Greetings from the (surprisingly temperate) 
region of Philadelphia, PA!
I hope your spring semesters areÊbeginning smoothly. In this newsletter issue, we are bringing you news from around the Sociology & Social Welfare division. We will be publishing another newsletter in the late spring, so please continue to update me on new publications and resources, outlets for presentation and publication, collaboration opportunities, and advocacy efforts. I look forward to hearing from you!
This yearÕs SSSP conference theme Ð Globalizing Social Problems Ð has been very much on my mind of late, as events in any one region of the world so clearly reverberate in others. In this context of a sort of inescapable connectedness, calls for isolation Ð for cutting off flows of information or people (typically by ÒtypeÓ) Ð seem not only shortsighted but disingenuous. I tend to come at this process of globalizing from the perspective of the social problem I spend the most time studying: unmet caregiving need. 
The United States has long been considered a ÒlaggardÓ in the area of parental and caregiving leave, as the only industrialized country with no national standard for wage replacement during time off needed for caregiving. Over the past decade, several U.S. states and cities have implemented Òpaid leaveÓ (or, more accurately, wage replacement for employment leave or sick leave) programs, making this area an intriguing, gradually unfolding case study in social problem definition, advocacy, and response generation. Already, California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have built upon existing Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) structures to create programs that replace a portion of wages lost during otherwise unpaid caregiving leaves, and these programs, along with their handful of city-level paid sick days counterparts, have the potential to set the stage for national policy in caregiving leave, sick leave, or both. The next few years mark an important period for examining the performance of state- and city-level programs, identifying their points of variation (e.g., eligibility criteria, amount of time covered, financing), and learning from alternative social problem definition and response models in other countries. Pursuing information on these issues is how I spend my current research time. For more information about existing and emerging policies to address caregiving need, the following organizations are just a few that provide excellent, up-to-date information:
* Institute for WomenÕs Policy Research (http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/family-leave-paid-sick-days)
* National Partnership for Women & Families (http://www.nationalpartnership.org)
* For information on paid leave feasibility studies funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, see http://www.dol.gov/wb/media/paidleavegrants.htm
Thank you, and all my best wishes,
Linda Houser

Member Accomplishments/Contributions
Michelle Maroto and David PettinicchioÕs article, "Twenty-Five Years After the ADA: Situating Disability in America's System of Stratification" examines economic inequality among people with disabilities in light of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  It was published in the October issue of Disability Studies Quarterly and can be found here.  Dr. David Pettinicchio is Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Toronto.
Maroto, Michelle and Pettinicchio, David. 2015. "Twenty-Five Years After the ADA: Situating Disability in America's System of Stratification." Disability Studies Quarterly 35(3):1-34.


April ScheuthsÕs new volume, ÒLiving Together, Living Apart: Mixed Status Families and US Immigration Policy,Ó co-edited by herself and Jodie Lawston is a collection of personal narratives and academic essays and is the first to focus on the daily lives and experiences, as well as the broader social contexts, for mixed status families in the contemporary United States.  Threats of raids, deportation, incarceration, and detention loom large over these families. At the same time, their lives are characterized by the resilience, perseverance, and resourcefulness necessary to maintain strong family bonds, both within the United States and across national boundaries. April Scheuths is assistant professor of sociology at Georgia Southern University and a licensed social worker. Jodie Lawston is associate professor of women's studies at California State University, San Marcos.



