FALL 2023 NEWSLETTER EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS Society for the Study of Social Problems In Pursuit of Social Justice SSSP 2024 Annual Meeting Theme: Toward a Sociology of Violence Deadline: 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time) on January 31, 2024 https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/873/fuseaction/ssspsession2.publicView In this issue Letter from the Division Chair Division Awards Member News and Publications Call for Papers Letter from the Division Chair Written by Kyla Walters, PhD Autumn 2023 has proven tumultuous so far. Civilians are dying due to state-sanctioned violence in too many time zones around the world and just down the street. SSSP President Mary Bernstein has aptly chosen "Toward a Sociology of Violence" as the 2024 annual meeting theme. I hope many members of our division will contribute their energy and insights to ongoing work related to issues of violence, conflict, inequality, peace, and pursuing justice. Students, caregivers, educators, and school staff face direct impacts from structural dislocations through disrupted abilities to meet basic needs, upended routines that are pivotal to formal schooling, and widespread trauma. Violence harms learners, learning, and all those attempting to facilitate growth, awareness, and love in the name of education. As a labor scholar, I often consider how current, former, and potential workers?including you, dear reader?experience societal conflicts. What insecurities do workers face? How are workers bearing the strain? Under what conditions do workers build solidarity and resist capital?s might? The California Faculty Association, my union, is currently bargaining a new contract. While the collective bargaining agreement dictates much of the Cal State University working conditions and thus much of Cal State students' learning conditions, these negotiations also provide opportunities to share with college-goers, colleagues, kids, and broader publics the importance of good, strong labor unions. Not all workers have this particular vehicle for voice, but their existence signals cause for hope. My labor lens toward sociology of education is why I chose to add a roundtable session on "The Work of Educators" for SSSP?s 2024 program. Please consider submitting your work to this session and others available from our division, or more widely. Collectives are crucial to progressive social change. I appreciate your being part of this one. Please reach out to share your voice and updates for our next newsletter. Thank you. 2024 Division Awards Student Paper Competition (due 1/31/24) Contribution to the Discipline Award (due 2/15/24) Outstanding Book Award (due 3/1/24) Email kyla.walters@sonoma.edu with the nomination materials. For more information about submission requirements, visit: https://www.ssspl.org/index.cfm/pageid/1708/ Volunteers Needed for Division Award Committees Step into a service role for the division by serving on one or more of these award committees. Email kyla.walters@sonoma.edu and note on which committee(s) you would like to serve. Award committee work can be a great, time-limited way to stay current in the field, engage with SSSP, and perform professional service. Society for the Study US of Social Problems In Pursuit of Social Justice Recent News from Division Members L. Janelle Dance and colleagues make steady progress on innovative research project: Using Participatory Action Research and Indigenous Methodologies, my Co-Investigators and I at the University of Nebraska are collaborating with Indigenous and Arabic Heritage community members on a new and engaging project that explores impacts of forcible geographic relocation. At community forums held in January 2020 and October 2021, a symposium held in September 2022, and panel discussions held during the Spring of 2023 persons from the above cultural and linguistic backgrounds shared challenges they have faced as well as successes along the way. Educational support for Indigenous and Arabic languages was a concern shared by many persons. In other words, many community members shared concerns about a shortage and/or lack of educational support for heritage languages. A shortage of respectful and Indigenist allyship, was a particular concern for Indigenous community members. Now that community members have identified specific challenges and successes, investigators will begin grant writing rooted in grassroots requests from community members. Dara Shifrer published a new study: "U.S. Ninth Graders? Math Course Placement at the Intersection of Learning Disability Status." AERA Open 9(1):1-24. Myron T. Strong participated in a virtual roundtable: "The Educative Power of Sociology." The Society Pages. (https://thesocietypages.org/firstpublics/2023/09/27/roundtable- Myron T. Strong published a new book chapter: Strong, Myron T, Giselle Greenidge and K. Sean Chaplin. 2023. ?Afrofuturism as an Instructional Method.? Pp. 86-101 in Emerging Stronger: Pedagogical Lessons from the Pandemic. Edited by Jeffrey Chin and Michele Lee Kozimor. Routledge. Myron T. Strong, Tanya Cook, Lilika Belet, and Paul Calarco. 2023. ?Changing the World: How Comics and Graphic Novels Can Shift Teaching.? Humanity & Society 47(2):245-257. Myron T. Strong co-guest edited a special issue of Teaching Sociology on first-generation scholars and students. Read this issue: New Books by Division Members Leah Schmalzbauer. 