- ASA Invites Editor Applications for Six Journals
- Rose Series in Sociology Invites Submissions
- ASA Opposes Supreme Court Decision on Affirmative Action
- Apply for CARI Grants
- Take Action to Defend Academic Freedom
- Spotlight on Annual Meeting Location: A Park Sparks Debate about Climate-Sustainable Planning, Community Spaces, and Mega Sports Events
ASA Invites Editor Applications for Six Journals
Applications are invited for the next editors of Contemporary Sociology, Social Psychology Quarterly, Sociological Methodology, Sociology of Education, Socius, and Teaching Sociology. The new editors will officially begin their terms on January 1, 2025, but the editorial transition of workflow will likely start during summer 2024. The editorial terms are for a minimum of three years (until December 31, 2027), with possible reappointment of up to two additional years.
Journal editors have an opportunity to shape the intellectual landscape in meaningful ways and to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge. ASA encourages you to consider serving in this role.
To learn more about each editorship and the application process, please visit the “Be An Editor” page here. Applications are due December 1, 2023.
Rose Series in Sociology Invites Submissions
The ASA Rose Series in Sociology, published by the Russell Sage Foundation, is a manuscript series intended for academic, cross-discipline, and public view. Amplify the voice and potential social benefit of your work by expanding its public reach. Read here for more details on publishing with the Rose Series.
ASA Opposes Supreme Court Decision on Affirmative Action
After centuries of systemic oppression, historically marginalized racial groups in higher education were finally granted opportunities during the Civil Rights era, leading to significant expansion of social mobility for these groups over time. However, on June 29, 2023, the United States Supreme Court rendered a 6-3 decision to dismantle race-based affirmative action. Affirmative action, among other strategies, aimed to address the historical lack of equal opportunities in a nation marred by its denial of access to racial minorities and women in institutions of higher education and the workplace.
ASA disagrees vigorously with the majority opinion and the reasoning behind it given that the accumulation of disadvantages based on race throughout American history cannot be undone without proactive policies and practices aimed at rectifying past discrimination and exclusion. Read the full statement.
Apply for CARI Grants
ASA invites applications for Community Action Research Initiative (CARI) grants. CARI grants support projects that bring sociological knowledge and methods into collaboration with not-for-profit organizations in order to address community-based problems. Applicants must be sociologists working in partnership with identified community organizations or community action initiatives.
Take Action to Defend Academic Freedom
Legislative intervention that threatens academic freedom, especially with respect to teaching and learning about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, is being proposed and passed in dozens of states around the county. The study of sociology will be fundamentally compromised if this continues to gain traction.
One of the best ways to combat these efforts is to convince voters that such legislation is damaging to students, families, local educational institutions, and local communities. To this end, we encourage sociologists to write op-eds focused on the areas of study you know and the local impact you see and can envision from this legislative encroachment. Op-eds can have significant impact on the public and can lift up grassroots voices and strengthen community organizing. It is valuable to write for local, regional, and national outlets, and we encourage you to focus on local impact about which local legislators care. Community voices need to be heard to create and drive narrative change.
ASA is glad to offer tools to support your efforts. As you get started, you may want to review this document on how to write an impactful op-ed and these illustrative examples of op-eds on this topic that have already been published. Our communications team is also glad to review and edit your piece and work with you to find an appropriate outlet for publication. If you are interested in writing an op-ed and would like our assistance, please contact Preeti Vasishtha, Director of Communications, at [email protected]. And if you have already written op-eds that we can add to our webpage of examples, please share them with us.
Spotlight on Annual Meeting Location: A Park Sparks Debate about Climate-Sustainable Planning, Community Spaces, and Mega Sports Events
Elizabeth Jacobs, Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and Ellen Bryer, PhD Candidate in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania
An overgrown golf course-turned-rewilded-meadowland in South Philadelphia has become a flash point for local and global debate about urban planning for climate change and embracing international sporting events as mechanisms for infrastructure development.
FDR Park, designed by the Olmsted Brothers in 1913, is one of the largest parks in Philadelphia and is a popular meeting place for residents and visitors. It is home to numerous sports fields, walking paths, ponds, and a popular skate park under the I-95 highway. It hosts local sports league games, painting classes, fishing and birdwatching, and a weekly Southeast Asian food market in the summer. It sits along the confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers, close to the city’s stadiums, industrial areas, and the Philadelphia airport. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the park’s long-underused golf course became overgrown, and the 150-acre area returned to a more naturalistic meadow.
