A small but growing share of sociological research recognizes the importance of perceptions of the future for explaining social outcomes. This article, taking a sociology of knowledge perspective, provides a systematic study of sociological scholarship dealing empirically with perceptions of the future. It is based on a qualitatively driven mixed methods analysis of 571 sociological research articles published between 1950 and 2019 and distinguishes between three clusters of scholarship: in the first cluster authors consider future orientations as either dependent or independent variable; in the second cluster they analyze the multifaceted ways in which actors imagine the future; and in the third cluster they are interested in the politically contested construction and diffusion of future orientations. By investigating these clusters, the article demonstrates how sociologists pay attention to future orientations in a broad spectrum of sociological fields, using a variety of methods and asking a wide set of questions about assessments of the future. The future is increasingly a realm of sociological analysis. We show how this field of research is structured and has developed over time. Elaborating on different facets of research that so far operate largely in isolation from each other, we aim to contribute to the development of the field. Sociology could benefit from more systematically integrating perceptions of the future – as they are reflected in actor expectations, aspirations, and future beliefs – into the discipline's empirical investigations and explanatory models and from integrating the existing knowledge on these issues better.

社会学研究中一小部分但不断增长的研究认识到了对未来的理解对于解释社会成果的重要性。本文从知识社会学的角度出发，提供了对社会学学术研究的系统研究，该研究以经验的方式处理了对未来的看法。它基于对1950年至2019年发表的571项社会学研究文章进行了定性驱动的混合方法分析，并区分了三类奖学金：在第一类中，作者将未来方向视为因变量或自变量。在第二组中，他们分析了演员想象未来的多方面方式。在第三个集群中，他们对政治上有争议的建构和对未来方向的传播很感兴趣。通过研究这些集群，本文展示了社会学家如何使用各种方法并针对未来的评估提出了一系列问题，从而关注广泛的社会学领域中的未来方向。未来越来越成为社会学分析的领域。我们展示了这个研究领域的结构和发展趋势。阐述到目前为止到目前为止很大程度上彼此孤立的研究的不同方面，我们致力于为该领域的发展做出贡献。社会学可以从更系统地整合对未来的看法中受益，因为它们反映在演员的期望，抱负和未来信念中，可以纳入该学科的实证研究和解释模型，并可以更好地整合有关这些问题的现有知识。