2023. Meanings of Mobility: Family, Education, and Immigration in the Lives of Latino Youth. Russell Sage Foundation. New book! "With penetrating prose, Leah Schmalzbauer provides an intimate portrait of how poverty shapes undergraduate life at even the wealthiest institutions of higher education. Moreover, she forces us to grapple with the simple yet overlooked fact that students do not come most vulnerable members of society. And with care and attention born ) of a dedicated scholar, Schmalzbauer provides insights into what can be done to make our institutions not just accessible, but inclusive." -Anthony A. Jack, Assistant Professor of Education, Harvard University Nora Goss. 2022. Care-Based Methodologies: Reimagining Qualitative Research with Youth in US Schools. Bloomsbury. Now out in paperback! This edited methods volume - an honorable mention for the division's inaugural book award this year - reimagines relationships between researchers and youth participants in school-based research. The book calls attention to care-based methodologies as essential to qualitative and ethnographic research in schools, particularly when participants are youth from nondominant. More details, including a teaching guide and purchasing discount codes, can be found at: bit.ly/carebased. Call for Papers ***Visit SSSP's webpage of regularly updated calls*** Eastern Sociological Society Mini-Conference on Gendered and Racialized Organizations Washington, DC Spring 2024 (Specific date TBD) The goal of the mini-conference is to bring together scholars whose work addresses race and gender inequality situated in organizations, particularly as organizations struggle with diversity, equity, and inclusion. The growing literature on gender and on race in organizations helps us make sense of what is happening at these intersections, but many of us are looking for more integrative approaches. We hope this mini-conference provides an opportunity to support and build toward these kinds of approaches. The conference will be February 29-March 3 in Washington DC. The mini-conference will be one day, with the specific date TBD. The deadline for submissions is November 1 and only an abstract is required. This link will take you directly to the submission page (https://ess2024.exordo.com/submissions/new). Please reach out to us with any questions. Thanks and take care! Best, Sharla Alegria, Koji Chavez, Maritess Escueta, and Bonnie Siegler Pacific Sociological Association THE PACIFIC Ties That Bind: Social Space and Social Permissiveness Marriott Mission Valley, San Diego, CA March 21-24, 2024 Association When I considered the theme for PSA 2024, I considered two things: social spaces and social permissiveness. Ties that bind are the shared beliefs or other factors that link people together. To quote author Pauli Murray, "True community is based on upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together." And yet, as sociologists, we understand, see, and in many instances experience that lack of equality, mutuality, and reciprocity resulting in persisting inequities that do not allow for acceptance of difference and respect for diversity. One clear way in which inequities are enacted are thanks to social mores about belonging in social spaces and the levels of social permissiveness that can guarantee or not guarantee acceptance. Two speakers who are the key Presidential Speakers, Dr. Elijah Anderson (Yale University) and Dr. Brandon Robinson (University of California-Riverside), will speak to this conference theme and the interweaving aspects of social complexity. The current sociopolitical climate in the U.S. as well as in many other Western nations outlines a thorny picture about citizenship, civil rights, social justice, and social hierarchy. As of today, pre-existing legal protections for Black folx, people with uteruses, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and Indigenous people are nonexistent or so minimal that even those protections are brought into question within the court of law. Beginning with the lack of full-fledged support for the Voting Rights Act, we begin to know more keenly why W. E. B. DuBois stated that Black people are forever reminded in the U.S. of double consciousness. Although Black people through various laws in the U.S. were granted American citizenship and should be provided all rights associated with this social status, there persists a lack of associating citizenship with the humanity of Blackness. Consequently, Black people walk into and exist within various social spaces (the professional and interpersonal) across the U.S. landscape with the unfulfilled promise of full and complete civil rights due to a lack of social permissiveness. To quote historian Koritha Mitchell, "know your place aggression" demonstrates how and why social permissiveness is not guaranteed to all; but rather as a means of sustaining racial capitalism and white supremacy. This is one of the principal reasons that I?m excited that Dr. Elijah Anderson will be our Sorokin lecturer and Presidential panelist. His work highlights how Black people navigate social spaces, redefine community within spaces that remind us of who does and doesn?t belong, and challenges preconceived notions of how racial discrimination persists. ... The question now becomes, what does the decimation of legal precedent tell us about who is and isn?t allowed and at what costs? I invite you all to submit abstracts, create collaborative events, and examine within your research, teaching, activism, and public sociology how your work aligns with this theme across the various sections of the organization. -PSA President Alicia Bonaparte, Pitzer College Deadline: 11/1/23 for graduate students, faculty, etc. and 12/1/23 for