Formation | January 1, 1905 |
---|---|
Headquarters | 1717 K Street NW, Suite 900, Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Membership (2022) | 9,947 [1] |
2023 President | Joya Misra |
Publication | Footnotes |
Website | www |
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fifty people, the first president of the association would be Lester Frank Ward. [2] Today, most of its members work in academia, while around 20 percent of them work in government, business, or non-profit organizations.
ASA publishes ten academic journals and magazines, along with four section journals, including the American Sociological Review and Contexts .
The ASA is currently the largest professional association of sociologists in the world, even larger than the International Sociological Association. [3] The ASA consists of over 13,000 members—composed of researchers, students, college/university faculty, high school faculty, and various practitioners—while its 52 special-interest sections contain more than 21,000 members. [4] The "American Sociological Association Annual Meeting" is an annual academic conference held by the association consisting of over 6,000 participants. [4]
In the summer of 1905, George Washington University professor C. W. A. Veditz began a discussion among sociologists throughout the United States, writing to several dozen people to gauge the need for or interest in forming an sociological organization. [5] [6] [4] [7] Sociologists debated whether there was a need for a separate organization from the American Economic Association, American Political Science Association and the American Historical Association, which most sociologists at the time were members of. [5] [7] Ultimately, a consensus was reached that the time had come for a society of sociologists in the U.S. [5]
In early December, the professor and eight others wrote to about 300 people inviting them to a special session during the American Economic Association (AEA) and American Political Science Association meetings later that month to discuss the potential formation of a sociological society.
On December 27, approximately 50 people, including one woman, gathered in McCoy Hall at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and, by its end, the group would motion to form a new society of sociologists. Though there would be debate as to integrating this new society with an existing organization, such as the AEA, the group would ultimately decide that the new society ought to be an independent entity.
At the end of the day of the initial meeting, those gathered at the meeting formed a five-person committee to develop a plan for the new society and how it should be governed. The committee members would re-convene the next afternoon to review the proposed structure of the society. Council members would include Edward A. Ross, W.F. Wilcox, Albion Small, Samuel Lindsay, D. C. Wells, and William Davenport.
The following men would be elected officers of the new society: [4]
When the committee left Baltimore, the birth of the American Sociological Society was complete, a Constitution had been adopted, officers were elected, and plans were made for the second annual meeting of the new society.
In 1981, in celebration the association's 75th anniversary, Lawrence J. Rhoades prepared a 90-page publication entitled A History of the American Sociological Association, 1905-1980, commonly referred to as the "1981 Rhoades History." The publication provides a brief overview of the founding and early years of the association, as well as highlights of key activities and events in the decades since. [8]
In 1953, during the annual meeting in Berkeley, California, each of the (living) past presidents of the society would compose a voice recording to address the coming generation of sociologists. [9]
In 2005, in celebration of the association's 100th anniversary, ASA published a 201-page book entitled A History of the American Sociological Association, 1981-2004. The publication picks up where the 1981 Rhoades history concludes, continuing the story and capturing the association's history from 1981 through 2004. It is the culmination of over two years of detailed research by Katherine J. Rosich. The objective of this volume would be to describe and report on the major events in the life of ASA during the last two decades of the 20th century, leading up to a new century and millennium, as well as to commemorate the ASA's 100th anniversary in 2005. [8]
In the fall of 2011, the ASA launched its "Sociology in Wikipedia" initiative. Erik Olin Wright, President of the ASA, called for improvement in sociological entries in Wikipedia. He asked that professors and students to get more involved by having Wikipedia-writing assignments in class. The basic goal set forth by the initiative would be to make it easier for sociologists to contribute to Wikipedia, and for sociologists to become better involved in the writing and editing processes to ensure that social science articles are up-to-date, complete, accurate, and written appropriately.
