A growing literature highlights the experiences of first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students on college campuses. However, these studies often conflate the positions of middle- and upper-class students. Using interviews with undergraduates at one elite institution, the author shows how upper-middle-class students responded to upward and downward cross-class encounters. Perceiving a status threat from above, students responded to interactions with rich peers through stereotypical denigration. Yet prolonged exposure to the rich resulted in another tactic, selective legitimation, which maintained that wealthy individuals who performed “awareness” could be morally rehabilitated. Encounters with FGLI classmates led respondents to view themselves as lucky or “privileged” for having escaped hardship, leading to rituals of deference aimed at muting the salience of class difference. Finally, despite their heightened recognition of class inequality, respondents drew equivalences between the problems of rich and poor students, ultimately denying the relevance of privilege in determining individual worth.
The Program Committee has put together a terrific set of sessions for next summer’s ASA meeting in Montreal (see the listing below). Thanks go to committee chair (and section Chair-Elect) Sarah Thebaud and members Daniel Hirschman, James Chu, Mariana Craciun, Tracey Adams, Laura Adler, Josh Seim, Katherine Weisshaar, Minjae Kim, Maria Charles, Megan Tobias Neely, and Tiffany Chow, for all the work involved in what promises to be a very exciting program.
Submissions for the annual meeting are now open! The deadline is February 26, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. In addition to paper/extended abstract submissions, proposals will be accepted for courses, workshops, preconferences, the Sociology in Practice Settings Symposium, and the Teaching and Learning Symposium. Details on the submission process may be found here, the listing of section sessions is here, and the online portal is available here.
Due to possible significant delays in processing, be sure to get started on obtaining/renewing your passport and other travel documents now. Review the Canada Border Services Agency web page for information about required travel documentation.
The Membership Committee is planning a series of informal book/article discussions for the winter and spring, with the first one slated for mid-January. Details were not quite ready by press time, so keep an eye out for an update shortly. Thanks to committee chair Laura Doering and members Julie Kmec, Argun Saatcioglu, and Jonathan Horowitz for their terrific work.
We’re always interested in announcing opportunities and showcasing the activities and accomplishments of section members. Send job and postdoc announcements, calls for papers, new books and articles, and other noteworthy events to me (please put “OOW NEWS” in the subject line) or for more immediate posting to the section website and blog, to oow.section.asa@gmail.com.
We invite paper submissions under the broad topic of organizations, including studies that assess their structures, norms, policies, and practices, as well as the environments in which they operate.
(Session Organizer) Daniel Hirschman, Cornell University; (Session Organizer) James Y. Chu, Columbia University
Professional and Expert Work
Papers in this session will focus on the topic of professional and expert work.
(Session Organizer) Mariana Craciun, Tulane University; (Session Organizer) Tracey Adams, Western University
The Changing Nature of Work
Papers in this session will focus on topics relating to contemporary changes and challenges in work and labor markets, such as the rise of remote work, AI, climate change, and precarious work.
(Session Organizer) Laura Adler, Yale University; (Session Organizer) Josh Seim, Boston College
Work and Labor Processes
Papers in this session will focus on work and labor processes.
(Session Organizer) Katherine Weisshaar, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; (Session Organizer) Minjae Kim, Rice University
Workplace and Occupational Inequality
Papers in this session will focus on workplace and occupational inequality.
(Session Organizer) Maria Charles, University of California-Santa Barbara; (Session Organizer) Megan Tobias Neely, Copenhagen Business School; (Session Organizer) Tiffany Y. Chow
Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Sarah Thebaud, University of California-Santa Barbara
ASA NEWS
Send Nominations for 2024 ASA Awards
Honor your colleagues by submitting nominations for ASA awards. Click on the links below to read the award calls. The deadline for nominations is January 1, 2024.
The Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites applications for a Senior Full Professor to fill the William Burwell Harrison Distinguished Professorship of Sociology. We seek applications from scholars specializing in any area of Sociology who exhibit a record of strong and innovative research and excellence in teaching. Applications from scholars studying immigration, work or inequality are especially welcome. Candidates’ work should align with our departmental mission and values as outlined on our website.
