ASA News

• Introducing 2023 ASA President Prudence Carter
• Meet the New Editors of Rose Series
• Call for ASA Editorship Applications for American Sociological Review and Sociological Theory
• Important 2023 Annual Meeting Dates
• ASA Connect Email Options
• Thank You to ASA’s Generous Supporters

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Introducing 2023 ASA President Prudence Carter

Prudence Carter has conquered many firsts in her bold and brilliant career. In 2001, she became the first African American woman to join the faculty in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Six years later, she was recruited by the Stanford Graduate School of Education as a tenured associate professor, and rose to become the Jacks Family Professor of Education and Sociology. Her meteoric rise as a scholar is matched by her astounding rise as a leader. In 2016, Prudence was appointed as Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Berkeley—becoming the school’s youngest and first African American woman dean. After stepping down as dean last year, she returned to her ever-true alma mater Brown University to become the inaugural Sarah and Joseph Jr. Dowling Professor of Sociology.

Conquering Firsts and Opening Doors

Conquering firsts is what Prudence Carter does. As the first, she ensures that she is not the last by opening the door for others. Why is this important? Through her research and experiences, Prudence recognizes that questions go unasked, assumptions remain unchallenged, and intellectual perspectives become narrow in institutions and disciplines that lack diversity.

Allow me to pause for a moment to add that I have known Prudence since we were budding sociologists in graduate school at Columbia University. Through our vibrant exchanges during graduate school and the many that followed, I have been (and continue to be) inspired by Prudence’s brilliance, her unwavering commitment to close opportunity gaps, and her bold vision for an educative and transformative sociology. During our journey as sociologists, I have marveled as I watched Prudence deftly dismantle tropes, reframe narratives, and advocate for more just, inclusive, and culturally flexible policies.

One of her co-authors, Sean Reardon, had this to say about her: “More than any academic I know, Prudence’s scholarship and professional leadership are guided by her clear moral compass and attunement to the symbolic and experienced inequalities in society. I’ve learned an enormous amount from her as a colleague and a friend.”

Learning from Prudence makes you better. Working with her inspires you to do better. It is my privilege to introduce you to 2022-23 ASA President Prudence Carter.

Slaying the Myth of Oppositional Culture

One of my early insights into Prudence’s bold brilliance was in graduate school when we read Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu’s 1986 article, “Black students’ school success: Coping with the “burden of ‘acting white’”. Fordham and Ogbu argued that Black students underperformed in school because they adopted a reactive, oppositional culture in which excelling in school was tantamount to “acting white.” The fear of being accused of “acting white” by their peers, in turn, diminished Black students’ academic effort and performance. Oppositional culture became the go-to explanation for the pernicious Black-White achievement gap, and was adopted by leading scholars of race, education, culture, and immigration.

Prudence’s dissertation research—which laid the foundations for her first book, Keepin’ It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White (Oxford University Press 2005)—slayed the myth of oppositional culture and anti-achievement ideology among Black youth. Based on interviews and observation of 68 students over a 10-month period, Prudence found no evidence of oppositional culture. Listening to the students, she learned that they used the phrase “acting white” to describe styles, tastes, and codes that they associated with middle-class whites. Furthermore, Prudence found that poor Black and Latinx students do, in fact, subscribe to the achievement ideology of education as the vehicle to socioeconomic mobility, but the vast majority lacked the material resources and dominant cultural capital to achieve mobility through education alone.

Here, Prudence made another insightful theoretical intervention. Challenging the belief that there is a singular type of cultural capital, she identified “nondominant cultural capital,” characterized by a set of tastes, appreciations, and understandings employed by lower status group members to gain “authentic” cultural status positions in their communities. For many Black and Latinx students, nondominant cultural capital matters because it signifies in-group allegiance and preserves a sense of belonging. While not a single student devalued high academic achievement nor disparaged peers who were smart, they did care if their peers repudiated in-group cultural codes and knowledge.

