From 1969 to 1992, he served as director of the audiovisual production unit of the national office of the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia. He worked part-time as a field reporter on disability issues for National Public Radio from 1982 to 1983. His reports included an exploration of London, England, using his long (blind) cane.

He also wrote articles for the Journal of Exploratory Radio and Airwaves. Interested in identity claims made by such groups as the Black Panthers, Bates began reading in discourse analysis, social praxis, Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis of social interaction, conversation analysis, ethnomethodology, philosophy of language and philosophy of science. He attended seminars, colloquia, and data analysis workshops at Temple and University of Pennsylvania in conversation analysis, ethnomethodology, and other approaches to the analysis of social interaction.

He left the American Friends Service Committee in 1992. He entered the Graduate Program of Vermont College, pursuing a self-designed masters program in sociology with a specialty in ethnomethodology. He continued these independent studies in the Graduate College of The Union Institute, receiving the Ph.D. in ethnomethodology in 2000.

Bates lives in eastern Pennsylvania. He teaches sociology part-time at nearby colleges. His current interest is in the sociology of adult knowledge.