Dear Colleagues and Friends of the Division:

The 2014 Annual Meeting
      			
I hope you and your families are doing. As Spring semester wraps up at most colleges and universities, it’s time to start planning for San Francisco for the 64th SSSP Annual Meeting, from August 15-17. 

The annual meeting will be held at the San Francisco Marriot Marquis.  The Marriott Marquis hotel in San Francisco provides the convenience of an extraordinary downtown San Francisco hotel. It is located just south of Market Street, next to the Moscone Convention Center and is steps away from the Yerba Buena Gardens, renowned museums, cultural attractions and world-class shopping on Union Square. Rates (per night) for a single/double are $189 plus tax, or for a triple or quad are $209 (per night) plus tax. 

You can book your reservation with them to get the SSSP price at: https://resweb.passkey.com/go/sssp2014

If you want to check out the hotel, here is the url:
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/sfodt-san-francisco-marriott-marquis/ 

If necessary, you may call their toll free number at 1-877-622-3056.  International callers, please call the Hotel directly at 415-896-1600 and ask to be connected to Reservations.   Please ask for the Society for the Study of Social Problems group rate, when booking a room reservation to ensure the correct discounted group rate is given (based on availability).

The PCI Division has an exciting set of sessions. Please see the Preliminary Program now available on the SSSP website.


PCI Division Member News of Note:
Division Chair Bill Cabin has accepted a full-time position in Social Work at Temple University and will continue to teach adjunct at NYU, Hunter, and the University of Michigan.
Guđmundur "Gummi" Oddsson, Ph.D. University of Missouri, recently accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northern Michigan University.

Guđmundur "Gummi" Oddsson, Ph.D. University of Missouri, recently defended his dissertation "Classlessness as Doxa: Late Modernity and Changing Perceptions of Class Division in Iceland."
Abstract:
This dissertation advances class analysis with a historical study of how the cultural and structural changes of late modernity impact class awareness. Using social-democratic Iceland as a case, I examine newspaper accounts, parliamentary records, and survey data to study (a) representations of classlessness from 1986 to 2007, (b) perceptions of class division from 1986 to 2012, and (c) class identity in the wake of Iceland’s economic collapse in 2008. I draw primarily from Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework in my analysis. Contrary to prominent assertions that class awareness in Western societies has decreased across the board in late modernity, my analysis shows that perceptions of class division in Iceland increased over the study period. My results show how crises resulting from neoliberal globalization, the hallmark of late modernity, undermined the previously taken for granted assumption that Iceland is a relatively classless society, i.e. “classlessness as doxa.” These crises exposed classlessness as doxa to critical reflection, which, in turn, heightened perceptions of class division. My overall argument is that perceptions of class division increased because Icelandic society grew more culturally and economically differentiated as a result of neoliberal globalization, particularly at the “top” and “bottom” of the class structure.
Carolyn C. Perrucci, “Displaced Workers,” in Vicki Smith (ed.), Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, Sage Publications, 2013.
 
Robert Perrucci and Carolyn C. Perrucci, “The Good Society: Core Social Values, Social Norms and Public Policy,” Sociological Forum, Vol 29, No. 1, (March 2014): 356-379.
 

Carolyn C. Perrucci, Purdue University, recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Women Scholar Award.


Remember:
Send me news about your presentations, publications, career changes at: wcabin@umich.edu

Hoping to see you in San Francisco,    Bill Cabin