

Biography

Jennifer came to Sussex in 1964 as a lecturer after taking an MA in Sociology at the University of Chicago and working on the 'Affluent Worker' project. She retired formally as a professor in 2002, but remains active in her own research, as a member of the editorial boards of two journals, and as current Chair of the Section on the History of Sociology of the American Sociological Association. She has been active in the British Sociological Association, serving as editor of its journal Sociology and as its President, and her history of the BSA was published in 2003. She has also been active in the International Sociological Association, serving as a member of its executive for 8 years and as book review editor for its journal International Sociology, and writing its official history. She is an academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Research

Her research interests are in aspects of research method, and in the history of sociology, including its research methods. Within the history of sociology, she has also worked especially on intellectual migration and its consequences, on the 'Chicago School' and its methods, on the idea of the 'case study', on the careers of women in the discipline, on teaching and textbooks, and on the functions and dynamics of learned societies as part of the social structure of social science. Her current work includes exploration of the social structure of international anglophone sociology.

Teaching

Jennifer no longer takes part in undergraduate teaching, but continues to supervise research students working in areas close to her research interests.

Publications

A History of Sociological Research Methods in America , 1920-1960, Cambridge University Press, 1996.

'Migration and globalization in intellectual life: a case study of the post-1956 exodus from Hungary' (with Phoebe Isard), pp. 210-232 in ed. A. Brah, M. J.Hickman and M. Mac an Ghaill, Global Futures: Migration, Environment and Globalization, Macmillan 1999

The British Sociological Association: a Sociological History, Durham : Sociology Press, 2003 

'How distinctive are Canadian research methods?', Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 43.2: 205-231, 2006

'The women's movement and British journal articles, 1950-2004', Sociology 41: 961-975, 2007.

'Case study', pp 100-118 in ed. William Outhwaite and Stephen P. Turner, The Sage Handbook of Social Science Methodology, London: Sage, 2007.

'Introduction', 'British sociological textbooks from 1949' and 'Conclusion', pp. 147-164, 165-182, 323-333 in Current Sociology 36,2, Monograph 1, Introductions to Sociology: History, National Traditions, Paedagogies, March 2008.