The following information applies to applications for the 2024-25 cohort of postdoctoral fellows. The application cycle for this cohort will open on November 16, 2023 and will close on January 15, 2024.
The Digital Civil Society Lab brings promising new scholars to Stanford University for 1 year appointments (renewable once, for a total of two years) as postdoctoral fellows. Each fellow will be primarily affiliated with the Digital Civil Society Lab, and potentially cross-affiliated with a department or school at Stanford University depending on the fellow’s specific disciplinary focus.
The annual fellowship stipend is $75,000 plus the standard benefits that postdoctoral fellows at Stanford University receive, including health insurance and travel funds. The fellowship program falls under U.S. Immigration J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa activities.
The start date of the fellowship will be September 2024, unless otherwise agreed. To assume a postdoctoral fellowship, scholars must have a PhD in hand by July 1, 2024. We cannot consider applications from scholars who earned a PhD earlier than September 1, 2021.
We encourage applications from candidates representing a broad range of disciplines including the social sciences, humanities, law, computer science and engineering.
Call for submissions: SASE Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions
2024 SASE conference in Limerick, 27-29 June 2024
Deadline: 19 January 2024
Network H focuses on the interrelationships between markets, firms, and institutions. We welcome a wide range of theoretical perspectives (e.g. political economy, economic sociology, management studies, neo-institutionalism, and comparative institutional analysis).
Welcome topics include but are not limited to: financial systems and financialization; markets and marketization; strategy, corporate governance, employment relations, and the labor process; varieties of capitalism and growth models/accumulation regimes; institutions and institutional change; internationalization and regional integration.
Network H will be organizing 2 virtual sessions in the week prior to the conference, for those who cannot be present in Limerick. No hybrid option is possible. There are limited virtual spots available, and this option is only meant for those who would not be able to attend the conference at all otherwise. These sessions will be included in the program, and those presenting virtually will be required to pay SASE membership (but not registration fees).
SASE accepts 2 types of submissions: abstracts and panels. There are three possible types of panels you can submit – a pre-formed panel with multiple paper presentations, a roundtable discussion panel, or a Book Salon (see here for some examples; these panels include a book author and 2-4 discussants).
Call for submissions: SASE Network D: Professions and Professionals in a globalizing world
2024 SASE conference in Limerick, 27-29 June 2024
Deadline for abstracts: 19 January 2024
Network organisers: Tracey Adams, James Faulconbridge, Elizabeth Gorman, Sigrid Quack and Len Seabrooke
Professions and professionals have long had a central role in economy and society, and in the current era they remain as central as ever. In particular, professions and professionals play a central role in addressing some of the key socio-economic concerns of our time, from climate change to corporate governance, ageing populations to trade regulation. There are, however, some distinctive features of the contemporary role of professions and professionals compared to earlier eras. The meaning of the term profession and professional has evolved. Alongside the ‘traditional’ professions such as accountancy, architecture, law and medicine, a series of ‘new’ professions and professionals have emerged, such as management consultancy and project management, that rely on discourses of expertise, ethics and client service to carve out a role in markets and legitimise claims to a role in issues ‘old’ professions also claim jurisdiction over. Professionals frequently work in large, often multinational organizations that they shape with discourses and identities while being at the same time inserted in new forms of division of labour with other occupational groups. Professions and professionals increasingly operate in and form transnational regimes, and practice in and exert influence through large and global professional service firms but also non-professional organizations as diverse as charities, lobby groups and non-governmental organizations. They also form compacts with corporations, states, and inter-governmental organizations to advance one-another’s interests. Hence, change, re-scaling, redefinition, and re-organization are core themes at the heart of work on professions and professionals.
We invite papers that cover the full spectrum of empirical and theoretical topics relevant to professions and professionals. Previous conferences have included papers from intellectual traditions and disciplines including sociology, political science, economics, geography, anthropology and management studies.
We also invite submissions of full panel sessions (with already identified papers/speakers) on a defined professions related topic.
Subtheme 71: ” The Impact of Organizational Practices on Workplace Diversity and Inequality “
We would like to bring to your attention the colloquium on “The Impact of Organizational Practices on Workplace Diversity and Inequality,” which we are convening as part of the European Group of Organization Studies’ (EGOS) 40th annual conference in Milan, Italy. The conference will take place on July 4-6, 2024.
