Thematic Sessions and Special Sessions

Thematic Sessions

Thematic Sessions provide abundant opportunities to think about “Great Divides: Transgressing Boundaries.”­ Over sixty sessions delve into important social issues, explore international and interdisciplinary viewpoints, and evaluate the status of sociological contributions, including:

• Ascriptive Boundaries at Work
• Backstage and Frontstage in Social Life: Goffman’s Legacy
• Boundaries, Identity, and Social Agency
• Bourdieu, Ethnography, and Theory
• Changing Boundaries among Organizations
• Changing Boundaries of Age and Life Course Trajectories
• Class Boundaries in Comparative Perspective
• Classification: The Institutionalization of Categories of Race
• Comparing U.S. and Canadian Cultures and Perspectives
• Creating and Maintaining Ethnic Boundaries
• Creating Knowledge: Cross-disciplinary Thinking and Research
• Crossing Boundaries, Bridging Divides: The Academy and International Policy Making
• Crossing Boundaries: Parental Resources and the Well-Being of Children
• Cultural Classifications and Cultural Boundaries
• Cultural Expression and National Identity in Quebec
• Cultural Movements and the Impact of Social Movements on Culture
• Discipline and Hybridity
• Enactment and Reproduction of Group Boundaries in Education
• Equity Gaps in the Western Hemisphere
• Ethnic Dynamics in a Pluralist Society: The Theoretical Significance of the Canadian Case
• Expanding the Boundaries in the Study of Lesbian- and Gay-Headed Families
• Feminism and the Labor Movement: Bridging the Divide
• The Flooding of New Orleans: Views From Up Close
• The Future of the U.S. Movement: Can Unions Rebuild?
• Gated Communities: Privileged Places, Ghettos, or Ethnic Enclaves?
• Gender Boundaries: How Far Have We Come?
• Global Sociology: Whither National Differences?
• Globalization & Civil Society: Transgressing Boundaries in Theory, Research, and Practice
• Globalization and Gender Divides
• Globalizing Capital, Globalizing Labor…Globalizing Labor Movements?
• Great Divides: Family and Family Values in Political Discourse
• Great Divides: The Academy and the Economy
• Great Divides: The Changing Organization of Marriage and Consensual Unions
• Great Divides: The Children of Immigrants in France and the U.S.
• Great Divides: The Non-economic Consequences of Social Inequality
• How Boundaries Change
• Identifying Boundaries in Social Research
• Job Segregation: The National Academy Committee on Women’s Employment and Related Social Issues Report: Two Decades Later
• Legal and Regulatory Influences on Workplace Diversity
• Mass Murder: What Causes It? Can It Be Stopped? A Contexts Forum
• National Boundaries and Social Control
• Policy Networks, Social Services, and Advocacy Coalitions among Immigrant-Servicing Organizations: A Comparison of Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York
• Population Health: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Sociological Research on Health and Illness
• Question of Boundaries in Social Science Theory
• Religion and Boundaries
• Responding to Globalization: Processes, Perspectives, and Movements in the Muslim World
• Rethinking the Boundaries of the Body in Law
• Rethinking the Boundaries of the Body: Current Developments in Reproductive Rights—Legal, Social, and Political Aspects
• Scandal: Boundaries between Normal and Unacceptable (The Management of Impropriety)
• Sexualities in the 21st Century: Changing Boundaries, Changing Practices
• Sexualities, Borders, and Boundaries
• Seymour Martin Lipset: Steady Work
• Social Boundaries and the Jews: Outsiders, Insiders, and Intermediaries
• The Social Construction, Perception and Permeability of Social Boundaries
• Social Divides: Inclusion, Institutions, and Successful Societies
• Sovereignty Beyond Geographical Boundaries
• The State and Its Boundaries
• The State of Intersectionality in Feminist Research: Race, Class, Sexuality and Nationality
• Symbolic Boundaries and the Quantification of Identity
• Tempered Radicalism and Institutional Entrepreneurship-Transgressing Boundaries
• Time Boundaries: Conflicts, Inequalities, and Ambiguities in Dividing Work and the Rest of Life
• Torture: Transgressing Bodily Boundaries
• Transcending Boundaries: China and the World
• Transgressing Boundaries: War and National Sovereignty
• Transnational Social Networks?
• United Nations and Women’s Rights: Research and Practice in Support of International Development Goals
• Women’s Rights and Human Rights (co-sponsored with Sociologists Without Borders)

Special Sessions

The category of “Special Sessions” often encompasses member suggestions for invited panels as well as permits the Program Committee to co-sponsor sessions with sister societies. These sessions may be on topics that further investigate the meeting theme or they may focus on other timely and important issues. Here is a sampling from this year’s Special Session roster:

• Crossing National Boundaries: Contrasting Religion in Canada and the United States (co-sponsored by the Association for the Sociology of Religion)
• Dharma Crossing Boundaries: Buddhist Culture in a New World (co-sponsored by the Association for the Sociology of Religion)
• Families, Inequalities, and Policies in the United States (co-sponsored by the Rose Series in Sociology)
• Human Rights (co-sponsored by Sociologists without Borders)
• Jewish Divisions or Artificial Boundaries? Substantive and Methodological Considerations (co-sponsored by the Association for Social Scientific Study of Jewry)
• “Not Your Father’s Weekly Worship”­: Studying Multi-Cultural Religious Congregations (co-sponsored by the Association for the Sociology of Religion)
• NSF ADVANCE: Sociological Perspectives and Approaches to Institutional Transformation for Women in Science and Engineering
• Open Forum on Sociology and General Education (co-sponsored by the ASA Task Force on Sociology and General Education)
• The Role of Foundations in Social Science Research