SSSP 2026 Annual Meeting
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 024: Families in Distress: Caregiving for and with Family Members with Disabilities and/or Social Identity Challenges
Room: Ambassador I
Sponsors: Disability, Mental Wellness, and Social Justice
Family, Aging, and Youth
Organizer, Presider &
Discussant: Muhammed Faisol Olaitan, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology
Description: As the first social institution, the family plays a vital role in the survival and growth of its members. Families provide resources, nurturance, socialization, development of life skills, and support. Yet achieving these goals often comes with stress as families experience transitions, unexpected events, and shifting societal and political realities—all of which may be intensified for families of people with disabilities. This session explores how families experience and navigate such challenges, with particular attention to the development and integration of a family member with disabilities. Families can simultaneously provide support and serve as sites of additional crises. This session focuses on research examining the reciprocal relationship between support and stress within and around the family.
Papers:
“‘We (Don’t) Want to Be Like Them’: Self-Identity and Dramaturgical Dilemmas among Alcohol Abstainers at the University of Botswana,” Tebogo B. Sebeelo, University of Botswana
“Ajumobi O Kan T’Anu: Perpetrators of Victimization and the Effect on Women with Disabilities in Lagos State, Nigeria,” Muhammed Faisol Olaitan, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology
“Between Joy and Social Exclusion: A Systematic Literature Review on the Recreational Sports Experiences of People with Overweight or Obesity,” Johannes Müller, University of Vienna
“Governance in Crisis, Families in Distress: Pandemic Management and Divorce across Nations,” Banafsheh Aghayeeabianeh, Arkansas State University, Janet P. Stamatel, University of Kentucky and Veena Kulkarni, Arkansas State University
“Narrative of Self-Care, Responsibility, and Moral Soundness in End-of-Life Social Care Services,” Rebecca M. Blackwell, University of South Florida and Marta C. Blackwell, Canadian Council for the Americas
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 025: Weaponization of Child Welfare
Room: Ambassador II
Sponsors: Crime and Justice
Sociology, Social Work, and Social Welfare
Organizers: Miltonette Olivia Craig, Sam Houston State University
Denae J. Cook, University of Utah
Presider: Denae J. Cook, University of Utah
Description: This session examines how child welfare systems often operate as tools of control and surveillance to regulate lifeworlds. Within contemporary child welfare systems, marginalized families and BIPOC communities are disproportionately surveilled, investigated, and separated. Under the guise of “protection,” policies and practices dismantle kinship networks, impose white, middle-class family norms, and punish families for systemic inequities beyond their control. Panelists demonstrate how these patterns reflect colonial practices and dominant carceral systems while overlooking community-driven solutions. Discussants explore ways to resist harmful colonialist practices and imagine new approaches to child and family well-being rooted in dignity, solidarity, and collective care.
Papers:
“‘I Wouldn’t Want Your Job’: Child Protection as Dirty Work,” Keith R. Johnson, Independent Scholar
“Disparate Child Welfare Responses to Sexual Abuse Cases involving AI/AN Children: Context, Actions, and Outcomes,” Paul D. Steele, The University of New Mexico, Emeritus
“From Care to Compliance: Mothers’ Everyday Resistance to Digital Welfare Bureaucracy,” Tasnim Binte Maksud, University of Houston
“Girls, Take Care and Boys Be a Man: Gendered Interventions in Policing ‘Delinquency’ among Latina Youth,” Alexia Palomino-Cortez, University of Illinois Chicago
“Governing the Poor: Poverty, Perception, and Child Welfare Reunification: A Scoping Review of Poverty Bias in Child Welfare between 2015–2025,” Denae J. Cook, University of Utah
“Racial Violence in the Name of Care: Neoliberalism, Carcerality, and the Afterlives of MacLaren Hall,” Akhila L. Ananth, California State University, Los Angeles
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 026: PAPERS IN THE ROUND: Scholar Café: Building Collective Wisdom through Intergenerational Scholar Sharing
Room: Ambassador III
Sponsor: Community, Research, and Practice
Organizer: Sarah E. Stanlick, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Description: This session offers a roundtable opportunity for intergenerational sharing of experiences as social justice and social problems scholars. In a recent gathering, participants identified the significant wisdom within the membership of SSSP, as well as a clear opportunity to build stronger bonds to sustain scholars during an increasingly challenging higher education landscape. This session is designed as a set of prompted roundtable discussions to encourage participants to share their professional journeys, discuss pressing issues in their work, and build connections for future scholarship and action.