By asking the right questions, Prudence masterfully challenged oft-held assumptions, and, in the process, dismantled the trope of “acting white” as an anti-achievement ideology. That she had the courage do this as a graduate student and an untenured assistant professor is a testament to Prudence’s bold brilliance. Keepin’ It Real was awarded ASA’s Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for the best book on race and the eradication of racism in 2006.

Organizational Habitus and Cultural Flexibility

Prudence’s next project was even more ambitious: a pioneering comparative study of eight schools in four cities and two countries, which eventuated in her second book, Stubborn Roots: Race, Culture, and Inequality in U.S. and South African Schools (Oxford University Press 2012). While the United States and South Africa differ in their racial compositions, they share a legacy of racial exclusion and a history of racial inequality, which they have sought to transform through school desegregation. Neither has been successful, however, because desegregation alone is not the answer. Prudence’s research reveals why.

Drawing on her keen ethnographic and interviewing skills, she draws our attention to the organizational habitus of schools, including what they teach (their curricula) and how they teach (their pedagogy), both within and beyond the classroom. She unveils the angst that minoritized students experience when they are perceived as representatives of their race while remaining invisible in their curricula in which the content fails to reflect their social, historical, and material realities. Moreover, she finds that desegregation and color-blind policies do not disrupt persistent patterns of racial segregation and inequality within schools.

In the United States, segregation is maintained through organizational practices such as the racialization of academic tracking, as well as participation in select athletic and extracurricular activities. Cheerleading is to white students as stepping is to Black students, for example. In South Africa, inequality persists though universal policies that demean minoritized students, including dress codes and styles that center on the practices of white youth. Universal color-blind policies, codes, and curricula can marginalize minoritized students in ways that amplify racial and cultural inequality.

Prudence urges researchers to attend to organizational habitus, and focus on “cultural flexibility.” This involves institutional policies and practices that promote cultural inclusion and belonging such that cultural differences are respected rather than debased or ignored, and ties across social boundaries encouraged. Prioritizing cultural flexibility would, in turn, create an inclusive educational experience for all students across racial and class boundaries.

Fellow Trustee at the William T. Grant Foundation Hiro Yoshikawa shared this: “Prudence is a visionary leader and scholar in the sociology of education, having conducted landmark studies on race, culture, systems and educational inequality in the U.S. and South Africa. She will bring her years of expertise in working not just to empirically describe, but to reduce racial, relational, and other forms of inequality to her new leadership position.”

An Invitation to Be Bolder, Transformative, and Radically Inclusive

An inimitable voice for bolder and transformative education policies, Prudence has most recently laid out the multidimensional forms of inequality that persist at the macro, meso, and micro levels. Addressing these requires multidimensional solutions. “Radical inclusion” in schools and communities is the path forward, with the goal of closing opportunity gaps so that access to and full participation in the economy, government, and schools is possible so that no group languishes at the margins.

Prudence’s intellectual trajectory serves as the foundation for her inspiring theme for the ASA 2023 Annual Meeting: The Educative Power of Sociology. At a time when the United States is experiencing a regressive turning point, voting rights are under assault, and federal constitutional protections of women’s reproductive rights undone, Prudence encourages us to reflect and act on the discipline’s educative power. How can we move toward bolder, transformative, and useful directions for social progress?

The call is morally urgent. As Prudence elaborates, “State legislatures have also outlawed explicit teaching of the nation’s history, about race and racism, anti-Semitism, and explicit references to certain books and ideas that highlight the racial hierarchy at the core of U.S. society and beyond… Competitiveness and fear of encroachment on individual choice motivate communities to reproduce thick social boundaries and segregation and to limit the sharing of resources and power significantly with historically underrepresented groups in access to departments, colleges, and universities.”

It is in this context that Prudence invites us to produce new scholarship, research, and policy frameworks that aim to focus on the use and utility of sociological thought and research in institutions, organizations, and society; disrupt the academic hierarchy of social science; expand and connect more intentionally with global sociologies; and engage in reflexivity and conduct a sociology of sociology.

