A Century of Professional Organization in American Sociology

This is the first essay of a three-part perspective series commemorating ASA’s centennial year.

by Bruce Keith, United States Military Academy West Point

The history of sociology is replete with illustrations of how the discipline benefited from the actions of individuals and departments. And yet, the organization of American sociology, as depicted by Lawrence Rhoades (1981), is inextricably linked to the development of its professional associations. Notably, the relationship between the national and regional societies has evolved from recognition and integration to separation and autonomous isolation. For example, the ASA¹ initially established a relationship with the regional societies in 1932. From 1942 through 1963, regional societies were given direct representation on the ASA Council. This pattern of governance changed in 1963 when regional societies nominated two candidates for the ASA Council with one of them chosen in the general election. After 1967, the ASA Council terminated its relationship with the regional societies.

Several reasons have been advanced to explain the separation of the national and regional associations; perhaps most conceivable is the perspective that the regionals contribute relatively little to the promotion and advancement of the discipline. One wonders, therefore, if consolidation of these organizations into fewer associations might benefit the discipline. In consideration of this query, I direct attention to three areas across five regional associations.² In succession, I examine leadership patterns, institutional appointments of recent sociology doctoral recipients, and regional association membership.

Path to Leadership

Membership provides experience through leadership opportunities. Illustratively, from 1930 through 2003, 360 persons served as regional association presidents; 75 persons served as ASA presidents. With few exceptions, presidents of the associations served single one-year terms. Five percent (18) of the 360 regional association presidents served as president and vice president of ASA, another 4 percent (14) were ASA president, and 6 percent (21) served as the ASA vice president. Nine percent (32) of the regional presidents served as ASA president while 43 percent (32) of the ASA presidents served as president of a regional association.

The relationship between the national and regional associations is evident from the inter-related patterns of their elected officers. From 1930 to 1939, 30 percent (3) of ASA presidents have been regional association presidents. These proportions increased through the 1980s, when 70 percent (7) of ASA presidents served as a regional president. Since 1990, only two of the 14 ASA presidents have been regional presidents (Figure 1).

If we assume that presidents of the regionals are drawn from their respective constituencies, we might expect to find that regional presidents’ institutional affiliations have shifted away from graduate programs. Evident from Figure 2 is the observation that the institutions represented by national and regional association presidents parallel one another through 1969. During the 1970s and 1980s, shifts occur in both the ASA and regional associations. Since 1990, the two trends diverge dramatically, with the regional and national association presidents increasingly being drawn from different institutional types.

Institutional Prestige

Ironically, while doctoral program faculty have divested themselves from leadership roles in the regionals, most of their graduates are likely to receive appointments in institutions that remain affiliated with them. Of the 1,622 sociology PhDs conferred between 2000 and 2003, only 11 percent (179) received faculty appointments in doctoral-granting sociology departments.³ Moreover, as the status of one’s graduate department decreases, so too does the probability of placement in a doctoral program. To illustrate, of the 727 graduates from sociology programs with a status of “inadequate” through “good,” 42 (5.8 percent) received appointments in other PhD departments; of the 895 graduates from “strong” and “distinguished” departments, 137 (15.3 percent) hold such appointments.⁴ Thus, one out of seven graduates from high status departments and one out of 17 graduates from low- to mid-status departments received faculty appointments in programs that offer a doctorate in sociology.

Regional Membership

Strong leadership requires a strong membership base, though assessing leadership opportunities from actual membership figures is somewhat elusive. This difficulty is attributable in part to variation in the way records are maintained and in the arbitrary selection of organizational boundaries. For these reasons, I have examined potential membership by the geographic locations of presidents’ institutional affiliations, an approach that creates cleanly demarcated geographical boundaries among the five regional associations (Keith 2004).⁵ Accordingly, the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS) has a potential membership base of 3,172 faculty.⁶ The North Central Sociological Association (NCSA) and Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) are most similar with respect to their population sizes (1,243 and 1,426 faculty respectively) while the Southern Sociological Society (SSS) and Midwest Sociological Society (MSS) are comparable (1,852 and 1,710 respectively). The PSA is the most efficient recruiter, attracting 57 percent of its available faculty base; the SSS recruits 48 percent of its faculty base, followed in turn by the MSS (45 percent), the ESS (24 percent), and the NSCA (11 percent).⁷ Thus, while membership provides leadership opportunities within the discipline, the regional societies are, at present and to varying degrees over time, attracting relatively small segments of their potential membership base.

Membership in regional associations is attractive to a diverse group of individuals and drawn increasingly from a population base that is not well-represented among the ASA leadership. As such, the regionals represent an important venue through which many sociologists receive recognition and leadership experience. Nonetheless, the regionals appear to recruit a small proportion of their potential membership base. To remain viable throughout the 21st century, the discipline of sociology needs to address the divergent organizational trajectories of the professional associations within the context of its prevailing culture.

References

Cartter, Allan M. 1966. An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.

Goldberger, Marvin L., Brendan A. Maher, and Pamela Ebert Flattau, eds. 1995. Research Doctorate Programs in the United States: Continuity and Change. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Keith, Bruce. 2004. “Disciplinary Culture and Organizational Dissonance: The Regional Association in American Sociology.” Sociological Focus. 37(2): 83-105.

Rhoades, Lawrence J. 1981. A History of the American Sociological Association: 1905-1980. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association.

Notes