Roundtable #1 Title: Scholar Café: Building Collective Wisdom through Intergenerational Scholar Sharing
Presider:
Sarah E. Stanlick, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Papers:
“A Systematic Review of Prejudice against Immigrant Women in Organizational Leadership in the United States,” Vanessa Ampofoa Boadu, Ohio University
“Contesting the Court: Reform and Retrenchment in Criminal and Racial Justice Activism,” Cathy Hu, University of California, Berkeley
“Elders’ Stories of Resilience and Resistance Guide Young People into a Climate-Changed Future: A Student-Led Oral History Collection,” Finn McLafferty Bell, University of Michigan-Dearborn
“Navigating Civilian Life After Combat: Veterans’ Perspectives,” Melissa Villarreal, Nicholas K. Stevenson and Angel M. Burns, Grand Valley State University
“Teaching and Researching Race, Gender and Migration in Texas,” Luis A. Romero and Amina Zarrugh, Texas Christian University
“Which Relationships Matter? The Mediating Effect of Social Bonds on Immigration and Crime,” Sirat Kaur, University at Buffalo
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 027: WORKS IN PROGRESS / RESEARCH FEEDBACK: Media and Technology as Sites of Digital Contestation and Resistance
Room: Ambassador III
Sponsor: Conflict, Social Action, and Change
Organizer: Sara Tehrani, University of Central Florida
Description: Resistance and social action manifest across a range of spaces, including the symbolic and discursive realms of media and technology. This session conceptualizes media and technology as dynamic arenas of social engagement, contestation, and transformation. It examines how individuals, communities, and movements strategically mobilize digital platforms, technological tools, and AI systems to articulate identities, confront inequality, amplify marginalized voices, raise awareness of social problems, organize collective action, and contest dominant narratives. Papers may examine a range of topics at the intersections of media, technology, and social change, including digital activism, cultural production, political communication, grassroots organizing, algorithmic bias, platform politics, and the role of media technologies in shaping public discourse and policy outcomes.
Roundtable #1 Title: AI, Technology, and Education and Pedagogy
Presider:
Marina I. Rivera Ramos, Rutgers University
Papers:
“Visualizing Opportunity: Using Community Asset Mapping to Uncover Trends in Resource Mobilization and Positive Outcomes in Detroit’s Motor City Match Grant Program,” Marya R. Sosulski, Michigan State University School of Social Work, Nathaniel G. Nowsch, Michigan State University and Randi Mae Clayton-Ames, Michigan State University School of Social Work
“Experiments in AI-Engaged Pedagogy,” Greg Scott and Julie Patarin-Jossec, DePaul University
“Co-Creating Artificial Intelligence Classroom Policies,” Atticus M. Wolfe, Agnes Scott College
“Virtual Co-Learning as Resistance: An Analysis of an Online Community Co-Producing Knowledge toward Post-Capitalist and Entangled Futures,” Marina I. Rivera Ramos, Rutgers University
“Exploring Motivations for Online Courses at MSIs and PWIs,” Kea Saper, University of California, San Diego
“Digital Connectivity and Social Solidarity,” Yuying Shen, Norfolk State University
Roundtable #2 Title: Media, Technology, and Inequality
Presider:
Yvonne A. Braun, University of Oregon
Papers:
“‘Comphet Is Ableism’s Next-Door Neighbor’: #Neuroqueer Counterdiscourses on TikTok,” Jules Vivid, Rutgers University
“Digital Activism: Social Media, Framing and Collective Action in the Struggle against Femicide in Kenya,” Constance Manga Ndeleko and Yvonne A. Braun, University of Oregon
“Beyond Basic Skills: Intersectional Digital Health Literacy Challenges and Resources for Ethnic Minority Older Adults in Hong Kong,” Padmore Adusei Amoah, Lingnan University and Adwoa Owusuaa Koduah, Tung Wah College
“Media as a Site of Transformation and Resistance in the Weight-Inclusive Healthcare Movement,” Gabby Gomez, Macalester College
“Supply and Care: Campus Food Pantries and Graduate Student Hunger at an Elite University,” Ambria Jones, Brandeis University
“The Professional Medicalization of Homelessness: Poverty Governance and Doctoring in the Streets of the City,” Irene Del Mastro Naccarato, University of California, Los Angeles
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 028: The Problem Pipeline: How Social Problems Become Research Agendas - Special Issue of Global Discourse
Room: Minskoff
Sponsor: Program Committee
Organizer &
Discussant: Michael O. Johnston, William Penn University
Co-Presiders: Glenn Muschert, Khalifa University
Michael O. Johnston, William Penn University
Description: This session examines how social problems come to be defined, prioritized, and legitimized within academic research. It asks how scholarly agendas are shaped by institutional incentives, funding structures, publication economies, and disciplinary traditions. In dialogue with the 2026 Society for the Study of Social Problems theme, Resisting Colonization of Lifeworlds, the session treats the “problem pipeline” as a site where academic knowledge production can either reproduce extractive logics or defend lifeworlds as spaces of meaning, care, and solidarity. We invite theoretical, empirical, methodological, and reflexive contributions that interrogate how special issues, edited volumes, and other gatekeeping mechanisms shape research priorities, distribute scholarly attention, and influence justice, equity, and public engagement within the social sciences.
