AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION AND OTHER SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS

The American Sociological Association (ASA) will celebrate its centennial year in 2005; since its inception, it has grown in size, diversity, programs, and purpose. Current ASA goals are as follows:

• Serving sociologists in their work,

• Advancing sociology as a science and as a profession,

• Promoting the contributions and use of sociology to society.

While the first goal remains the raison d’etre for the membership organization, over the ASA’s 100 years, there have been ebbs and flows, support and controversy, about the latter two goals and how the association embodies them.

ASA MEMBERSHIP TRENDS

An interesting perspective on the ASA’s history is revealed through an examination of membership trends. Table 1 shows fairly slow but stable growth up until 1931. During the years of the Great Depression, there were substantial declines. Despite these declines, however, sociologists were becoming very visible in government agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Between 1935 and 1953, for example, there were an estimated 140 professional social scientists, the great majority of them sociologists, employed in the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life. This activity reached its peak between 1939 and 1942, when there were approximately sixty professionals working in Washington, D.C. and in regional offices. Sociologists are well placed in many federal agencies and nonprofit organizations in Washington; however, they are ”undercover,” working under a variety of job titles.

The years following World War II saw a rapid increase in ASA membership—the number nearly quadrupled between 1944 (1,242) and 1956 (4,682). Between 1957 and 1967, membership more than doubled, from 5,223 to 11,445, and continued upward to 15,000 during the heights of the social protest and anti-Vietnam War movements. However, during the latter half of the 1970s, membership gradually drifted downward and reached a seventeen-year low of 11,223 in 1984. In the next fifteen years, the membership increased by 2,000 and has remained stable at over 13,000 in the 1990s.

The growth and decline in the ASA can be accounted for in part by a combination of ideological and demographic factors as well as the gradually changing nature of work in American society, particularly since the end of World War II. For example, the GI bill made it possible for an ordinary veteran to get a college education. The college population jumped from one-half million in 1945 to several million within three years. Gradually, while urban and metropolitan populations grew, the number and percentage of people in the manufacturing sector of the labor force declined, and the farm population declined even more dramatically, while the service sector grew. Within the service sector, information storage, retrieval, and exchange grew in importance with the coming of the computer age. These societal changes helped to stimulate a growth in urban problems involving areas such as family, work, and drugs, and these changes led to a growth of these specialty areas in sociology.

Membership in the ASA rapidly increased in the 1960s and early 1970s, an era of many social protest movements. Sociology was seen as offering a way of understanding the dynamic events that were taking place in this country. Substantive areas within the ASA and sociology were also affected by these social changes. As Randall Collins (1989) points out, the social protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s coincided with the growth within the ASA of such sections as the Marxist, environmental, population, world systems, collective behavior and social movements, and racial and ethnic minorities sections. In addition, the growing public concerns in the late 1970s and early 1980s about aging and equality for women were reflected within the ASA by new sections on sex and gender and aging. Similarly, the ”me” generation, in the aftermath of the protest movements and the disillusionment that set in after the Vietnam War, may have contributed both to a decline in student enrollments in sociology courses and in ASA membership. The growth of the college student population and some disillusionment with purely vocational majors, as well as sociology’s intrinsic interest to students, led to a gradual rise in membership in the 1990s.

ASA Official Membership Counts 1906-1999

ASA membership trends can also be examined in the context of the availability of research money. Postwar federal support for sociology grew with the development of sponsored research and the growth of research labs and centers on university campuses. Coincident with an increase in ASA membership, research funding from federal agencies during the 1960s and 1970s grew steadily. In the early 1980s, however (particularly in 1981 and 1982), cutbacks in research funding for the social sciences were especially noticeable. In the 1990s, major efforts to educate Congress on the importance of social science research won support for sociology and the other social sciences. The result has been a reversal of the negative trend and a slow but steady improvement in funding, not only for basic research but also in greater amounts for research with an applied or policy orientation.