In conjunction with the Wikimedia Foundation and a research group at Carnegie Mellon University, the ASA developed its Wikipedia Portal in an attempt to achieve the initiative's goal through providing tutorials on how to contribute; video discussions of norms and procedures; and lists of articles and subject areas that need improvement. The Portal would also provide instructions for professors on how to use Wikipedia writing assignments for academic courses. [10]
The ASA is governed by a code of ethics and ethical standards, which has been revised since 1970, with the first ASA code of ethics being written in 1970. The Committee on Professional Ethics worked to write this code and upon completing and approving it in 1997, the code focused on three goals, which would be to make the code more educative, accessible/easier to use, and more helpful for sociologists to understand ethical issues. [11]
ASA style is a widely accepted format for writing university research papers that specifies the arrangement and punctuation of footnotes and bibliographies. Standards for ASA style are specified in the ASA Style Guide, which is designed to aid authors in preparing manuscripts for ASA journals and publications.
The association publishes the following academic journals and magazines: [12]
The ASA also publishes Footnotes, a newsletter aimed at the association's members. Footnotes was established in 1979 and is published five times per year. [13]
The following persons have been presidents of the American Sociological Association: [14]
The Annual Meeting of the ASA is held each August to provide opportunity for professionals involved in the study of society to share knowledge and new directions in research and practice. It provides networking outlets for nearly 3,000 research papers and 4,600 presenters. [15] The meeting is spread across four days and covers 600 program sessions.
All ASA Committees and Task Forces meet during the annual meeting. The ASA Council and several Constitutional Committees meet mid-year during the winter months in Washington D.C. [16]
Every year, in August, the ASA presents awards to individuals and groups deserving of recognition. The awards presented are: [17]
Additionally, the Sections of the ASA administer separate multiple awards, which are presented each August during the annual meeting. [18]
In 1993, then-doctoral student Rik Scarce was jailed for more than five months as a result of following the ASA's code of ethics. Scarce's Ph.D. research was on the radical environmental movement. Based on an FBI investigation of an Animal Liberation Front break-in, federal prosecutors argued in court that Scarce may have engaged in conversations with individuals believed to be involved with the incident. Prosecutors demanded that Scarce testify to a federal grand jury about those conversations, but Scarce refused to answer three dozen questions, citing the ASA Code of Ethics and the First Amendment as his reasoning for remaining unresponsive. [19] Scarce's refusal to answer resulted in a contempt of court citation and 159 days spent in jail. He was never suspected of wrongdoing and—in keeping with contempt of court practice—he was never read his Miranda rights, arrested, or tried. [20]
In early 2010, ASA publicly expressed outrage over a controversy involving Frances Fox Piven and Glenn Beck, asking Fox News to stop Beck's comments. [21] An article written by Piven concerning mobilization of unemployed individuals had spurred the commentary by Beck. [22] ASA suggests in their public statements that the line should be drawn at name calling and that political commentators should instead rely on gathering evidence related to the topics and then drawing the proper conclusions.
In January 2012, a United States district court ordered Boston College to turn over material from the "Belfast Project", an oral history project pertaining to the violence in Northern Ireland. Boston College filed an appeal in February 2012, challenging the district court's decision. ASA became involved in the case to help protect human participants from the subpoena of confidential project research data. [23] The statement by the ASA council cited the potential damage this ruling would have on social science research by stifling the ability to study controversial topics. ASA is looking for an affirmation by the court for confidentiality in research. [24]
Within the Environmental sociology section of the ASA, an ad hoc Committee on Racial Equity investigated racial and ethnic diversity within the section in response to critique that the section was overwhelmingly white. Their assessment of the professional climate for scholars of colour concluded that the section was a 'white space' characterized by the overwhelming presence of whites and dominated by white leadership. They concluded that this situation acts as a barrier to inclusion of people of colour in the field, and that the field of environmental justice was likewise marginalised. [25]
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuously operating professional society in the U.S. behind the Massachusetts Medical Society, founded in 1781). ASA services statisticians, quantitative scientists, and users of statistics across many academic areas and applications. The association publishes a variety of journals and sponsors several international conferences every year.