Panelists:
Joel Best, University of Delaware
Jarrett Robert Rose, SUNY Polytechnic Institute
Virginia Berndt, McDaniel College
Glenn Muschert, Khalifa University
Douglas V. Porpora, Drexel University
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 029: Humanist Sociology: past, Present and Future
Room: Palace
Sponsors: Association for Humanist Sociology
Program Committee
Organizer &
Presider: Corey Dolgon, Stonehill College
Description: This session will examine the history of humanist sociology and its role in encouraging, supporting and practicing activist scholarship. While some panelists will look at past efforts and the Association for Humanist Sociology in particular, most will focus on contemporary practices and approaches for humanist sociology. After brief comments from the panelists we hope to spend much of our time in critical dialogues about the future of humanist sociology and its place within and outside of the discipline.
Panelists:
Daina Cheyenne Harvey, Holy Cross College
Bhoomi K. Thakore, University of Connecticut
Willow Sipling, Western Michigan University
Armani Beck, Dartmouth College
Chenesia Brown, State University of New York-Oswego
Nancy Rios-Contreras, Chapman University
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 030: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Fighting Global Inequalities: Actions towards Social, Ethnoracial and/or Gender Justice
Room: Pearl
Sponsors: Global
Poverty, Class, and Inequality
Organizers: Nicole Kraus, West Texas A&M University
Beatriz Padilla, University of South Florida
Presider/Discussant: Nicole Kraus, West Texas A&M University
Description: Since the onset of globalization, inequalities have been on the rise. While class struggle remains central, other forms of inequality—such as those based on gender, race, and ethnicity—have become increasingly recognized across societies. These inequalities have a decisive global impact, particularly in the asymmetries between the Global North and the Global South in terms of power differentials, access to resources, and extractivism. This critical dialogue invites speakers to address these issues, with particular attention to examples of resistance that seek to confront and transform such inequalities.
Papers:
“Compositional and Scale Effects: How Foreign Direct Investment Shapes Informal Employment in Latin America, 2000–2018,” Ang Li, Brown University
“From Women’s Gold to Men’s Market: Global Value Chains and Evolving Traditions in Nigeria’s Shea Economy,” Idowu Alabi, Wayne State University, Winner of the Global Division’s Student Paper Competition
“Haryanvi Jaat Girls’ Affective Resistance as Micro-Modal Feminist Activism,” Namrata Shokeen, Arizona State University
“La Colectíva: A Plática about Collective, Community-Centered Care and Resistance Responding to the Impacts of ICE Family Separations,” Florence Emily Castillo, Rice University; La Colectíva NTX, Sandra E. Avalos, La Colectíva NTX; People of Color in Action, Angélica Elizabeth Andrade and Francisco Mercado-Romero, La Colectíva NTX
“Methamphetamine Use in Mexico City: Identifying Preliminary Patterns, Drug Checking, and HIV Risk,” Alice Cepeda, Arizona State University, Jessica Frankeberger, Arizone State University, Mario Dominguez, Eduardo Zafra, Carlos Zamudio and Nefertari Rincon-Guerra, Arizona State University, Esmeralda Ramirez, The University of Texas at Austin and Avelardo Valdez, Arizona State University
“Unstable Categories: Creativity and Vulnerability in Transnational Transgender Politics,” J. Michael Ryan, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Date: Friday, August 7
Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Session 031: Gender and Violence: International Perspectives
Room: Plymouth
Sponsors: Crime and Justice
Gender, Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities
Law and Society
Organizer: Lloyd Klein, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Presider: Hara Bastas, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Description: This session examines the intersections of gender and violence across global contexts. Papers explore gender-based violence, gendered patterns in criminal behavior, and anti-violence movements, with attention to legal systems and broader institutional dynamics.
Papers:
“Everyday Violence and Structural Inequality: Caste and Gender Oppression of Dalit Women in Punjab,” Ritu Singh, University of Delhi and Ravinder Goyat, Independent Researcher
“Feminist Knowledge as Praxis: Resisting Femicide in Türkiye,” Fatime Güneş, Anadolu University
“Gender Norms and Violence: Attitudes toward Rape and Intimate Partner Violence in Nigeria,” Patricia Mmeri Ebubechukwu, Illinois State University
“Gendered Exploitation and Reproductive Injustice: Mapping Baby-Factory Networks in South-East Nigeria,” Ijeoma Mercy Ogba-Amaugo, Abia State University
“Impediments of South African Police Service Personnel in Policing Gender-Based Violence (GBV),” Emeka E. Obioha and Ishmael Mugari, Walter Sisulu University
“Strategizing Gender: Experiences of Transmasculine Folk with Police and Security Forces in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires,” Francis J. Fabre, The University of Chicago
