July 2013 SOCIOLOGY & SOCIAL WELFARE (SSW) DIVISION NEWSLETTER 2013 Conference August 9-11 NYC, USA Message from the Chair Dear Friends & Colleagues NewYork, NY What is Here: p. 2 Division’s conference highlights p. 3 NYC’s ethnic Neighborhoods p. 4 Division Member News p. 5 Division’s Submitted Resolutions It’s almost AUGUST. Welcome in advance to a conference in the City of New York, my city where I have lived all but two years of my life (I went to India as a Peace Corps Volunteer). It’s a city with a good share of social problems. It has poverty, inequality, and the usual racial and gender disparities. It’s a city where the mayor and the City Council President had long resisted legislation requiring paid sick days for workers (a measure finally was passed into law last month), and where stop and frisk police tactics and punitive school discipline, often relying on police presence, may cause students to fall behind, drop out, and enter the prison system. It’s a city that awaits the results of the Democratic mayoral primary where six colorful candidates are making their similar points about solving such social problems. The good news for residents and visitors is that New York City also is a home and cultural haven for countless ethnic, national, and religious groups -- and the museums, concerts, theater, restaurants, and vendors of art and colorful clothes representing them. Want to know where the different groups live? Please see the map of people and places on page 3. Of course August is not just New York City; it is also the conference. Many of us have been working in various capacities to prepare for it, whether organizing panels, submitting presentations for panels, registering for the conference, applying for competitions, judging competitions, preparing resolutions, and organizing our meetings for the conference. One promising effort is creating an ongoing working relationship between SSSP (our Division in particular) and the scholar activists from Aalborg University Denmark whose international conference in May on sociology and social work included some of our members. This August we will be welcoming several Aalborg conference leaders to our conference. Don’t forget to register for the Conference Below I list some conference highlights, focusing on our Division. Joyce Bialik Chair 2011 – August, 2013 Heather MacIndoe Chair August 2013-2015 World Social Welfare Sociology & Social Welfare Message from the Chair-Elect 4 Jackson Heights, Queens, is one of the most diverse neighborhoods. See iwantmorefood.com for interesting food options in that neighborhood. 4 Resolution 2 below