Entry on “Accreditation” for Dictionnaire de sociologie clinique

Abstract

This reprint presents a brief history and overview of the Commission on the Accreditation of Programs in Applied and Clinical Sociology (CAPACS), specifically in the context of global higher education accreditation; the increasing demand to accredit disciplinary and professional programs in the social and behavioral sciences as a process of external quality review; and the oversight of higher education accreditation commissions. Particular attention focuses on the creation of CAPACS in 1995 (originally known as the Commission on Applied and Clinical Sociology or CACS), as a joint initiative of the Society for Applied Sociology (SAS) and the Sociological Practice Association (SPA), which merged in 2006, to form the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology (AACS); CAPACS accreditation standards; and the benefits of CAPACS Program accreditation in the discipline of Sociology and the profession of sociological practice. Reprint of “Accréditation,” in Vandevelde-Rougale Agnés & Pascal Fugier (eds.), Dictionnaire de sociologie clinique, Toulouse, ERES, to be published in 2018.