Thematic Sessions explore the meeting theme. These sessions are broad in scope and endeavor to make the theme of the meeting come alive.
125 Years of The Philadelphia Negro: Urban Sociology After Du Bois
In 2023, ASA convenes in Philadelphia, the setting for W. E. B. Du Bois’s landmark study The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. This blended thematic and regional spotlight session will commemorate the 125th anniversary of the book, first published in 1899. Embracing ASA President Prudence Carter’s chosen theme, the panelists will consider the “educative power” of Du Bois’s text–offering a critical assessment of the organization of society, with an eye towards social change–which famously depicted in meticulous detail the city’s Black Seventh Ward. Emerging in the nascent years of American Sociology and within the context of the social settlement movement, The Philadelphia Negro was truly interdisciplinary and bridged the empirical methods and conceptual tools of sociology, history, demography, economics, and anthropology. This panel will reflect on how The Philadelphia Negro continues to influence the study of urban life and, in the words of Du Bois, its “plexus of social problems.” Panelists will consider topics including: how official government crime statistics and visualizations obscure what Du Bois termed “social disharmony” even as they purport to offer greater transparency; how data sources including cognitive maps help tell a story about the restructuring of racial segregation in Philadelphia; whether recent progressive efforts may actually curb crime in the city; and how racial attitudes shape the experience and use of time for low-income Black neighborhoods. And in the spirit of traditional regional spotlight sessions, the panelists–all of whom have connections to the Philadelphia area or have conducted research there–will bring Du Bois’s text home on its quasquicentennial and consider how a Du Boisian urban sociology continues to matter today for and in the City of Brotherly Love.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Freeden Blume Oeur, Tufts University; (Presider) Tukufu Zuberi, University of Pennsylvania
Race, Poverty, and Time in the City: A Du Boisian Framework For Linking Micro and Macro, Linsey Nicole Edwards, New York University
All You See is Crime in the City: The Continued Inadequacy of Safety Statistics 125 Years After Du Bois, Rory Kramer, Villanova University
Racial Styling and Profiling: Black Bodies and Crime in the City of Brotherly Love, Kayla A. Preito-Hodge, Rutgers University-Camden
The ‘Inaccessible and Inadequate’ Landscape of Affordable Housing in a Rapidly Gentrifying West Philadelphia: A View from Du Bois’ Megascope, Ayana Allen-Handy, Drexel University
Applying Sociological Research to Create More Equitable Teaching Tools and Classrooms
While we all teach sociological content, that does not necessarily mean that all of our practices in the classroom are sociologically informed. Due to a lack of critical training of most college instructors and a tendency to reproduce the ways that we were taught, many instructors unintentionally create inequitable courses. This session features panelists who have used their sociological research expertise to create new teaching tools in order to create more equitable courses. During the panel, the panelists will share their teaching tools to help audience members implement them in their own courses. Additionally, panelists will share their experience of developing these new tools using their research expertise to help attendees critically reflect on how they might be able to do the same. The scholarship of teaching and learning is often treated as separate from the other sociology scholarship, and this session seeks to bridge the gap to contribute to furthering the educative power of sociology.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Alanna Gillis, St. Lawrence University; (Presider) Alanna Gillis, St. Lawrence University; (Panelist) Nicole Bedera, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; (Panelist) Max Elliott Coleman, Indiana University Bloomington; (Panelist) Melissa Brown, Santa Clara University; (Panelist) Alicia L. Brunson, Georgia Southern University
Desegregation, Affirmative Action and ‘Diversity Work’ in K-12 and Higher Education: Cross-Sector Sociological Connections for 21st Century Policy and Practice
This session will provide a comparison of racial “diversity” work in K-12 and higher education. Panelists will discuss the successes and failures in both sectors in the conceptualization of three different areas: 1) political and legal issues; 2) organizational and school culture and climate; and 3) curriculum and pedagogy.
