SSSP VISIT US AT WWW.SSSP1.ORG EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS Educational Problems Division Newsletter of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Volume 9, Issue 1 INSIDE THIS ISSUE... Greetings from the Chair 1 Chicago a Model for the Nation [1] 2-3 2010 Annual Meeting Call for Papers & Congratulations 4 2010 Program Schedule 5 Agent of Social Change 6 Upcoming Conferences 7 Message from the Editor 8 A Message from the Chair... Hello Educational Problems Division Members, I am delighted to serve as your new Chair and want to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to our former Chair, Otis Grant, who has not only provided excellent leadership these past years, but also assisted in my transition. I also want to acknowledge Maria Luna-Duarte whose hard work has made both our newsletter and our new listserv possible. Maria is not only a great student and colleague but also a person committed to social and educational justice and we are lucky to have her as our newsletter editor. I wanted to take the opportunity to say a few things to you in my capacity as Chair of the Educational Problems Division. First, thanks to all of you who participated in this year’s meetings in San Francisco. Given the economy we did not anticipate such a good turnout and we were very pleased. Your participation helped make the meeting a great success. Second, though it is early in the year, I am interested in soliciting your comments and suggestions about how to improve our division: What would you like to see change about how the Ed Problems Division is organized or what its sessions include? What would you like to see change about the reception and business meeting and what might make you more likely to attend them? What suggestions do you have for increasing membership? Please feel free to use the listserv or the newsletter to submit your ideas, comments, etc. Thanks to those of you who have already commented. Please know that we appreciate your input and that your ideas will be presented to our membership. Working in a department with an explicit focus on social justice I am particularly excited about our upcoming meetings in Atlanta and I hope you are as well. We have some great sessions planned and I want to thank colleagues who have agreed to serve as organizers for these sessions, Otis Grant and James Ainsworth. It is also time to submit papers to our Division and co-sponsored sessions and to encourage students to submit to the Paper Competition. We have a new award to honor the work of an engaged scholar this year (see page 4) and hope you will consider submitting your work. To get us all in the right frame of mind for the upcoming meetings, we will be including essays by members and noted activists/scholars whose work on social justice has helped advance the field. Check out our special contribution by activist-scholar Kevin Kumashiro and our interview with Erica Meiners in the newsletter! I hope you are all healthy, busy, feeling productive in your work and hopeful for our future. I look forward to working with you and seeing you at the meetings! Best wishes, Pamela Pamela Anne Quiroz, Ph.D. Professor of Educational Policy Studies & Sociology University of Illinois-Chicago Division Chair, 2009-2011 The Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting Information! THEME: SOCIAL JUSTICE WORK August 13-15, 2010 The Sheraton Atlanta Hotel 165 Courtland Street NE, Atlanta, GA For more information and to register please visit the SSSP’s website at: http://www.sssp1.org Chicago a Model for the Nation [1] Special Contribution of : Dr. Kevin Kumashiro, University of Illinois in Chicago In the mid-1990s, then-President Bill Clinton called the reforms underway in Chicago Public Schools “a model for the nation” for its use of standards, high-stakes testing, school accountability, and centralized regulation of teachers and schools (Lipman, 2004). Today, the current president Barack Obama is similarly looking to Chicago, this time by selecting former CEO of Chicago Public Schools Arne Duncan to be U.S. Secretary of Education and to lead educational reform at a time when the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (dubbed “No Child Left Behind” under former President George W. Bush) is slated for Congressional reauthorization and when an unprecedented amount of federal money (in the form of stimulus funding) is earmarked for public schools. Duncan’s signature reform initiative in Chicago, “Renaissance 2010,” is expected to be the model for nationwide reform … and thus, a critical look at Chicago is imperative. Understanding education reform in Chicago, and who steers such reform, requires understanding nationally the political Right. The Right is difficult to characterize because it consists of hundreds of groups that differ ideologically and politically, but together, the Right has functioned and continues