ASA SECTIONS, PUBLICATIONS, AND PROGRAMS

The increase in the number of sections in the ASA and of membership in them is another sign of growth within the ssociation in the 1990s. Despite a decline in overall ASA membership in the early 1980s, the number of sections increased from nineteen in 1980 to twenty-six in 1989 and to thirty-nine a decade later. The new sections represent some new fields of study (or at least a formal nomenclature for these specialties) such as sociology of emotions, sociology of culture, rational choice, and sociology of sexualities. Furthermore, this overall increase in sections was not achieved by simply redistributing members already in sections but resulted from an actual growth in section members from 8,000 to 11,000 to 19,000 in the three time periods. More than half the ASA members belong to at least one section; the modal membership is in two sections. The ASA has learned from other associations, such as psychology and anthropology, about the possible pitfalls of subgroups within ”the whole.” The ASA continues to require members to belong to ASA as a condition for joining a section, so that everyone has a connection to the discipline at large as well as to their specialty groups. This approach has prevented the ASA from becoming a federation of sections and probably has minimized ”split off’ groups. The annual meeting grew by a thousand participants in the decade of the 1990s, now topping 5,000 people who find professional development in the broad program as well as in section involvement.

The growth of the ASA is also reflected in the growth of the number of journal publications. Since 1936, when the first issue of the American Sociological Review was published, ASA publications have expanded to include seven additional journals: Contemporary Sociology; Journal of Health and Social Behavior; Social Psychology Quarterly; Sociological Methodology; Sociological Theory; Sociology of Education; and Teaching Sociology.That series shifted from very specialized academic monographs to integrative pieces of broad appeal. The ASA’s newest journal is a general perspectives journal, aimed at the social science community (including students), and the educated lay public.

The Sydney S. Spivack Program in Applied Social Research and Social Policy (funded from a donation from Spivack’s estate) sponsors Congressional seminars and media briefings on timely topics for which there is a body of sociological knowledge. From these events, the ASA has published a series of issue briefs on topics ranging from youth violence to welfare-to-work to immigration to affirmative action. These publications are useful to ASA members but also to a wider public audience.

The teaching of sociology in kindergarten through high school and in undergraduate and graduate schools has received varying degrees of emphasis over the course of the ASA’s history. In particular, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when sociology enrollments and membership in the ASA were at a low point, the ASA Teaching Services Program was developed. Now part of the Academic and Professional Affairs Program (APAP), the Teaching Services Program includes providing opportunities through seminars and workshops to improve classroom teaching and to examine a wide range of new curricula for almost all sociology courses. The Teaching Resources Center in the

ASA’s executive office produces over a hundred resources, including syllabi sets and publications on topics such as classroom techniques, curriculum, departmental management, and career information. APAP works concertedly with departments and chairs to build strong departments of sociology and excellent curricula. The ASA sponsors an annual conference for chairs, a meeting of directors of graduate study, and an electronic broadcast, CHAIRLINK, for chairs.

Odd as it may seem, the ASA often did not collect or have access to data on the profession. In 1993, the Research Program on the Discipline and Profession remedied the situation by conducting surveys of members and departments, and a tracking survey of a cohort of Ph.D.s. The program routinely publishes ”research briefs” that share these data and aid departments and individuals with planning and trend analysis.

TRANSITION FROM SECRETARIAT TO A PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION

The ASA has undergone an organizational transformation over its century of serving the professional interests of sociologists. The shape and mission of the executive office reflects the shifts. In the early years, the office was essentially a secretariat—a place where records were kept, and dues and payments were processed. The first executive officer, Matilda White Riley, appointed in 1963, jokes that the office was a file card box on her kitchen table.

As the American Sociological Society (as it was named until 1959) grew and flourished, it adopted the model of a ”learned society,” primarily concerned with the production of new disciplinary knowledge. The society/association centered its resources on the annual meeting and the journals. The executive office personnel, primarily clerical, staffed those functions.

The expansion period of the 1960s and 1970s, and the societal context of those times, led the ASA to add many programs and activities (for a detailed description, see Simpson and Simpson 1994). The ASA transformed into a professional association, with a wider range of services and benefits to its members as well as to a broader public. As Simpson and Simpson (1994) describe the change: ”ASA reacted to the pressures of the 1960s and 1970s mainly by absorbing the pressure groups into its structure. A result has been to expand the goals and functions of the association beyond its initial disciplinary objective. Functions are more differentiated now, encompassing more professional and activist interests” (p. 265). The executive office grew slightly, with the growth in Ph.D.-level sociology staff who led these new ventures. In addition to the executive officer, these sociologists had titles (e.g., Staff Sociologist for Minorities, Women, and Careers) that reflected their work.