Participants: (Session Organizer and Presider) Amy Stuart Wells, Teachers College, Columbia University; (Panelist) Diana Cordova-Cobo, Teachers College, Columbia University; (Panelist) Amy Elizabeth Jones Haug, Teachers College-Columbia University; (Panelist) OiYan Poon, The Spencer Foundation; (Panelist) Terrenda White, University of Colorado-Boulder; (Discussant) Peter M. Rich, Cornell University
Doing Public Sociology: Getting Started, Managing Challenges, and Assessing Outcomes
This session will focus on communicating sociology to wider audiences and providing solutions to pressing policy concerns. By highlighting the experiences of colleagues who have been writing for and engaging with broader publics to engage in conversation, this session will showcase some of the challenges and opportunities associated with public scholarship. Panelists will share how they began their journey into public sociology, why it’s important, how they deal with public backlash, and what they see as the most significant outcomes of their work.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Adia M. Harvey Wingfield, Washington University-St. Louis; (Presider) Julie A. Dowling, University of Illinois-Chicago; (Panelist) Stacy Torres, University of California San Francisco; (Panelist) Rashawn Ray, University of Maryland-College Park; (Panelist) Eve L. Ewing, University of Chicago; (Panelist) Matthew Desmond, Princeton University
Environmental Publics, Policy, and Practice: The educative power of environmental sociology
Research in environmental sociology often has strong ties to the natural sciences, policymakers, and community/advocacy groups, which puts sociological research in conversation with a wide range of non-sociologists. Through a sociological perspective on the nexus between social and environmental problems, ranging from the crisis of climate change to more quotidian environmental inequalities, environmental sociologists have an opportunity to effect real change through advocacy, the careful communication of knowledge, and building partnerships with policymakers, organizations, and activists. This session highlights work that has developed across the growing field of environmental sociology with the intention to inform and engage publics beyond the discipline of sociology. The papers will cover diverse issues, including environmental engagement in cities, persistent drought, urban flooding, the creation of green spaces in cities, and global adaptation to climate change. Presenters will demonstrate how an environmental sociological perspective can inform policymaking on these issues, and will also touch on related topics, including: interdisciplinary collaborations; collaborations with environmental justice groups and community-engaged research; and how their work speaks to multiple publics in a time of intersecting social and environmental climate crises. In addition to considering how sociology can speak to diverse publics, they will consider how deep engagement with partners outside of the ivory tower can, in turn, enrich environmental sociological research.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Kevin Loughran, Temple University; (Presider) Danielle Falzon, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Birdwatching on Brownfields: Environmental engagement and ambivalence in the neoliberal city, Amanda McMillan Lequieu, Drexel University
“There is no drought”: Embedding California’s water wars in America’s culture wars, Caleb Scoville, Tufts University
Urban Flooding and Residential Adaptation: Findings from a national assessment of residential mobility in urban flood zones in the US, Kevin Loughran, Temple University; James R. Elliott, Rice University
The Symbolic Affluence of Street Trees: Cultural Meaning and Urban Greening in an Unequal Landscape, Andrew McCumber, Boston University
The Promises and Pitfalls of Locally-led Adaptation to Climate Change: Discerning power and accountability, Danielle Falzon, Rutgers University-New Brunswick; Feisal Rahman, Northumbria University, UK; Laura Kuhl, Northeastern University; Ross Westoby, Griffith University, Australia
Exploring Anticolonial and Abolitionist Sociologies: Past, Present, and Futures
Since there has been sociology, there have been revolutionary sociologies. This panel discussion signals a move towards exploring such revolutionary practices, excavating the historical roots, and present articulations, of anticolonial and abolitionist sociologies. The discussants will pay attention to two main themes. Firstly, they will explore anti-colonial revolutionaries’ production and use of social theory as they sought to abolish the colonial world system – this will encompass a discussion of particular individuals (such as Kwame Nkrumah, Amílcar Cabral, and Frantz Fanon) just as much as it will refer to wider activist groups (such as the Black Panther Party, the Zapatistas, and the Combahee River Collective). Secondly, they will explore what sociology can itself learn from historical and contemporary anticolonial and abolitionist social movements. Indeed, by examining what sociology can learn from such social movements, the panelists will also consequently consider how the discipline itself has often maintained relations of carcerality, coloniality, and inequality. In sum, this panel discussion will try to provide an epistemically humble, and historically accurate picture of what sociology has done, and what it can do for anticolonialism and abolitionism.