to function as a social movement (Apple, 2006). Historically in the United States, the Right emerged as the result of various groups coalescing for a common purpose and against a common enemy. The purpose was to challenge the legal and cultural changes regarding race, social class, gender, and other social markers that were brought about by the civil rights movements in the 1950s and 60s. The enemy, at least early on, was the “liberal establishment,” which steered and supported these movements (Duggan, 2003). In the early 1970s, a group of conservatives, particularly philanthropists with family-business fortunes, came together and formed the Philanthropy Roundtable in order to strategize about how to use their funding for building a Rightist movement that would advance public policy agendas that were pro-business and anti-social welfare (Lakoff, 2004). Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the Right would emerge as an interconnected web of foundations, think tanks, advocacy organizations, and political action committees with aligned missions and coordinated strategies, often facilitated by shared board members, and often steered by the foundations. In recent years, the Rightist movement has seen a significant shift as the guidance for policy comes less from the leadership “above” and more from the ideas “around.” Rightist foundations and leaders have needed to provide less explicit direction because the discourses that frame public-policy discussions have already been shaped by the Right, such that without realizing it, many people and organizations are advocating Rightist goals even without identifying with the Right (Lakoff, 2004). Chicago’s move toward alternative teacher certification (to teach in public schools) provides one example of the interconnectedness of organizations; of initiatives that undermine university-based teacher preparation; and of foundations that have not and close about sixty so-called “failing” schools by the year 2010. The blueprint of Renaissance 2010 lies in a report titled, “Left Behind,” released a year earlier by the Commercial Club of Chicago, which mapped out a strategy for schools to align more closely with the goals of the business elite (Fleming, Greenlee, Gutstein, Lipman, & Smith, 2009). Central to that blueprint was the creation of 100 new charter schools,managed by for-profit businesses, and freed from legal mandates to have Local School Councils, teacher unions, and even, in some of these schools, certified teachers. To date, seventy-five new schools have opened, and progress is mixed (Fleming, Greenlee, Gutstein, Lipman, & Smith, 2009). Many of them are charter schools that serve fewer low-income, limited English-language proficient and disabled students than regular neighborhood public schools. More than a third of them are in communities that are not high-needs areas. District wide high-school test scores have not risen, and most of the lowest performing high schools saw scores drop. All this, at the same time that Chicago Public Schools is opening the door to certifying and hiring new teachers with less initial preparation than that offered in traditional programs. This should not be surprising. As Christine Sleeter (2008) argues in her analysis of Rightist initiatives, “external assaults that have their origins in global economic and political restructuring aim not only to deprofessionalize teaching by devaluing professional preparation of teachers, but also to undermine equity and democracy by restructuring education around corporate needs” (1947). The influence over public education by the business sector nationwide can be traced back at least a century to the period of 1890-1940 when public schools were consolidating into larger and larger school districts. As cities became increasingly diverse from immigration, and as members of the working class won more and more seats on city governments, the business elite made concerted efforts to take control of local school boards, not only by getting business leaders elected onto school boards, but also by structuring the boards to reflect the centralized control and bureaucracy that were integral to the large industries that were emerging at this time (Tyack, 1974). That is, the business elite influenced school governance not only by constituting its governing bodies, but also by structuring its model of management. The business elite eventually turned their attention to higher education as well, as in the 1950s when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and corporate activists began creating a network of organizations on university campuses that aimed to cultivate in the next generation of leaders pro-business values (Mittal & Gustin, 2006). Perhaps the most concerted effort to influence public policy began in 1972 with the formation of the Business Roundtable, consisting of the top 300 CEOs in the nation, which aimed