After a yearslong planning process and pandemic delays, the city reignited its plans (first announced in May 2019) to repurpose the park’s long-underused golf course into new sports facilities—including soccer fields, a golf driving range, baseball fields, and tennis and basketball courts. The $250 million project is funded (login required) by the City of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania, and the Fairmount Park Conservancy, a nonprofit responsible for coordinating private fundraising. The proposed synthetic turf soccer fields may also serve as a practice facility during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Philadelphia will jointly host with other cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. One particularly contentious piece of the plan is the possible development of new wetlands to offset the development of natural land within and near the park into shipping and cargo operations for the Philadelphia airport.
Proponents of the plan emphasize that it offers a unique opportunity to redevelop the area with more resiliency (login required) against the realities of a “hotter, wetter future.” The climate change projections incorporated into the plan will raise the floodplain of the park to manage water flow in the area to reduce the risk of flooding. More recreational space can facilitate high-quality youth sports in the city; in particular, the Philadelphia Inquirer notes the increased need for soccer fields for the city’s growing Latinx population (login required).
The plan has been met with opposition (login required) by Philadelphia residents who began to use the park for the first time during Covid lockdowns and who see it as a destruction of wild, open space and loss of natural habitat in an urban space. “The Meadows at FDR Park are one of the few natural places in South Philadelphia where people can go for a hike, picnic, walk their dog or just explore the great outdoors with friends and family. Philly’s FDR Park is NOT for sale!” Opponents argue that by creating new wetlands in part to offset the destruction of wetlands resulting from construction at the nearby Philadelphia airport, the city has essentially sold 33 acres of FDR park. Some opponents also cite concerns that access to the soccer fields will require a paid permit for use and might be disproportionately used by sports leagues based in the suburbs and surrounding region, which would limit local community access to the park.
Plans for FDR Park development also come amidst the Philadelphia 76ers plan to build a new stadium in Center City, which has been met with major pushback from Chinatown residents and businesses who raised concerns about the effects of the stadium on local businesses, housing prices, and displacement.
The proposed soccer fields in FDR Park raise important tensions between planning for a climate-sustainable future and equity and inclusion. It also highlights the challenges of policy development and communication around climate change. This is the first park in Philadelphia with development plans that account for climate resilience, reflecting projects in other cities and nationally. It is difficult to design public policies focused around intangible challenges in the future, where the most successful outcome is effective preventative measures that avoid flooding, landslides, or wildfires that might have otherwise occurred. This is an example, as the Philadelphia Inquirer notes, of the “hard but necessary choices that come with governing and [the City] should proceed.” Climate-oriented politicians could learn from public health policies on effective strategies for legislating and communicating preventative policies.
Whether the FDR Park plan ultimately incorporates fields for the 2026 World Cup or not, it also emphasizes the promise and pitfalls of including mega sporting events in infrastructure development projects.
International athletic events such as the Olympic Games and World Cup have long been lauded as catalysts for development and economic growth. The proposal for Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games promises to add new Metro stations and significantly expand connectivity between existing lines, and includes significant investments in youth sports to expand access to girls and low-income kids.
Yet, previously, few of these events have been the economic or social engines they promised to be, and more often than not they have resulted in exploitative “celebration capitalism.” The skyrocketing price tags have led to disastrous results for cities like Montreal, which was ultimately saddled with $1.5 billion in debt after the 1976 Olympic Games. Mega events have often resulted in housing displacement (as in the case of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and 2016 Rio Olympic Games), as well as significant labor abuses (as in the case of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar).
Environmental challenges have been at the forefront of issues facing host cities in recent years as well. Considerable concerns about the air quality in Beijing before the 2008 Olympic Games led to large restrictions on traffic and construction, which temporarily improved the air quality in the city. Many have noted, however, that sustained efforts implementing the same measures would be needed to actually reduce emissions and have important health improvements for Chinese residents. It has also become increasingly challenging to find locations cold enough to host the Winter Games and without extreme heat (login required) for summer sporting events.
City officials must contend with a wide range of considerations at the community, city, state, and international levels as they navigate the development of FDR Park. The vibrant community and natural spaces in South Philly’s largest park are valuable resources for Philadelphia. This project highlights important debates surrounding community involvement and equitable access in infrastructure projects, as well as the role of these projects in stemming the tide of climate pressures for sustainable urban living.
Any opinions expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the authors and not the American Sociological Association.