(Session Organizer) Ali Meghji, University of Cambridge; (Presider) Ali Meghji, University of Cambridge; (Panelist) Julian Go, University of Chicago; (Panelist) Ricarda Hammer, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; (Panelist) Zophia Edwards, The Johns Hopkins University; (Panelist) Jairo I. Fúnez, Texas Tech University
Innovating toward the Future: Sociology Education and the Power to Change
This session explores the ways in which community college faculty innovate in teaching, research and understanding to teach sociology. There is a long history of sociology majors from Martin Luther King Jr. Shirley Chisholm, Michele Obama, etc. using sociological perspective to push for social advancement. There is power in a sociological education, and with community college being the initial introduction to sociology for about 50% of all undergraduate students, its faculty continue to be important emissaries to socialize and introduce students and new learners to sociological perspective.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Myron T. Strong, Community College of Baltimore County; (Presider) Myron T. Strong, Community College of Baltimore County; (Panelist) Amy Pucino, The Community College of Baltimore County; (Panelist) Courtney Sargent, Community College of Baltimore; (Panelist) Kelli Vorish, Lone Star College; (Panelist) Sylvia Leticia Flores, South Texas College
Public Sociology and Digital Technology
Technology permeates nearly every sphere of life. Social media platforms, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and data-driven decision-making systems mimic and intensify much of the extant inequalities which structure our institutions and culture. Although there have been prominent interventions to orient sociology towards paying more attention towards technology — including, but not limited to, the opening plenary of the 2020 Annual Meeting — sociology could bring so much more to bear on our discussions of computing, algorithmic decision-making, and how these technologies are having effects which will be felt far beyond our current moment. This panel brings together the leading minds thinking about the nexus of technology and society, and helps us think further how sociologists can be in conversation with technology and technologists.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Alex Hanna, Distributed AI Research Institute; (Session Organizer) Matt Rafalow, Google; (Presider) Alex Hanna, Distributed AI Research Institute
Reflections on the Educative Power of “Mesearch”
Although often derided, so-called “mesearch” is a vital source of and motivation for sociological knowledge. How might embracing, rather than distancing, our research from our personal biographies and community relations improve, strengthen, and challenge sociological knowledge? How might this important source of knowledge matter across methodological divides?
Participants: (Session Organizer) Victoria Reyes, University of California-Riverside; (Panelist) Hae Yeon Choo, University of Toronto; (Panelist) Crystal Marie Fleming, Stony Brook University; (Panelist) Whitney Nicole Laster Pirtle, University of California-Merced; (Panelist) Desi Small-Rodriguez, University of California-Los Angeles; (Panelist) Ghassan Moussawi, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; (Presider) Angela Elena Fillingim, San Francisco State University
Solving Problems That Have Never Been Solved
Sociologists often compare successful cases to unsuccessful cases to identify solutions to problems. But what happens when there are no successful cases? How can we think rigorously about theory, methods, and evidence in this situation? Papers consider how activists in the past imagined solutions to problems that had never been solved; how scholars gather and evaluate evidence for things that do not exist; how we can break problems down into parts or analogize them to other problems; and how new technologies could be deployed to solve previously unsolvable problems. Papers also give ideas for solving currently unsolved problems, including racism and climate change.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Monica Prasad, Northwestern University; (Presider) Michelle Jackson, Stanford University; (Discussant) Michelle Jackson, Stanford University
The problem of climate change and the analogy of development, Benjamin Bradlow, Princeton University
Reducing Inequality in America, Thomas A. DiPrete, Columbia University; Brittany Nicole Fox-Williams, CUNY-Lehman College
Solving problems that have never been solved by working together in new ways, Matthew J. Salganik, Princeton University
Moving Past the Digital Smokescreen: How to Harness Big Data to Solve Social Welfare Problems, Erik Schneiderhan, University of Toronto; Lukk, University of Toronto
How to Solve “The Race Problem”: Lessons on Organizing On the Colorline from Black Americans at the turn of the 20th century, Luna Vincent, Northwestern University
The Educative Power of HBCUs: Advancing Research Capacity and Student Mentorship
This session is focused on the educative power of HBCU institutions. Panelists will discuss their current research projects focused on critical race theory. The session will also address how their research and work with students has advanced research capacity at HBCUs. The session will also center on how faculty involve students in research and describe how research is a formative part of the HBCU experience.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Bailey A. Brown, Spelman College; (Presider) Cynthia Spence, Spelman College; (Panelist) Celeste Nichole Lee, Spelman College; (Panelist) Deborwah Faulk, James Madison University; (Panelist) Mercedez Dunn, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; (Panelist Saida Grundy, Boston University; (Panelist) Bailey A. Brown, Spelman College; (Panelist) Amber Reed, Spelman College
The Intersection of Religion and Science: Relevance in a Positivistic World
The session examines the contemporary role of religion in an increasingly positivistic world. Presenters focus on demographic and thematic studies that illustrate whether and how religion continues to be relevant in the lives of adherents as well as how dynamics such as spirituality, de-churching, secularization, holistic health, and, science, broadly defined, are affecting religion as a symbol system.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Sandra Lynn Barnes, Vanderbilt University; (Presider) Sandra Lynn Barnes, Vanderbilt University
The Black Church as a Therapeutic Community: Neuroscience, Mental Health and Responses to Trauma, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Colby College
Science and Religious Tenets among Interracial Churches, Korie Little Edwards, Ohio State University
Religious Education among Semi-Churched Black Christian Millennials, Shaonta’ E. Allen, Dartmouth College
Religion, Spirituality, and Scientific Query among Young Black Members of the LGBTQIA Population, Sandra Lynn Barnes, Vanderbilt University