Our purpose is to bring together a group of researchers who share a concern for advancing our knowledge of the mechanisms through which organizations influence diversity and inequality in the labor market. We welcome papers from different disciplines and at all levels of analysis.
If you are interested, we encourage you to submit a short paper (3,000 words) before January 9th, 2024. You can access the call for papers here:
If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact us
Best regards,
Emilio J. Castilla (MIT)
Isabel Fernandez-Mateo (London Business School)
NEW ARTICLES
Jablonski, E. S., Phillips, K. G., & Henly, M. (forthcoming). “Employment Barriers Experienced at Different Job Acquisition Stages by People With and Without Disabilities.” Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Call for submissions: SASE Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions
2024 SASE conference in Limerick, 27-29 June 2024
Hard deadline: 19 January 2024
Network H focuses on the interrelationships between markets, firms, and institutions. We welcome a wide range of theoretical perspectives (e.g. political economy, economic sociology, management studies, neo-institutionalism, and comparative institutional analysis).
Welcome topics include but are not limited to: financial systems and financialization; markets and marketization; strategy, corporate governance, employment relations, and the labor process; varieties of capitalism and growth models/accumulation regimes; institutions and institutional change; internationalization and regional integration.
Network H will be organizing 2 virtual sessions in the week prior to the conference, for those who cannot be present in Limerick. No hybrid option is possible. There are limited virtual spots available, and this option is only meant for those who would not be able to attend the conference at all otherwise. These sessions will be included in the program, and those presenting virtually will be required to pay SASE membership (but not registration fees).
SASE accepts 2 types of submissions: abstracts and panels. There are three possible types of panels you can submit – a pre-formed panel with multiple paper presentations, a roundtable discussion panel, or a Book Salon (see here for some examples; these panels include a book author and 2-4 discussants).
Please considersubmitting an abstract of about 500 words for an individual presentation or a panel relating to community, democracy, and organizations at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) annual meeting. The conference submission deadline is Jan. 19, 2024. Our 2024 annual meeting will primarily be an in-person conference spanning 3 days in Limerick, Ireland, June 27-29, 2023. For those unable to travel, our network—Network A: Community, Democracy, and Organizations—also have a very limited number of virtual presentation slots in two sessions to be scheduled for June 18-21. (Details about those arehere.)
As the organizers ofNetwork A: Community, Democracy, and Organizations, we would be glad to consider any papers on our network’s topics that you wish to submit, in addition to any ideas you have for pre-formed panels with multiple paper presentations, roundtable discussion panels, or book salons (aka Author Meets Critics panels). SASE is an international organization of scholars who study topics related to economic sociology and political economy. Network A focuses on the moral or values-based underpinnings of human thought, practices, and institutions that comprise civil societies, particularly as they relate to the participatory, collectivist, and democratic aspirations of organizations, markets, and other spaces of collaboration and contestation. We examine how communities, enterprises, and societies can be organized around principles of democratic governance or other substantive values that go beyond calculative self-interest and instrumental relations. In particular, we welcome submissions relating to: (1) how groups and initiatives promote social change, through formal organizations, informal groups, prefigurative organizations, decentralized projects, participatory decision-making, and various forms of shared ownership; and (2) how collectivities reinforce prevailing conventions of hierarchical, bureaucratic, and profit-driven organizational structures and markets.
Examples of relevant phenomena include, but are not limited to: affinity groups; anti-oppressive human services; artistic or cultural collectives (including democratic governance and autonomy-respecting practices in creative organizations more broadly); collectively governed commons; community land trusts; community real estate investment cooperatives; community-based economic exchanges; community-run marketplaces; decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs); free schools; giving circles; limited equity housing cooperatives and co-housing; mutual companies and aid networks; open, commons-based, and inclusive innovation and valuation frameworks; participatory budgeting; public-private partnerships; social enterprises; solidarity economies; and worker, producer, or consumer cooperatives, including platform cooperatives.
To learn more about our network and its history, please readhere. To join our Network A listserv, visithttps://inthefray.org/list.