1998 Section Totals

In the last ten years, some significant organizational changes have occurred. The executive office has been professionalized, with new hires often having at least a B.A. in sociology. The senior sociology staff direct the core programs (see below) and no longer have fixed terms of employment. As such, the office is more programmatic and proactive.

Key changes in the ASA’s governance include:

• Passage of an ASA mission and goals statement, with six core programs in the executive office (the six programs are:

Minority Affairs; Academic and Professional Affairs; Public Affairs; Public Information; Research on the Discipline and Profession; and the Spivack Program),

• The launch of the ASA’s Spivack Program in applied social research and social policy and a continuous, intentional effort to bring research to bear on public policy issues,

• The beginning, and end, of the ASA’s certification program,

• The beginning, and end, of the journal

Sociological Practice Review,

• The beginning of the MOST program (Minority Opportunities for Summer Training for the first five years and Minority Opportunities through School Transformation, for the next five years, funded by the Ford Foundation),

• Greater autonomy for sections and an increase in the number of sections,

• New policies on ASA resolutions and policymaking,

• Revision of the Code of Ethics, as an educative document, which serves as a model for aligned sociological groups,

• Restructuring of ASA committees to a more targeted ”task force” model,

• Addition of a new ”perspectives” journal,

• Increased attention to science policy and funding, including collaborations with many other groups,

• Increased attention to sociology departments as units, and to chairs as their leaders, as shown in the Department Affiliates program,

• Active collaboration between the ASA and higher education organizations such as the American Association for Higher Education and the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

Members (and nonmember sociologists) have differing views about the current form of the ASA, which is discussed at the end of this article.

The ASA is but one organization in a network of sociological organizations or associations in which sociologists comprise a significant part of the membership. These groups operate in a complementary way to the ASA; some were formed in juxtaposition to the ASA to fulfill a need the ASA was not serving or to pressure the ASA to change. The genres of these organizations are briefly discussed below.

REGIONAL AND STATE ASSOCIATIONS

In many disciplines, a national association includes state and regional topics. In sociology, those regional and state groups have always been independent entities, with their own dues, meetings, and journals. Nonetheless, the ASA has worked collaboratively with these associations. The ASA sends staff representatives to their annual meetings, offers to serve on panels and meet with their councils, sends materials and publications, and convenes a meeting of regional and state presidents at the ASA’s annual meeting. In the 1960s regional representatives sat on the ASA council. Everett Hughes (1962) provided a sociological critique of this approach to governance, suggesting that the ASA was a disciplinary not a professional association. He argued that the ASA should not be organized as a federation of such representatives, and this regional delegate format ended in 1967. Later, candidates for the Committee on Committees and the Committee on Nominations were nominated by district (not identical to regional associations) to ensure regional representation. That approach ended in 1999.

Twenty-four states (or collaborations among states) have sociological associations. Some are extremely active (e.g., Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina, Illinois, Georgia) and have some special foci that link to their state-based networks. The Georgia Sociological Association, for example, sponsors a workshop for high school teachers; the association also honors a member of the media for the best presentation of sociological work. Wisconsin sociologists used the Wisconsin Sociological Association to organize to defeat a licensure bill that would have prevented sociologists from employment in certain social service jobs. The Minnesota sociologists have made special outreach efforts to practitioners and include these colleagues on their board.

Regional Sociology Associations

ALIGNED ASSOCIATIONS

Many of the aligned associations offer a small, vital intellectual home for sociologists interested in a particular specialty. Over time, a few of these organizations have consciously decided to form a section within the ASA. The various sociology of religion groups did so recently, to have a ”place” within the ASA as well as their own meeting and publications. Many of the aligned groups have members from many disciplines including sociology.

INTERDISCIPLINARY TIES

The most significant interdisciplinary organization is the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), formed in 1980. The budget cutting of the Reagan administration served as a catalyst for the major social science associations to establish this umbrella organization to lobby for funding for social science research. In the 1980s and 1990s, COSSA, with its own professional staff, has become a well-respected voice on social science policy, federal funding, and the professional concerns of social scientists (e.g., data archiving, confidentiality protection, and support for research on controversial topics). COSSA is, of course, an organization of organizations.

In 1997, the ASA offered membership discounts with other societies, so that individuals could join several of these groups. The interdisciplinary discounts now apply to: the American Political Science Association, the American Educational Research Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the Academy of Management.