Call for Papers for Book Project
Social Welfare Responses in a Neoliberal Era: 
Policies, Practices and Social Problems
Editors:  Mia Arp Fallov, Aalborg University and Cory Blad, 
Manhattan College
Brill Publishers, Leiden: The Netherlands, 2017.
The aim of this book project is to critically explore Social Welfare Responses in a Neoliberal Era across what is typically perceived as diametrically opposed forms of welfare state regimes: the ÔLiberalÕ and ÔSocial democratic welfare state welfare regimes - often exemplified by USA and the Nordic welfare states respectively. 
This book seeks to explore welfare responses by questioning and going beyond the assumptions found in Esping-AndersenÕs (1990) broad typologies of welfare capitalism. Specifically, the project seeks to reflect how the state engages, and creates general institutionalized responses to, market mechanisms and how such responses have created path dependencies in how states approach problems of inequality. Moreover, if the neoliberal era is defined as the dissemination and extension of market values to all forms of state institutions and social action (Brown 2009), the need arises to critically investigate the embeddedness (Brenner and Theodore 2002) of such values and modes of thought (Dean 2014) in different institutional forms, their effects and the socio-political responses within and across national contexts.
From a Nordic perspective, neoliberalism and neoliberal forms of governance seem to penetrate the Nordic welfare states. This is visible not in terms of less public spending on welfare, but as a general orientation towards reforming the public sector and welfare services with a reference to the needs of the market and global competition. Indeed, a common recurring question in scholarly debates is whether or not neoliberal trends represent corrosion and eventually an erosion of the social democratic welfare state itself. The answer to this question is not clear; however there is general agreement that a relationship exists between neoliberal economic ideas and current developments in the politics of the Nordic Welfare states (e.g. Torfing 2004, Hagen 2006). The Danish case provides one of the clearest examples of independent causal effects of economic ideas related to neoliberalism on the ideas of the Social democratic party (Goul and Larsen 2009). 
From a US perspective, the structural shifts associated with the neoliberal period have the effect of increasing social disparities at virtually all social levels while the reordering of social policy priorities emphasizing financial stability, budgetary restraint, and pro-market policies (Abramovitz and Zfdelnick 2015). The restructuring
of public sector dynamics signifies the suppression of social welfare as a responsibility of state service delivery systems. The role of the state is placed in a larger context as just one provider alongside faith-based based organizations, private sector ÒservicesÓ and other non-governmental agencies, thus re-casting social work in a supporting role for the commodification of social service delivery (Jordan 2008). These reforms in social service delivery attempt to systematically scale back the scope of Federal welfare precisely at a time when material hardships and social exclusion are growing. In addition to diminishing the scope of coverage, neoliberalism reorients social services towards greater social control over the individual, selectively installing more punitive and stigmatizing services that embody a racialized and gendered character. Even institutions of higher education in social work saw empowerment paradigms give way to the adoption of Òhuman capitalÓ building paradigms that dovetailed with a larger ideology of privatization that extoll the virtues of privatization programs ultimately designed to make vulnerable populations more ÒcompetitiveÓ for low wage employment (Archibald and Wilson 2011). 
This collection takes a comparative and critical approach to a broad range of social welfare responses to the intensifying social problems of the neoliberal era.  Historical contrasts are drawn and common trends are explored in the logic, form and reform of the social service delivery across diverse social welfare models. But in order to fully understand the impact of neoliberalism, one has to move beyond politics and the policy level (Mudge 2008; Flew 2014). There is a need to explore how neoliberal trends influence the concrete practices of welfare services and welfare professionals in the encounter with citizens - and how this influences the perception as well as the concrete distribution of social problems. Such explorations might provide us with more detailed, complex and sophisticated knowledge of changes in social welfare in a neoliberal era.
With this we invite contributors addressing the following themes across a wide range of social problems, welfare services and community action arenas:
* Marketization, business models and modes of thinking 
* Forms of Collectivization, individualization and dilemmas facing welfare consumers and service users
* Public-private partnerships and forms of Entrepreneurialism
* Advocacy, non-profit responses and their dilemmas
* Professional resistance and responses to economic pressures
* Welfare technologies, transnational trends and local forms of implementation and development
* Knowledge development Ð evidence, documentation
Preliminary time schedule:
Interested contributors should send abstracts of no more than 300 words by June 1st 2016 to Mia Arp Fallov at fallov@socsci.aau.dk. 
First chapter drafts expected by December 15th 2016
Book launch: mid-2017.

Assets & Opportunity Scorecard


TheÊAssets & Opportunity Scorecard is a comprehensive look at AmericansÕ financial security today and their opportunities to create a more prosperous future. It assesses the 50 states and the District of Columbia on 130 outcome and policy measures, which describe how well residents are faring and what states can do to help them build and protect assets. These measures are grouped into five issue areas: Financial Assets & Income, Businesses & Jobs, Housing & Homeownership, Health Care, and Education.
TheÊScorecardÊassesses all states on their relative ability to provide opportunities for residents to build and retain assets. The state outcome rankings are a measure of financial prosperity and how that prosperity is shared and safeguarded. The ScorecardÊranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia on 56 outcome measures in the five Issue Areas. Data for an additional five measures are published, but states are not ranked on these measures due to insufficient data at the state level. The overall state outcome rank is determined by the rankings each state receives for outcome measures within each Issue Area. The issue area grades in theÊScorecardÊare distributed on a curve, based on how each state fares compared with all other states.
TheÊScorecardÊalso separately assesses states on the strength of 69 policies to expand economic opportunity. Taken together, these 69 policies provide a comprehensive view of what states can do to help residents build and protect assets in the Issue Areas described above. Unlike the outcome measures, the strength of states' policies are assessed based on fixed criteria arrived at through consultation with issue experts and CFED's own knowledge of asset policies that are promising, proven or effective in helping families build and protect assets. States receive an overall policy rank and ranks for each of the five issue areas based on the number of policies adopted.