Public sociology is a subfield of the wider sociological discipline that emphasizes expanding the disciplinary boundaries of sociology in order to engage with non-academic audiences. It is perhaps best understood as a style of sociology rather than a particular method, theory, or set of political values. Since the twenty-first century, the term has been widely associated with University of California, Berkeley sociologist Michael Burawoy, who delivered an impassioned call for a disciplinary embrace of public sociology in his 2004 American Sociological Association (ASA) presidential address. In his address, Burawoy contrasts public sociology with what he terms "professional sociology", a form of sociology that is concerned primarily with addressing other academic sociologists.
William Fielding Ogburn was an American sociologist who was born in Butler, Georgia and died in Tallahassee, Florida. He was also a statistician and an educator. Ogburn received his B.A. degree from Mercer University and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. He was a professor of sociology at Columbia from 1919 until 1927, when he became chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago.
The International Sociological Association (ISA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to scientific purposes in the field of sociology and social sciences. It is an international sociological body, gathering both individuals and national sociological organizations. The ISA was founded in 1949 under UNESCO and it has about 4,500 individual and 45 collective members, hailing from 167 countries. Its sole purpose is to "represent sociologists everywhere, regardless of their school of thought, scientific approaches or ideological opinion" and its objective is to "advance sociological knowledge throughout the world". Along with the Institut International de Sociologie (IIS), it is seen as a world-leading international sociological organization.
Charles Abram Ellwood was an American sociologist who was professor of sociology at University of Missouri-Columbia and Duke University. He has been described as one of the leading American sociologists of the interwar period, studying intolerance, communication and revolutions and using many multidisciplinary methods.
Frances Fox Piven is an American professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982.
Evelyn Seiko Nakano Glenn is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to her teaching and research responsibilities, she served as founding director of the university's Center for Race and Gender (CRG), a leading U.S. academic center for the study of intersectionality among gender, race and class social groups and institutions. In June 2008, Glenn was elected president of the 15,000-member American Sociological Association. She served as president-elect during the 2008–2009 academic year, assumed her presidency at the annual ASA national convention in San Francisco in August 2009, served as president of the association during the 2009–2010 year, and continued to serve on the ASA governing council as past-president until August 2011. Her presidential address, given at the 2010 meetings in Atlanta, was entitled "Constructing Citizenship: Exclusion, Subordination, and Resistance", and was printed as the lead article in the American Sociological Review.
Christopher K. Chase-Dunn is an American sociologist best known for his contributions to world-systems theory.
Sociology is the scientific and systematic study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenological method.
Michèle Lamont is a Canadian sociologist who is the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and a professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is a contributor to the study of culture, inequality, racism and anti-racism, the sociology of morality, evaluation and higher education, and the study of cultural and social change. She is the recipient of the Gutenberg Award and the Erasmus award, for her "devoted contribution to social science research into the relationship between knowledge, power, and diversity." She has received honorary degrees from five countries. and been elected to the British Academy, Royal Society of Canada, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques, and the Sociological Research Association. She served as president of the American Sociological Association from 2016 to 2017.
Robert Mason Hauser is an American sociologist. He is the Vilas Research and Samuel F. Stouffer professor of sociology emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he served as director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and the Center for Demography of Health and Aging.
Wilbert E. Moore was an American sociologist noted, with Kingsley Davis, for their explanation and justification for social stratification, based their idea of "functional necessity."
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Omar Lizardo is an American sociologist who is LeRoy Neiman Term Chair Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was previously professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame (2006-2018), and co-editor of the American Sociological Review. In 2020, Lizardo became a member of the board of reviewing editors of the journal Science. He has also served on the editorial board of the journals Social Forces, Sociological Forum, Poetics, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Theory and Society, Sociological Theory, and Journal of World-Systems Research.
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DrEsther Ngan-ling Chow is a sociologist and Emerita Professor at the American University, Washington D.C., United States.
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Debra J. Umberson is an American sociologist. She is a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the Population Research Center.
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