That Philadelphia will host the ASA 2023 Annual Meeting is fitting. Home to the Liberty Bell and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia boasts a rich history of civil rights. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society met there in 1775, and the American Anti-Slavery Society, which grew to nearly 250,000 members by 1838, was established in Philadelphia. And outside of Independence Hall, Susan B. Anthony delivered the Declaration of the Rights of Women in 1876. The history of Philadelphia provides an iconic backdrop to Prudence’s bold theme for the Annual Meeting.

The Professional Is Personal

In her stunning address at the 16^th Annual American Educational Research Association Brown Lecture, Prudence shared that she is the granddaughter of sharecroppers and the daughter of Mississippi educators. Educated in a de facto segregated school system in which her teachers and all but two of her classmates were African American, she was taught that college was expected and upward mobility attainable.

“We were the embodiment of the dreams that our ancestors, our foreparents, and our parents held,” Prudence affirmed. “Those who had toiled in the Mississippi Delta under the hot sweltering sun. They toiled under economic exploitation, white supremacy, and deep oppression. But they kept that hope alive, and their children, and their children passed it along to their children.”

As Prudence grew older, she knew enough to question whether she was getting the most rigorous education. Upon the recommendation of one of her teachers, Prudence’s parents applied for her to attend a six-week summer program at an elite boarding school on the East Coast. Prudence was admitted, and for the first time was exposed to students from all 50 states and from around the globe. She engaged with a diverse array of perspectives, ideologies, and social, cultural and political realities.

That summer program was a “catalytic moment” in Prudence’s trajectory that would propel her on a path that diverged from her classmates in Mississippi. She would conquer firsts, open doors, and become a leader in our discipline who would inspire a legion of others.

Dean Linda Burton of Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare described Prudence as “a treasured North star,” adding that “every university needs a Prudence. She is a quintessential game-changer with laser sharp vision and outstanding leadership skills, an authentic collaborative spirit, and a cutting-edge scholar and researcher. Her penchant for mentoring her students is beyond inspiring as she guides them to become their best selves.”

And Dr. Reena Karani, a dear friend of Prudence’s for over three decades, shared that “Prudence believes in—and is utterly committed to—a more equitable and just future. She has dedicated her life to ending disparities in education and mobility faced by the most vulnerable among us, and will bring her rich lived experiences, proud intersecting identities, and brilliant mind and heart to the work of the organization and field.”

I hope this glimpse of who Prudence Carter is and what she brings to the American Sociological Association conveys how immensely fortunate we are to have her as our President.

Jennifer Lee, Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Social Sciences, Columbia University

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Meet the New Editors of Rose Series

It is with great pleasure that I write to introduce four of my University at Albany colleagues, Joanna Dreby, Steven Messner, Aaron Major, and Katherine Trent, as the incoming editors for the ASA Rose Series in Sociology. Not only will these four professors ensure that the Rose Series maintains its excellent reputation as a publication outlet for some of our discipline’s most esteemed scholars, together they possess a perfect set of qualifications to succeed at this task. Their research, covering some of the key issues of our time, such as immigration, crime and violence, economic inequality, abortion, family structure, and race/ethnic relations, gives them valuable insights into the importance of sociological knowledge to the modern world.

 

In 1967, the Rose Series was established as the Rose Monograph Series after a donation from Arnold and Caroline Rose, sociologists at the University of Minnesota. The Roses sought to foster the communication of scholarly knowledge in a way not met by conventional journal articles alone. The first Rose monograph, Deviance, Selves, and Others (by Michael Schwartz and Sheldon Stryker) was published in 1971—more than half a century ago. Many of the early monographs are considered “classics” in the discipline. So being chosen as a Rose editor is both an honor and a responsibility for which my colleagues are ideally suited.

