Derek Hyra (American University) has a new book coming out soon: Slow and Sudden Violence: Why and When Uprisings Occur (University of California Press). From the publisher: "In Slow and Sudden Violence, Derek Hyra links police violence to an ongoing cycle of racial and spatial urban redevelopment repression. By delving into the real estate histories of St. Louis and Baltimore, he shows how housing and community development policies advance neighborhood inequality by segregating, gentrifying, and displacing Black communities."

Please send notices of your new publications to dcsociologicalsociety@gmail.com; we will publish brief notices as space permits.

Call for Papers | Students Have Their Say: Novel Approaches and Solutions to Current and Emerging Public Health Problems

Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) is committed to developing the scientific writing skills of public health students. As part of that commitment, PCD is pleased to offer a new student paper publishing opportunity as a special feature of its 2025 Student Paper Contest. This new opportunity will allow high school, undergraduate, graduate, and recent postgraduate students, and medical students and residents to improve their scientific writing skills by serving as lead (first) authors, becoming familiar with a journal’s peer-review process, and receiving feedback from the journal on how to strengthen their submission regardless of whether it is accepted.

For this Call for Papers, the journal will consider manuscripts only from students. The essay may be written and submitted to the journal by one student or more than one student.

Although it is not required, interested students are encouraged to submit an inquiry to learn whether their essay idea aligns with the scope of the journal and the objective of this Call for Papers. These inquiries should be submitted by September 20, 2024. The deadline to submit a final manuscript is 5:00 PM EST on Monday, March 24, 2025.

See the complete call for papers online.

Request for Articles
Moving Beyond Deaths of Despair: Understanding Rising Mortality and Morbidity among Americans without College Degrees 

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences

We invite scholars to submit proposals that address the questions of what explains the growing educational divide in physical and mental health and what this widening means for the lives of Americans without college degrees. We expect that many of the papers will directly address differences in mortality, including not only drug abuse, alcohol-related disease, and suicide but also major causes of death such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. But we also encourage papers that will encompass topics as diverse as the changing labor market; social class; gender, racial, ethnic perspectives; studies of family and personal life; spatial variation; political processes; and social policy.

Prospective contributors should submit a CV and an abstract no later than 5 PM Eastern on September 4, 2024.

See the complete request online.

On June 12, 2024, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published the Federal Register notice announcing review of the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Manual for possible revision in 2028. As former DCSS President Lynda McLaughlin noted on LinkedIn, "this is your chance to help shape how federal agencies collect and classify occupations. The review committee is especially interested in comments on STEM and care worker occupations."

Comments should be submitted by August 12. See the complete notice online.

DCSS member Jordanna Matlon, of American University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, has been announced as the winner of the 2024 American Sociological Association Distinguished Scholarly Book Award for A Man among Other Men: The Crisis of Black Masculinity in Racial Capitalism (Cornell, 2022).

See the complete list of award winners and read the announcement for Dr. Matlon at the ASA website.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking in May. According to the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), "The blueprint is the product of nearly two years of work by social and behavioral science experts from across federal agencies and departments."

Further, "the document ... takes a whole-of-government approach to assist agencies and departments with leveraging social and behavioral science insights to improve federal policies, programs, and services to the American people. It makes six recommendations for better incorporating social and behavioral science research into the work of federal agencies and outlines five immediate actions."

Read the White House announcement here and download the report here. (PDF)

The American Sociological Association (ASA) has announced the results of its 2024 election.

• Shelley J. Correll of Stanford University will serve as President-Elect beginning September 2024.
• Victor E. Ray of the University of Iowa will serve as Vice President-Elect beginning September 2024.
• Laurel Westbrook of Grand Valley State University will serve as Secretary-Treasurer-Elect beginning September 2024.
• The member “Resolution for Justice in Palestine” was approved. The ASA statement implementing the resolution reads, "The American Sociological Association, on behalf of its members, calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Further, the association supports members’ academic freedom, including but not limited to defending scholars’ right to speak out against Zionist occupation." (PDF) The full text of the member resolution is available on the ASA website.

Complete ASA election results are also on the ASA website.

On April 30, the National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 120 members and 24 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Among them are four US-based sociologists or demographers:

• Nicholas A. Christakis, Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Department of Sociology, Yale University
• Thomas Dietz, professor and University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Michigan State University
• Noreen Goldman, Hughes-Rogers Professor of Demography and Public Affairs, Office of Population Research, Princeton University
• Arne L. Kalleberg, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 

See the complete listing on the NAS website.

The ASA has announced the inaugural ASA Virtual Mini-Conference (VMC), January 30-31, 2025. It will be based on the theme of the in-person 2025 Annual Meeting, “Reimagining the Future of Work.” Spread over two days of programming from 11:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m. Eastern, the VMC will offer eight paper sessions, a spotlight session on the future of sociology, and two book forums, as well as a networking event. The online portal will open for submissions on June 10, 2024. The deadline to submit is July 11, 2024, 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

For complete information, see the ASA website.

On April 28, 2024, nineteen former presidents of ASA put out an open letter endorsing the Member Resolution for Justice in Palestine currently on the ASA ballot. That letter was disseminated to ASA section chairs/listserv managers and appears on the website for Sociologists for Palestine (S4P). The development of the Resolution began last December when a group of 125 Sociologists sent a letter and proposal to the ASA Council and Executive Committee in support of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In January 2024, the ASA Council declined to adopt that statement or to issue their own ceasefire statement. In early February 2024, the ASA Council issued a statement on academic freedom – here is the text. Later in February, S4P submitted a petition, signed by 581 ASA members, to include the Resolution for Justice in Palestine on the ASA ballot – here is the text. You must be a current member of ASA to vote in the ongoing election; voting continues through May 20, 2024, at 5 PM Eastern.