to influence public policy in ways that advanced the interests of the business elite. The Business Roundtable focused its attention on public education in 1989 as it called for six “national education goals” and, soon after, nine “essential components of a successful education system” (Business Roundtable, 1992). This call put pressure on states to move towards an outcomes-based model of education reform, using standardized tests to measure student and teacher performance, with sanctions and rewards for failure or success. Reinforcing the pressure put on states was a large network of influential foundations, centers, universities, and public media, assembled by the Roundtable, that consisted of such entities as the Annenberg Center, Broad Foundation, Education Trust, Harvard Graduate School, and most newspaper editorial boards (Emery & Ohanian, 2004). In so doing, the Business Roundtable effectively laid out a blueprint for standards-based reform, begun in the Reagan years, but culminating in No Child Left Behind, that has become so taken-for-granted as the way to think about education quality and education reform that even Democrats, from Clinton onward, have put forth proposals that were framed by these concepts (Rudalevige, 2003). The reforms of public schooling and of teacher certification in Chicago reflect a broader movement from the Right to reshape public institutions, particularly in ways that privilege the interest of business, and as seen with Renaissance 2010, in ways that deepen inequities based on race, social class, and other social markers. The American public should be wary of using Chicago as a model for the nation without critically and carefully examining the implicit purposes and consequences of such changes. Notes [1] An earlier version of this essay appeared as a commentary in the January 12, 2009 online edition of Education Week (http://www.edweek.org), and a longer treatment of this topic is forthcoming (Kumashiro, in press). References Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, God, and inequality. New York: Routledge. Business Roundtable. (1992). The essential components of a successful education system: Putting policy into practice. New York: The Business Roundtable. Duggan, L. (2003). The twilight of equality?: Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy. Boston: Beacon Press. Emery, K., & Ohanian, S. (2004). Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? New York: Heinemann. Fleming, J., Greenlee, A., Gutstein, E., Lipman, P., & Smith, J. (2009). Examining CPS’ plan to close, phase out, consolidate, turn-around 22 schools. Chicago: Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education, University of Illinois at Chicago. Kumashiro, K. K. (in press). Seeing the bigger picture: Troubling movements to end teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education. Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t think of an elephant: Know your values and frame the debate. New York: Chelsea Green. Lipman, P. (2004). High states education: Inequality, globalization, and urban school reform. New York: Routledge. Mittal, A., & Gustin, F. (2006). Turning the tide: Challenging the Right on campus. Oakland, CA: Oakland Institute and Institute for Democratic Education and Culture. Rudalevige, A. (2003). The politics of No Child Left Behind. Education Next, 3(4), 63-69. Sleeter, C. E. (2008). Equity, democracy, and neoliberal assaults on teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(8), 1947-1957. Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2010 Graduate Student Paper Competition Call for Papers Deadline: 5/14/2010 The Educational Problems Division announces its 2010 Graduate Student Paper Competition. Papers must address a contemporary educational problem and may be empirical or theoretical in nature. Authors must be current graduate students or recent graduates with conferral dates no earlier than January 2010. Only unpublished, single-author papers will be considered. Papers must not exceed 30 double-spaced pages (excluding notes, references, tables and figures). All papers must include a 150-200 word abstract and be prepared for anonymous review with the author’s name and institutional affiliation appearing only on the title page. Winners will receive a $300.00 stipend, student membership in the SSSP, conference registration to the 2010 SSSP annual meeting, and a complimentary ticket to the awards banquet at which all winners will be recognized. The recipient will also have the opportunity to present the paper at the 2010 SSSP conference held in Atlanta, GA. All papers must be submitted electronically (as an attachment) to the Division Chair, Dr. Pamela Anne Quiroz at paquiroz@uic.edu, by the above deadline. Please include your name, institutional affiliation and contact information in the body of your email. 