undergraduate students; see more information: https://www.pacificsoc.org/2024-conference-participation-information. Christopher Newport University's Global Conference on Women and Gender Revitalizing Ecofeminism: The Intersection of Gender and Nature March 21-23, 2024 In the 1970s, scholars began to apply feminist critiques to uncover the connections between patriarchy and dominance over the natural world. Today, scholars continue to explore the links among gender (in)equality, social justice, and environmental concerns, past and present. This interdisciplinary conference on women and gender brings together participants from all academic fields to engage in wide-ranging conversations about connections among normative cultural assumptions, gender-based marginalization, and the exploitation of nature. Are the casual or motivational roots of these phenomena connected? How do economic systems tie into this matrix? If there are common causes for economic degradation and gender marginalization, might there be common avenues of amelioration? While privileging women and gender, topics may include but are not limited to: Capitalism and Environment | Gender and Environmental Policy | History of Environmentalism Gender and Environmentalism | Ethical Implications of Ecofeminism | Artistic Expressions of Nature The Future of Food and Water | Indigenous Rights and Environment | Reproduction and Nature Climate Change and Gender Equality | Gender and Health | Intersectionalities and the Environment History of Women as Environmental Refugees | Sustainability | Spiritual Ecofeminism Nature and Religion | Conquest and Imperialism | Global Inequalities Submissions from any academic discipline are welcome, including but not limited to art, history, philosophy, religious studies, sociology, psychology, education, environmental science, medicine, biomedical ethics, economics, political science, gender studies, communication studies and literature. We also invite professionals in nonacademic settings to submit proposals. Please include with your abstract your full name and your academic or professional affiliation and rank (graduate student, professor, artist, etc.). Abstracts that greatly exceed the 500-word count may not be considered. We will also include a few competitively selected undergraduate panels in the 2024 conference. All submissions will be peer-reviewed and those accepted will be notified no later than December 15, 2023. Paper presentations will ideally be 15-20 minutes in length and can be considered for our annual publication. Please direct inquiries about the conference to gewg @cnu.edu or visit https://cnu.edu/gewg/ for more information or to submit a paper. Critical Sociology 2024 Mini-Conference Critical Emancipatory Politics in Times of Crises McGill University, Montreal, Canada August 9, 2024 What does it mean to do critical sociology in times of crises? How can our research both reveal relations of domination, exploitation and extraction but also point the way to emancipatory alternatives? We live ina time of compounding crises in most major spheres of life ? economic instability and worker precarity, social reproduction and gendered backlash, coloniality and empire, oligarchic political institutions, racial inequality and stalling movements for justice, crumbling healthcare provisioning and disease, citizenship barriers and immigrant marginality, and ecological degradation and climate change. What might critical sociology and social theory have to offer, both in terms of analysis but also resolving these crises? We invite submissions for the Critical Sociology Mini-Conference to take place August 9, 2024, one day prior to the American Sociological Association meetings. Our meeting theme is "Emancipatory Politics in Times of Crises," and as such, we seek papers that rethink assumptions and challenge disciplinary orthodoxies about emancipatory politics and critical social science and theory. This meeting is sponsored by the journal Critical Sociology and will be treated as an agenda-setting discussion for its future. We invite you to help us reimagine what critical sociology is and should be. Registration will be free. We seek critical scholars from multiple disciplines, whose work denaturalizes dominant relations of power and points to emancipatory alternatives. We are especially interested in work exploring the fault lines of our conjuncture?s key crises. The topics above are only potential topics; we welcome all submissions developing a critical approach. As such, we welcome both quantitative and qualitative work as well as theoretical work oriented toward concept building. We welcome both causal social analysis as well as speculative future-oriented work. We invite work on our current and past crises that have present-day implications. This call is for both individual paper submissions and panels. Individual paper submissions should include a title and an extended abstract of 500 to 1000 words describing the paper. For full panel submissions, please include the title, extended abstract and author of each paper as well as a short statement from the organizer of the panel?s general aim. We will be limited by the space provided by McGill University for how many papers and panels we are able to accept but hope to accommodate as many as we can. Please submit all papers and panels to: criticalsociology2024 @ gmail.com. DEADLINE: January 26, 2024. Decisions will be made by the conference organizing committee shortly after the submission deadline. For questions, please email Mike McCarthy, michael.mccarthy @ marquette.edu, committee chair.