Essential Qualifications

To introduce them to you I will first discuss what I view as important qualifications that the Rose Series editors should have and how I see the new editors fulfilling them, and then end with a brief biography of each person. The first qualification is coverage of the discipline. Though it would be impossible to find four scholars who cover every single aspect of a discipline as broad as sociology, Joanna Dreby, Steven Messner, Aaron Major, and Katherine Trent come very close. In order to let them speak for themselves rather than my categorizing them into areas, I compiled this (partial) list of topics they cover from what they list on their CVs as areas of specialization: Sociology of Families, Children and Youth, Work and Family, Fertility and Reproduction; Social Demography and Population Health; Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Military Sociology; Criminology, Crime and Social Control; Globalization, International Migration, and Transnationalism. It is an impressive list, and one that maps well onto at least two-thirds of the 50+ ASA Sections. Coverage of many aspects of the discipline is important since the Rose Series is not limited to specific areas but covers the entire discipline.

A second qualification of the new editors is their experience. The people choosing which books are published as Rose volumes need to have a lot of experience working in the discipline. Based on the year of their first publication, together the new editors have over 100 years of experience publishing books, book chapters, and peer-reviewed articles in top sociological journals. This collective experience in publishing will enable them to recognize not only the quality of the submissions they receive, but also to judge their importance and whether they are likely to appeal to a broad audience.

Third, that the new editors use a variety of methodological approaches in their own work is extremely important as they are likely to receive manuscripts using many methodologies. Narrowly put, two, Messner and Trent, do quantitative work, while Dreby and Major’s work is qualitative. However, a careful reading of their work shows that within those broad categories they cover survey analysis, macrosociology, comparative-historical research, ethnomethodology, statistical modeling, and ethnography. My years of knowing and working with them showed me that none were methodological “purists;” all had great respect for methodologies different from their own, so I expect them be very open-minded in judging the submissions they receive. The variety of methods they use themselves also contributes to their expertise to select high-quality volumes.

The fourth qualification I find important for the editors is breadth of geographic focus. All of these scholars do research with a focus both inside and outside the U.S., an ever more important characteristic in today’s world than in the 1960s. Trent has published on China, India, and Mexico; Dreby on Latin America, Mexico, and Costa Rica; Messner on China, Germany, and Belgium; and Major has studied Italy and the United Kingdom. While the Rose Series currently focuses principally on the U.S., this breadth of geographic focus will allow for expansion of perspective.

My last qualification is that the editors should have the ability to work together. Though we do not like to admit it, all of us know of departments where collegial relationships are less than amicable. One does not want to hand the editorship of the Rose Series to such a group. As someone who worked in the University of Albany department for almost 30 years, and with these four people for between 20 and 30 years, I can definitely say that they will work well together. One good indication of that ability is their rate of co-authorship: a quick glance at any of their CVs shows a lot of collaboration with other scholars, and particularly with graduate students.

On a more individual note, I will now introduce them to you in alphabetical order:

Joanna Dreby is professor of sociology and well known for her ethnographic research on Latin American immigrants. Two of her books, Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families (University of California Press 2015)and Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and their Children (University of California Press 2010) have won prizes from ASA’s Latino/a Section and the International Migration and Family Sections. Her research focuses on immigration policy and enforcement, particularly as it affects children and families. Other topics she has investigated include the effects of food insecurity on children’s health, including obesity, and most recently, family farming in upstate New York.

Aaron Major, associate professor of sociology, is known for his work in comparative-historical and political sociology. His well-received book, Architects of Austerity: International Finance and the Politics of Growth (Stanford University Press 2014), analyzed economic policy in the U.S., Italy, and United Kingdom in the 1960s. Despite the national governments’ policy shift toward more liberal policies, these changes did not last long as monetary policy and institutional structural reform resulted in central banks playing an increasingly important role in imposing conservative policies on federal governments. In other work, he explores the changing role of the military in world affairs, as well as the relationship between capitalism and income inequality.

Steve Messner is Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus and Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, among numerous other honors and awards. He is a criminologist, author or co-author of almost 150 peer-reviewed articles, as well as numerous book chapters. In addition, he is the author of three books, Crime and the Economy (SAGE Publications 2013) and Crime and the American Dream (Wadsworth 2012), both with Richard Rosenfeld, and Perspectives on Crime and Deviance (Pearson 1998) with Allen Liska, plus five edited volumes. He is especially well-known for his work on crime and violence in China, as well as in the U.S. His research is noteworthy for its wide range of topics, including violent crime, crime rates, hate crime, and especially for its emphasis on the context in which the crime occurs.