2010 Faculty Paper Competition Call for Papers Deadline: 5/14/2010 The Educational Problems Division announces its inaugural 2010 Faculty Paper Competition. Papers must address a contemporary educational problem and may be empirical or theoretical in nature. Eligible articles must be unpublished and single-author papers. Authors must be members of SSSP. Papers must not exceed 30 double-spaced pages (excluding notes, references, tables and figures). All papers must include a 150-200 word abstract and be prepared for anonymous review with the author’s name and institutional affiliation appearing only on the title page. Winners will receive a small stipend, a plaque, and recognition at the Awards Banquet of the Society of the Study of Social Problems in August 2010 in Atlanta, GA. All papers must be submitted electronically (as an attachment) to the Division Chair, Dr. Pamela Anne Quiroz at paquiroz@uic.edu, by the above deadline. Please include your name, institutional affiliation and contact information in the body of your email. Congratulations! Dr. Mary Hollowell, in the publication of her new book: The Forgotten Room- Inside a Public Alternative School for At-Risk Youth will be published, this fall, by Lexington Books. Her rural case study provides a rare look at public alternative schooling in America. Peachtree Alternative School is a dumping ground for chronically disruptive students who regular teachers can no longer handle. Neglect, understaffing, and overcrowding create a volatile situation and teachers survive threats, assaults, brawls, and rampages. The Forgotten Room exposes punitive school policy, demonstrates the prison-industrial complex, and reveals school board corruption. As ethnographic nonfiction, it breaks down the barriers between social science and literature. Dr. Peter Riley Bahr has joined the faculty of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor http://www.soe.umich.edu/cshpe/faculty/index.html). He previously held a faculty appointmentin the Department of Sociology at Wayne State University. Educational Problems Division Sponsored & Co-Sponsored Sessions 2010 Annual Meeting Call for Papers  Educational Challenges to Diversity in Post Civil Rights Society (THEMATIC) Organizer: James Ainsworth- Email: ainsworth@gsu.edu  Education and the New Politics of Desegregation (THEMATIC) Organizer: Pamela Anne Quiroz - Email: paquiroz@uic.edu  Teaching Human Rights as Active Research (THEMATIC) Organizer: Otis Grant - Email: ogrant@iusb.edu  Social Justice and Community Learning: Voices from the Academy (THEMATIC) Organizer: Theo Majka- Email: theo.majka@notes.udayton.edu  Youth on the Frontline of Activism Organizer: Deborah G. Perkins- Email: dperkins@coastal.edu  School Violence Organizer: Glenn W. Muschert- Email: muschegw@muohio.edu  The Education and Social Service Nexus: Restructuring and Retrenchment Organizer: Henry Parada- Email: hparada@ryerson.ca  Law and Education Organizer: Emily Horowitz-Email: ehorowitz@stfranciscollege.edu  Race and Public Education Organizer: Erica Chito Childs-Email: echitoch@hunter.cuny.edu  Older and/or Returning Students in Colleges and Universities: Individual and Institutional Accommodation Organizer: Dawn Norris-Email: dnorris@socy.umd.edu Agent of Social Change An interview with: Dr. Erica Meiners, Northeastern Illinois University Dr. Erica R. Meiners, is involved with a number of local social justice initiatives in Chicago, is the author of Right to be hostile: Schools, prisons and the making of public enemies. She is currently working collaboratively on a long-term study of undocumented youth, criminalization, and access to higher education. She is an Associate Professor of Education and Women's Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and a coordinator and teacher at an alternative high school for formerly incarcerated men and women, St. Leonard's High School. 1. How would you describe the academic work that you do and your work with the community? A quick comment: I try to challenge artificial boundaries between university and community. Universities often perpetuate the myth that we are the knowledge producers and the bodies with the real expertise. But as queer organizer Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore writes “trickle down academia” is “the process by which academics appropriate anything they can get their hands on and then claim to have invented it” (p. 244). Post colonial, feminist, and queer “theories” came from people, in movements – working – and their labor, work, resistance, expertise – folks organizing and developing a material and political response to oppression. The work is not to romanticize or render static whatever passes as “community” and to dis-labor inside “institutions” - my life was changed by the ideas I got access to inside universities, and by exposure to other taxonomies. And, I have seen plenty of examples of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy in action in community based organizations. Rather, the work is to remember our institutional location and history in the context of power and knowledge production. Who benefits, who doesn’t, and why – when we differentiate between university and community? Who is included in each of these locations, and who is excluded? But the direct response to your questions is, I teach. My titles or more usefully my locations: I am a Professor of Education and Women’s Studies at Northeastern Illinois University – where I get to teach courses like Feminist Activism! This is a unionized public urban university that is a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution (more than 24% Latina/os) and this context has supported my work. For nine years I have taught and coordinated an alternative high school for formerly incarcerated men, and sometimes I am visiting “workshop” teacher at local high schools. For example in 2007, I taught a research methods class at the Multicultural Arts High School. I also write, organize, and continue to learn – on a range of inter-related topics: prison abolition, queer and immigrant rights, barriers to “re-entry” for those formerly incarcerated, immigration policy and the lives of undocumented youth, and the militarization of schools and everyday life. I am also interested in ways to do research and organizing differently, so I practice, write and think about participatory action research, community-based organizing and research, and feminist research methodologies. 2.Do you see yourself as an agent of social change? Sure – but I am careful because our institutions demand that we animate the myth of the lone author and my learning and knowledge comes from the pleasurable and often painful everydayness of work and life with people. And I know that for every social justice activist, community leader, or brilliant scholar identified, there are often 10 or more women and queers who made that “leader’s” work possible – secretaries, cleaning women, assistants, lovers, sisters, compatriots, grandmothers, wives, graduate students. Strong people don’t need strong leaders, as Ella Baker noted, and similarly, strong people don’t fall for the line that they are more valuable than the folks with whom they are graced to live and work. As an educator, researcher and a writer with a full time, now tenured job, I believe that my work within an institution is always political work – who we admit into programs, the “colleagues” that we hire and promote, who we mentor and make institutional space for, what research questions we ask and the too many that are never asked; who and how we make our way through the academy is always about power. And, to support sustainable justice movements - research and our institutional identity is not all we can offer! How can we leverage resources: borrow paper from the photocopier? Get a $100 stipend for the youth organizers to come and talk about their work? Offer use of university space for meetings? Acquire and redistribute grant money? BUT – simultaneously, these institutional resources are often the least valuable assets we bring to day-to day struggles for justice. Linda Tuhwai Smith notes, when researcher after researcher comes to her Maori community to study – for example – indigenous people and their resistances to poverty, a question for these researchers is simply - “Can they fix up our generators? Can they actually do anything?” (p. 10). The work is not to erase our institutional identities or to pretend that we are somehow not affiliated with institutions, but to simultaneously understand ourselves as not just researchers or card carrying members of universities, but as members (or allies of) of beloved communities that need labor and resources? To be of use, as the poet Marge Piercy writes, means recognizing that the work of the world is as common as mud. 3.How do you define social justice as it relates to education? The question of justice in schools and society cannot be addressed simply through one theoretical lens, or defined in isolation from struggles for justice and equity by, for, and with other communities. What makes “good” schools is of course, resources, but it also means immigration policies that are not punishing and dehumanizing, healthcare (that includes mental and dental health) and employment opportunities for all that offer flourishing (not just minimum or living wages). For example, when state resources for prison expansion and policing balloon, fewer dollars are available for youth employment programs, and for schools, community colleges, and universities. Educational issues are always about society’s normative pressures, thus, they are always about queer, disability, racial, and gender rights. And, sustaining a high quality public education system requires that communities must also provide affordable housing and healthcare; therefore, public education is