POLITICAL PRESSURES ON AND IN ASA: FEMINISM AND ACTIVISM

Of the many aligned associations, two organizations provide association missions that the ASA does not (or does not sufficiently) satisfy, and have an agenda to change the ASA.

Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), founded in 1970, has had a two-pronged mission: to use the tools and talents in sociology to improve the lives of women in society; and secondly, to enhance the participation, status, and professional contributions of feminist sociologists. Most SWS members are also ASA members. Originally named the Women’s Caucus, the group’s 1970 statement of demands summarized the gender issues in the ASA quite clearly: ”What we seek is effective and dramatic action; an unbiased policy in the selection of stipend support of students; a concerted commitment to the hiring and promotion of women sociologists to right the imbalance that is represented by the current situation in which 67 percent of the women graduate students in this country do not have a single woman sociology professor of senior rank during the course of their graduate training, and when we participate in an association of sociologists in which NO woman will sit on the 1970 council, NO woman is included among the associate editors of the American Sociological Review, and NO woman sits on the thirteen member committee on publications and nominations” (Roby, p. 24). Over time, as the founding mothers of SWS moved through their career trajectories, more and more SWS members became part of the leadership of the ASA. In 2000, nine of twenty ASA council members are women. Since its founding, SWS has sought to pressure the ASA in more feminist directions, and to supplement what the

State and Aligned Sociological Organizations

ASA seemed not to offer. SWS runs its annual meeting program parallel to the ASA’s annual meeting. In the earlier years, many sessions concentrated on work in sex and gender, as well as on informal networking, and mentoring workshops. Over time, as the ASA’s section on sex and gender has become the largest in the association, the SWS program has downplayed scholarly papers on sex and gender, and has emphasized instead informal networking, socializing, and political organizing.

SWS proposed that the ASA publish a journal on Sex & Gender, but the ASA declined, due to a rather full publication portfolio.At various points in its history, SWS has been explicit in its watchdog role over the ASA. Members came to observe the ASA council meetings; the membership endorsed candidates for ASA offices; and candidates were asked to complete a survey that was sent to all SWS members.

The Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), founded in 1951, pursued the insider-outsider strategy as well. The SSSP meets prior to (often with a day of overlap) the ASA annual meeting. As the name implies, the topics for sessions and for the divisions deal with social problems, what sociologists know about them, and their solutions. The SSSP journal, Social Problems, is well regarded and well subscribed.

In the 1950s, the ASA centered on positivism and ”objective” scientific pursuits. Twenty years earlier, a group of ASA members had warned that the achievement of scientific status and academic acceptance were hindered by the application of sociology to social problems. The motion read, in part: ”The undersigned members, animated by an ideal of scientific quality rather than of heterogeneous quantity, wish to prune the Society of its excrescences and to intensify its scientific activities. This may result in a reduction of the members and revenues of the society, but this is preferable to having many members whose interest is primarily or exclusively other than scientific” (Rhoades 1981, pp. 24-25). The SSSP has been a vital counterpoint to those views, keeping sociology’s leftist leanings alive.

THE APPLIED SIDE

In 1978, two new sociological associations formed to meet the needs of sociological practitioners. The Clinical Sociology Association (CSA), now called the Sociological Practice Association (SPA), centered on sociologists engaged in intervention work with small groups (e.g., family counseling) or at a macro-level (e.g., community development). This group emphasized professional training and credentials. Most of the members were employed primarily outside of the academe; many felt they needed additional credentials to meet state licensure requirements or to receive third-party payments, or both. The SPA established a rigorous certification program, where candidates with a Ph.D. in sociology and substantial supervised experience in clinical work, would present their credentials and make a presentation as part of the application for certification. Those who passed this review could use the title Certified Clinical Sociologist.

The Society for Applied Sociology (SAS) was formed by a group of colleagues in Ohio, most of whom are primarily academics, but who engage in extensive consulting and applied work. The core of the SAS centers on applied social research, evaluation research, program development, and other applications of sociological ideas to a variety of organizational settings. The SAS has worked extensively with curriculum and program development to prepare the next generation of applied sociologists. The SAS has also focused on the master’s-level sociologist much more than other organizations.