SASE’s Early Career Workshop brings together PhD students, recent PhDs, and independent scholars who wish to participate in small roundtable discussions of their work with assigned faculty mentors. It is held in person shortly before the SASE annual meeting, with some travel expenses paid. Applicants should submit full papers and other required materials, as specifiedhere, by Jan. 19, 2024.
Please direct any general questions or comments about Network A to sase@inthefray.org.
How to support Network A:
Network A relies entirely on the efforts of volunteer organizers and additional support from colleagues at all stages of their careers. Please consider supporting the growth and sustainability of our community in these and other ways:
(1) Circulate this cfp to listservs and other potentially interested parties, particularly those who might not have heard of our network or the SASE conference.
(2) Help us build community at the SASE conference in Limerick, Ireland. Among other things, please send us suggestions for local venues, local organizations, or other groups that might be of interest to our network’s members and that could possibly present at the conference, host field trips for our members, etc.
(3) Consider becoming part of the Network A leadership. There are many ways to help, including by organizing conference panels, social events, and virtual sessions.
All OOW members are invited to participate in an informal, online discussion of Catherine Chen’s Work, Pray, Code on January 22nd, 12-1pm EST. The book is a brisk, qualitative study of how work becomes religion in Silicon Valley. The conversation will be “book club style”, with everyone welcome to share ideas. (If you’d like to participate but time is short, focus on the introduction & chapter 4.)
We hope students and faculty alike come to discuss and meet with fellow OOW members. To register and receive a zoom link, click here.
Date Position is Available: Spring 2024 (Fully remote option available)
Job ID: 19813
Job Description
Joya Misra and Jessica Pearlman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow to engage in a large-scale multimethod project aimed at better understanding the pathways and challenges experienced by diverse STEM higher education leaders. The goal of the project is to understand how racialized and gendered organizations lead to differential access to leadership by race, gender, nationality, and other factors. The postdoc will work closely with the team to develop the sample, field and analyze a nationally representative survey, develop the interview protocol, and code and analyze the interview data. The person hired for this position will also play a key role in mentoring the graduate research assistants on the project. We offer professional development opportunities, including through a detailed postdoctoral mentoring plan, workshops provided by the Office of Professional Development, as well as mentoring around supervising student researchers and project management. The postdoc will have opportunities to present findings at academic conferences and to publish in academic journals, as well as for publicly engaged communication.
The following information applies to applications for the 2024-25 cohort of postdoctoral fellows. The application cycle for this cohort will open on November 16, 2023 and will close on January 15, 2024.
The Digital Civil Society Lab brings promising new scholars to Stanford University for 1 year appointments (renewable once, for a total of two years) as postdoctoral fellows. Each fellow will be primarily affiliated with the Digital Civil Society Lab, and potentially cross-affiliated with a department or school at Stanford University depending on the fellow’s specific disciplinary focus.
The annual fellowship stipend is $75,000 plus the standard benefits that postdoctoral fellows at Stanford University receive, including health insurance and travel funds. The fellowship program falls under U.S. Immigration J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa activities.
The start date of the fellowship will be September 2024, unless otherwise agreed. To assume a postdoctoral fellowship, scholars must have a PhD in hand by July 1, 2024. We cannot consider applications from scholars who earned a PhD earlier than September 1, 2021.
We encourage applications from candidates representing a broad range of disciplines including the social sciences, humanities, law, computer science and engineering.
This study argues that the increase in middle management in recent decades was accompanied by a shift in managerial roles. Increased task complexity and a new management philosophy have reduced the need for direct supervision but generated a greater demand for collaboration, leading to the emergence of a managerial class whose primary role is collaboration not supervision. The author analyzed a large volume of data to generate three sets of findings: (1) The expectations of the managerial role have quickly changed, in almost all sectors, to emphasize more collaboration and less supervision (2) This new managerial role is especially concentrated in innovation-focused firms. (3) Firms treating managers as collaborators have a higher proportion of middle managers than those still treating them primarily as supervisors. These findings suggest that the role of managers has fundamentally shifted and that accounting for changing managerial roles could explain a significant portion of the managerial growth.
Organizations, Occupations and Work 