always enmeshed with other public policies. An addition – I do think one neglected area of justice organizing is higher education. With the failure of the tenured professoriate to stem the explosion of contingent knowledge workers “adjuncts”, prohibitive tuition costs at public and private postsecondary institutions, and the exploitation of student labor under the guise of learning, universities and faculty are not outside of or exempt from the effects of neoliberalism. As workers in institutions that reproduce social and economic classes and legitimize what counts as knowledge and who counts as knowledge makers, we are embedded in the rusting machinery of these systems. We only have to look a decade or so back, or one country over, to have radical models of institutional possibilities at our worksites: Unionized faculty and students? Low or free tuition? High quality and accessible public education? We have both everything to lose and everything to gain from challenging the status quo. Many of us likely have some serious engagement to do where we work—how much is the tuition at your school? What is the average debt load of your student body (currently the national average is $22,000 per undergraduate student)? What are the histories of collective labor organizing: faculty staff and students? Just like any form of paid work, we participate in shaping our working conditions, and we can, collectively dismantle these conditions. 4.What contributions do you hope to make to education and to the lives of those whom you work with? Wow. That is a big question! I hope for all – the same things I hope for myself – opportunities to flourish, to be joyful and healthy – to have work that stimulates and enables growth, and to receive and to offer unconditional love. Sometime I get frustrated and think “I can’t be running this high school program in 10 more years” – but then I look at folks like Grace Lee Boggs that continue to work for justice – after fifty or sixty years and I know that work is for the long haul. I hope, for my work with others, to try to continue, as Angela Davis often asks, “to ask questions that see beyond the given” (p. 23). 5.What are your future academic and non-academic projects? I want to continue to work on projects with other people – collectivizing is where it is at for me right now! When I work with others I learn, the work and research is smarter, and it is way more fun. I am desperately trying to get a college bridge program off the ground for formerly incarcerated men and women. If anyone has done this – or wants to support the work – contact me. I am writing for MS magazine this year – and am excited about getting more skills sets to write for a larger audience. I am hoping to write about the Vatican’s investigation of women religious orders and why non-religious progressives should care about this… I am a visiting sister at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute in spring 2010, so I am looking forward to being in Montreal and thinking about anti-prison organizing outside of U.S. borders. I am also working with Therese Quinn on affect and public policy… how feelings – fear, sadness – are mobilized in organizing against repressive public policies. As many, from Audre Lorde to Feel Tank Chicago point out, politics and political engagement is a “world of orchestrated feeling” (Feel Tank, 2008, ¶3). It is instructive not only to name emotions and to explore how they regulate participation in everyday civic life (who are we afraid of and why?) but also to explore how what we think of as private feelings shape our public engagement with our professional and academic lives. What else? I am a struggling urban beekeeper, and I made a ton of jam this summer – so I am also thinking of offering a small jamming workshop next summer! I am a long distance runner and I am working, working, working on becoming fully bilingual (French). Works cited Davis, A. (2005). Abolition democracy: Prisons, democracy, and empire. New York, NY: Seven Stories. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press. Feel Tank Chicago. (2008). Manifesto. Retrieved November 13, 2008 from http://www.feeltankchicago.net/ Piercy, M. (1973). To be of use. Circles on the water. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Sycamore, M., with Ruiz, J. (2008). The violence of assimilation: An interview with Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore. Radical History Review, 100, 237–247. Smith, Tuhwai Linda. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books. Upcoming Conferences! Mid South Sociological Association (MSA) The 35th Annual Meeting of the Mid South Sociological Association November 4-7, 2009 Theme: Empowering Diversity Through World Systems Hilton Hotel Lafayette, Louisiana For more information please visit the MSA Website at http://www.midsouthsoc.org The New England Sociological Association (NESA) Fall 2009 Conference November 7, 2009 Theme: Innovative Approaches to Teaching: Sharing Best Practices Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts For more information please visit the New England Sociological Association (NESA) at http://web.bryant.edu/~nesa/ Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS) 2009 Annual Meeting November 12-15, 2009 Theme: Doing Change Work: The Many Paths to Peace, Equality, and Justice The Hampton Inn & suites convention Center New Orleans, Louisiana For more information please visit the AHS Website at http://www.humanistsociology.org National Council for the Social Sciences 89th NCSS Annual Conference November 13-15, 2009 Georgia World Congress Center and Omni Hotel at CNN Center Atlanta, Georgia For more information please visit the NCSS Website at http://www.socialstudies.org American Anthropological Association (AAA) 108th AAA-Annual Meeting December 2-6, 2009 Theme: The Ends of Anthropology Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Philadelphia, Philadelphia For more information visit the AAA Website at http://www.aaanet.org/ Eastern Sociological Society (ESS) Annual Meeting March 18-21, 2010 Cambridge, Massachusetts Hyatt Regency For more information please visit the ESS Website at http://www.essnet.org Midwest Sociological Association (MSS) Annual Meeting March 31-April 3, 2010 Chicago Marriott Downtown Chicago, Illinois For more information please visit the MSS Website at http://www.themss.org North Central Sociological Association (NCSA) 2010 Join Annual Meeting with the Midwest Sociological Society (MSS) March 31-April 3, 2010 Theme: Communities in an Age of Social Transformation Chicago, Illinois Chicago Marriott Downtown For more information please visit the NCSA Website at http://www.ncsanet.org The Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) 81st Annual Meeting April 8-11, 2010 Theme: Revitalizing the Sociological Imagination: Individual Troubles & Social Issues in a Turbulent World The Marriott Oakland City Center Oakland, California For more information please visit the NPSA Website at http://www.pacificsoc.org Southern Sociological Society (SSS) 2010 Annual Meeting April 21-25, 2010 Theme: Worlds at Risk Atlanta, Georgia Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia For more information please visit the SSS Website at http://www.southernsociologicalsociety.org Southwestern Sociological Association (SSA) April 31-May 3, 2010 Houston, Texas For more information please visit the SSA Website at http://www.swsociology.org Sociologist for Women in Society (SWS) Winter Meeting 2010 February 4-7, 2010 Hotel Mar Monte Santa Barbara, California For more information please visit the SWS Website http://www.socwomen.org/ Sociology of Education Association (SEA) 2010 Annual Conference February 19-21, 2010 Theme: Socal Relationships, Schools, and Student Outcomes Asilomar Conference Center Monterey Bay Peninsula, California For more information please visit the SEA Website at http://www.isber.ucsb.edu/sea/ American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) 2010 AAHE Annual Conference Central Florida For more information please visit the AAHE Website at http://www.aahea.org/ American Educational Research Association 2010 AERA Annual Meeting April 30-May 4, 2010 Theme: Understanding Complex Ecologies in a Changing World Hyatt Regency Denver Denver, Colorado For more information please visit the AERA Website at http://www.aera.net Social Problems Journal Available Online! Social Problems is available online for all SSSP members. Visit www.sssp1.org for complementary access (includes articles from 1953 to the present). A word from the editor… Dear Educational Division Problem members, I am very pleased to be editor for the Educational Problems Division’s Newsletter. Our goal is to create the opportunity for everyone to contribute to this newsletter and to use it as an exchange of information. We are open to your suggestions and we welcome your feedback. Through this newsletter we hope to keep you informed of relevant information related to education, and to showcase faculty and students who are making a difference in education and in their communities. We invite you to submit essays, commentaries, letters to the editor, information about fellowships, scholarships, professional opportunities, and information about new publications to mlunad2@uic.edu. Cheers, Maria E. Luna-DuartePh.D. Student, Policy Studies in Urban Education University of Illinois at Chicago Check out the SSSP website at www.sssp1.org for employment information, professional development, scholarship and fellowship opportunities, member news and resources, etc. For more information regarding the Educational Problems Division, please contact: Pamela Anne Quiroz, Ph.D. Professor of Educational Policy Studies & Sociology University of Illinois-Chicago Division Chair, 2009-2011 paquiroz@uic.edu