Announcements
1ÊÊÊ 2016 General Election ballot preview is available
The Society for the Study of Social Problems has opened the following election for voting:Ê2016 General Election. Please vote in this Election today throughÊTuesday, March 15. Thanks in advance for participating in this important election.
Please click on this link to cast your vote:Êhttp://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pageId/1017.
If you can't click the link above from your e-mail program, copy and paste the link into the address bar of your browser. If you have any questions, please e-mailÊsssp@sssp1.org.
2ÊÊÊ Travel scholarships to attend the annual meeting, due March 15
The Lee Scholar Support Fund Committee announces funds available for foreign scholars.Ê The Lee Student Support Fund Committee announces funds available for undergraduate and graduate students.Ê The Erwin O. Smigel Award Committee announces funds available for unemployed and underemployed sociologists.Ê For more information, visit: www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/263/Travel_Fund_Awards/.
3ÊÊÊ Nominations for the Thomas C. Hood Social Action Award, due April 1
The Thomas C. Hood Social Action Award is awarded to a not-for-profit organization in the city/area hosting the annual meeting.Ê For more information, visit: www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/262.
4ÊÊÊ Applications for the Beth B. Hess Memorial Scholarship, due April 1
The Beth B. Hess Memorial Scholarship is awarded to an advanced sociology Ph.D. student who began her or his study in a community college or technical school.Ê For more information, visit: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/336.
5ÊÊÊ Nominations for the Arlene Kaplan Daniels Paper Award, due April 15
The Arlene Kaplan Daniels Paper Award for the best paper on Women and Social Justice was established in 2016 and will be awarded annually with a stipend of $500.Ê For more information, visit: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/654/Arlene_Kaplan_Daniels_Paper_Award/.
6ÊÊÊ Nominations for the Doris Wilkinson Faculty Leadership Award, due April 15
The Doris Wilkinson Faculty Leadership Award recognizes an outstanding faculty member who has exercised an extensive leadership role within the SSSP and other professional societies and within the larger community.Ê For more information, visit: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/652/Doris_Wilkinson_Faculty_Leadership_Award/.
7. Nominations for the Joseph B. Gittler Award, due April 15
The Joseph B. Gittler Award is made in recognition of the significant scholarly achievements that a SSSP member has made in contributing to the ethical resolution of social problems.Ê For more information, visit: www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/294.



8. Nominations for the Lee Founders Award, due April 15
The Lee Founders Award is made in recognition of significant achievements in a career that demonstrate a lifetime commitment to the ideals of the founders of the Society and especially to the humanist tradition of Alfred McClung Lee and Elizabeth Briant Lee.Ê For more information, visit: www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/260.
9. Call for Nominations for the SSSP 2017 General Election, due June 15
Nominations are open for candidates to run in the 2017 General Election.Ê For more information, visit: 
http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/656/2017_General_Election_Candidate_Nominations/.
10. Make your hotel reservation at The Westin Seattle Hotel, cut-off date: July 26
Our single/double room rate of $195 includes complimentary internet in your guest room.Ê To make a reservation, please click on the booking link to be directed to the hotelÕs reservation page: www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/SSSP2016SEA or call central reservations at: 1-888-627-8513.Ê 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).
11. 2015 Members: Renew your membership and Recruit a New Member
There are numerous benefits to joining the SSSP or continuing as a member.Ê View the membership benefits of the society, and especially membership benefits for graduate students. Renewing online is easy!
12. Join the SSSP Listserv
We want to remind current SSSP members to join the SSSP listserv.Ê The listserv is an optional benefit for members.Ê To join the listserv, visit http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pageid/1625.Ê Questions relating to the listserv should be directed to Listserv Moderator Elizabeth East, eeast2@utk.edu.Ê Technical questions should be directed to GRA & Webmaster Douglas Oeser, ssspgra@utk.edu.
13. Connect with the SSSP on social media
Have you liked the SSSP on Facebook and Twitter yet?Ê Our social media accounts feature information from the Society, as well as relevant news and articles of interest to our members.Ê Connect with us today!Ê
14. Stay tuned: Online Registration for the 2016 Annual Meeting opens in late March.




Globalizing Social Problems

The Society for the
Study of Social Problems
66th Annual Meeting
August 19-21, 2016
Westin Seattle Hotel
Seattle, WA
A robust field of current research directly focuses on understanding global political economy, world cultural influences, and the ubiquity and importance of international networks. This yearÕs SSSP conference is aspired to be a platform for the discussion of the worldÕs most pressing global social problems.  In addition to the potential for impactful discussion on clear issues such as climate change, intensifying global inequality, and the threat of war in an era of weapons of mass destruction, we anticipate dialog focused on solutions to additional global topics.  These may include theÊchanging international divisions of labor; the transnational nature of race, class and gender hierarchies; population dynamics and migratory flows across the entire earth; the unequal spread of science, technology and innovation; and the worldwide dynamic of todayÕs ecological crisis.  Our goal is to Òbring the global inÓ and broaden our foci on inequalities of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation/identity, aging, health, labor, and class to render solutions applicable to social change on a global scale.
More information at the SSSP Annual Meeting page.