Katherine Trent is professor of sociology and a well-known demographer whose research focuses on family and population health, broadly defined. Indicating their high quality, her numerous articles appear in the top journals of the field. Her research on adolescent child-bearing examines the effects of family structure and socioeconomic status, as well as teen attitudes toward family formation and fertility. In other research, she has studied the social determinants of abortion, divorce and remarriage, and adult sibling relationships. Much of her work is cross-national, particularly on the effects of imbalanced sex ratios on marriage, divorce, crime, and sexually transmitted disease.

In closing, let me reiterate that I am pleased to introduce Joanna Dreby, Steven Messner, Aaron Major, and Katherine Trent to you as the new Rose Series editors. They are highly qualified and I’m sure they will do a great job. I urge you to submit your manuscripts to the Rose Series in Sociology.

Nancy Denton, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University at Albany, State University of New York

 

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Call for ASA Editorship Applications for American Sociological Review and Sociological Theory

The ASA Publications Committee invites applications for the editorships of the American Sociological Review (ASR) and Sociological Theory (ST). The official terms for the new editors (or co-editors) will begin in January 2024, with the transition starting in summer 2023. The editorial terms are for three years with a possibility of extension of one or two years. Applications are due December 1. ASA Council will appoint the new editors in Spring 2023. See complete application procedures and examples of previous successful proposals. ASA will hold a Zoom meeting on how to apply to be an ASA editor with the current editors of ASR and ST, the chair of the ASA Publications Committee, and ASA staff on October 25 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Register here to attend.

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Important 2023 Annual Meeting Dates

The 2023 Annual Meeting, with President Prudence Carter’s theme, “The Educative Power of Sociology,” will be held in Philadelphia from August 17-21, 2023. Please note that the 2023 Annual Meeting is being held from Thursday through Monday instead of the usual Friday through Tuesday pattern. The call for papers and other proposals will be posted online in mid-October and submissions will open November 7. The submission deadline is Wednesday, February 22, 2023, 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Registration fees will be available in December and registration will open in January. Attendees will be asked to follow health and safety protocols mandated by ASA Council, with requirements posted in December.

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ASA Connect Email Options

As you begin using ASA Connect, the association’s communications platform, here are some options that might be helpful:

Setting email frequency. ASA Connect allows you to choose how frequently you get emails. You can opt for 1) real-time emails; 2) a daily digest (one email per group per day); 3) a daily consolidated digest (all groups combined into one email per day); or 4) a weekly consolidated digest (all groups combined into one email per week). To set your email frequency, log into ASA Connect and click on your profile picture (or initials) in the upper right corner. Click on “Profile,” “My Account,” and “Group Notifications.”

Joining the Job Bank Email Notifications Group. Are you or your students on the job market? Any ASA member who would like to receive email notifications about new postings in the ASA Job Bank can join the ASA Job Bank Email Notifications group. To sign up for the group, log into ASA Connect, click on “Groups,” “Suggested Groups,” and “Request to Join.”

Learn more on the ASA Connect Help/FAQ page. If you have questions, please email [email protected].

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Thank You to ASA’s Generous Supporters

ASA acknowledges the generous support of the following individuals, whose financial contributions (January 1, 2022, through June 30, 2022) to the association have strengthened our discipline.

Some of these donations provide unrestricted support to ASA, and others are used specifically for the American Sociological Fund, the Carla B. Howery Teaching Enhancement Fund, or the Community Action Research Initiative. In addition, this list includes both five-year leadership pledge donations and one-time donations for the Campaign for Inclusion. This campaign supports our longstanding Minority Fellowship Program and our Annual Meeting Travel Fund.

If you are interested in making a contribution to support ASA in its mission to serve sociologists in their work, advance sociology as a science and profession, and promote the contributions and use of sociology to society, please click here.

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