Both of these practice organizations hold an annual meeting and sponsor a journal. At various times in the twenty years of each group, members have advocated a merger to reduce redundancy, strengthen the membership base, and use resources together. One place where the two groups have worked in tandem is through their joint Commission on Applied and Clinical Programs, which accredits sociology programs that meet the extensive criteria set forth by the commission. In this sense, these applied sociology programs (usually a part or a track within a regular sociology department) are modeling professional programs such as social work, which have an accrediting mechanism. Both societies held a joint meeting prior to the ASA meeting in 2000, which may portend future collaboration.

The history of the ASA shows the ebb and flow in interest in applied sociology, certainly going back to President Lester Frank Ward, and evident again with the election of contemporary Presidents William Foote Whyte, Peter Rossi, and Amitai Etzioni. Within the ASA, there is an active, though not large, section on sociological practice, drawing overlapping membership with the SPA and the SAS. The ASA published a journal, Sociological Practice Review, as a five-year experiment (19901995) but dropped the publication when there were insufficient subscribers and few manuscripts. In the early 1980s, in response to member interest, the ASA began a certification program, through which Ph.D.-level sociologists could be certified in six areas (demography, law and social control, medical sociology, organizational analysis, social policy and evaluation research, and social psychology). At the master’s level, sociologists could take an exam; passing the test would result in certification in applied social research. The certification program received few applicants and was terminated by the ASA council in 1998.

Since the 1980s, there have been forces pushing for more involvement of practitioners in the ASA, and thus more membership benefits to serve non-academic members, as the paring down of those benefits (as in the case of the Sociological Practice Review and certification) when interest wanes. In part, there is greater ”within group” variance among practitioners than ”between group” variance between practitioners and academics. Thus while there is clearly a political constituency for applied work, it is less clear there is a core intellectual constituency.

In 1981, the ASA held a conference on applied sociology.That event was a springboard for the introduction of applied issues within the ASA. A committee on sociological practice, a section on sociological practice, and an ASA award for a distinguished career in sociological practice were created. In 1999, about 25 percent of ASA members had primary employment in nonacademic positions; the estimate of the number of Ph.D.s (some of whom were nonmembers) in sociological practice was higher. The diversity of the nonacademic membership and their professional needs has been a challenge to the ASA. In a 1984 article in the American Sociological Review, Howard Freeman and Peter Rossi wrote of the significant changes that might be needed in departments of sociology and in the reward structure of the profession to reduce the false dichotomy between applied and basic research.

COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY

The ASA has made concerted efforts to be inclusive of women and minorities in its activities and governance. Since 1976, the ASA has undertaken a biennial report on the representation of women and minorities in the program (invited events and open submissions), on editorial boards, in elections, and in the governance (committees) of the ASA.

In 1987, the ASA appointed a task force on participation designed to identify ways to more fully enfranchise colleagues in two- and four-year colleges. That task force held a number of open hearings and met for five years before issuing a report of recommendations to the council. As a spin-off from the committee on teaching, a task force on community colleges made recommendations to the council in 1997 and 1998 about how to more actively involve these colleagues in ASA affairs.

The ASA council adopted the following policy in 1997:

Much of the vitality of ASA flows from its diverse membership. With this in mind, it is the policy of the ASA to include people of color, women, sociologists from smaller institutions or who work in government, business, or other applied settings, and international scholars in all of its programmatic activities and in the business of the Association.

At the same time, the demographics of the profession have been shifting (Roos and Jones 1993). Over 55 percent of new Ph.D.s are women, and about 45 percent of ASA members are female. The Minority Fellowship Program, begun in 1974, has provided predoctoral funding and mentoring support for minority sociologists. The program boasts an astounding graduation record of 214 Ph.D.s; many of these colleagues from the early cohorts are now senior leaders in departments, organizations, and in the ASA.

DEMOCRATIZATION OR CONSOLIDATION?

The ASA membership has diverse views about the extent to which the current organizational structure and goals are optimal. Simpson and Simpson argue that core disciplinary concerns have taken a back seat at the ASA; they speak of the ”disciplinary elite and their dilution” (1994, p. 271). Their analysis of ASA budgets, as a indicator of priorities, shows shifts from disciplinary concerns (e.g., journals and meetings) to professional priorities (e.g., jobs, teaching, applied work, and policy issues). Other segments of the profession allege that the ASA leadership is too elite (Reynolds 1998) and has a falsely rosy view of the field (p. 20). Demographically and programmatically, the ASA has changed in its century of service to sociology. With a solid membership core and generally positive trends in the profession, the ASA will continue to sit at the hub of a network of sections and aligned organizations.