Society for the Study of Social Problems Community Research and Development Fall 2012 Division Chair: Shelley McDonough Kimelberg, Northeastern University Newsletter Editor: Jill Eshelman, Northeastern University In this issue: Message from the Division Chair 2013 Graduate Student Paper Competition Call for Nominations for Division Chair 2013 Annual Meeting: Call for Papers Member News: Publications and Recent Dissertations Announcements and Opportunities Message from the Division Chair Shelley McDonough Kimelberg, Northeastern University Greetings, members and friends of the Community Research and Development Division of SSSP! Please read this edition of the CRD newsletter for several updates relevant to all of us. The call for papers for the 2013 Annual Meeting lists nine exciting sessions, including a "Critical Dialogue" on innovations in the study of communities. The new Critical Dialogue format will feature approximately 8 short (5 minute) presentations followed by an engaged dialogue that explores connections among the papers. (Individuals who submit to the Critical Dialogue session are allowed to submit a sole-authored paper for a regular session as well.) Also in this newsletter is the call for submissions for the graduate student paper competition - note the earlier deadline this year! Many thanks to all who contributed content for the newsletter. If you have suggestions or ideas for future newsletters, please email me at: s.kimelberg@neu.edu. 2013 Graduate Student Paper Competition Deadline: January 31, 2013 The Community Research and Development Division announces its 2013 Graduate Student Paper Competition.  The goal is to encourage scholarly endeavors which enhance our understanding of issues affecting the community.  Paper topics can focus on various aspects of the community, including its capacity, development, renewal, and its relationship with other social issues or problems.  Qualitative and quantitative empirical analyses and theoretical papers are welcome.  To be eligible for submission, a paper must not be published or accepted for publication.  Papers must be student-authored; they may be authored by a single student or co-authored by more than one student, but may not be co-authored by a faculty member or other non-student.  Papers must not exceed 25 double-spaced pages (including all notes, references, and tables), and should include a brief abstract.  To be eligible for the award, the author(s) must make a commitment to present the paper at a session during the 2013 SSSP Annual Meeting in New York City.  To be considered, submit (a) a copy of the manuscript, (b) a cover letter specifying that the paper is to be considered in the Community Research and Development Division Graduate Student Paper Competition, and (c) a letter from each author's advisor certifying the person's status as a student and including some brief comments about the research.  All materials must be submitted electronically by January 31, 2013 to Dr. Andrea Leverentz at Andrea.Leverentz@umb.edu . The winner will receive a $125 cash award, a one-year membership to SSSP, and conference registration fees for the 2013 SSSP Annual Meeting. Call for Nominations for the Next Division Chair In the coming months, our division needs to elect a new Chair for the 2013-2015 term (to begin at the annual meeting in August). Please consider running for office! It is a great way to get to know other members and play a role in shaping the direction of our division and SSSP as a whole. All members (including graduate students) are eligible to run. We cannot hold an election unless we have at least two candidates - and we cannot maintain our status as a Special Problems Division unless we have a Chair!! If you are interested in running - or have any questions about what the position entails - please email me at s.kimelberg@neu.edu. From the Statement of R.A. Dello Buono, SSSP President 2012-2013 "As a collective project of scholar-activists, the SSSP is all about making real social change happen.  In New York City, we invite participants to challenge established views and contemplate the limits of existing approaches to social problems, including those of social constructionism. To that end, we are organizing panels, thematic sessions, and special events to explore alternative and more advanced ways to confront the contemporary structures of globalized capitalism that so insidiously shape our social problems.  All of this requires a revitalized sociological imagination. It requires of us a renewed emphasis on collective response and strategy to complement critical analysis. The historical moment demands that we as academics and social practitioners work in better tandem with social movements to help concretize emerging visions of another possible world." Community Research & Development Division 2013 Paper Sessions Division Sessions CRITICAL DIALOGUES: Re-imagining New Ways to Study Communities (THEMATIC) Organizer: Shelley Kimelberg, Northeastern University, s.kimelberg@neu.edu Papers in the Round: Social Problems in Urban and Rural Communities Organizer: Melis Kural, University at Buffalo, meliskur@buffalo.edu Co-sponsored Sessions The Social Economy and Justice Organizer: Carrie Bauer, Arizona State University, cmbauer1@asu.edu (Division Co-sponsor: Labor Studies) Community Groups: Bridging Racial and Class Divisions Organizer: Amy Jonason, University of Notre Dame, ajonason@nd.edu (Division Co-sponsors: Labor Studies, Racial and Ethnic Minorities) Community-Based Social Justice Activism, Education, and Social Change Organizer: Debbie Perkins, Coastal Carolina University, dperkins@coastal.edu (Division Co-sponsor: Conflict, Social Action, and Change; Teaching Social Problems) Schools, Communities, and Inequality: The Significance of Place and Space in Perpetuating Unequal Opportunities and Outcomes Organizer: Chase Billingham, Northeastern University, c.billingham@neu.edu (Division Co-sponsor: Educational Problems) Community Spaces and Food Security Organizer: Patricia Widener, Florida Atlantic University, pwidener@fau.edu (Division Co-sponsor: Environment and Technology) Urban Environmental Issues Organizer: Steven R. Lang, LaGuardia Community College-CUNY, slang@lagcc.cuny.edu (Division Co-sponsor: Environment and Technology; Sociology and Social Welfare) Citizen Issues Including Voter Suppression and Immigration Reform Organizer: Saher Selod, Simmons College, saher.selod@simmons.edu (Division Co-sponsor: Sociology and Social Welfare) All papers must be submitted by midnight (EST) on January 31, 2013 in order to be considered for inclusion in the annual meeting. Each participant is permitted to submit one sole-authorship paper and one critical dialogue paper, but additional co-authored papers may be submitted. Papers may be submitted electronically until midnight (EST) on January 31, 2013 at http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/509/fuseaction/ssspsession2.publicView Member News Recent Publications: Silverman, Robert and Kelly Patterson. "Themed issue on inner-city empowerment and revitalization." Community Development 43, 4: 411-415. Available on-line at: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcod20/43/4 Historically, the community development field has focused on addressing the needs of inner-city neighborhoods. Although other areas of inquiry examined by community development researchers and professionals involve rural communities and the empowerment of disenfranchised groups in nonurban settings, the plight of the inner-city has had a substantial influence on the work of community development scholars and practitioners. Issues surrounding inner-city revitalization remain salient in the contemporary context. The community development field offers a critical framework for designing policies and programs relevant to these issues. This framework, which we identify as the urban social institutions (USI) framework, has a specific focus on addressing the needs of black, Latino, and other historically disenfranchised groups living in inner-city neighborhoods. This focus distinguishes the work of many community development scholars and practitioners from others engaged in neighborhood revitalization activities. The works in this themed issue represent a sample of contemporary scholarship that fits into the USI framework. Stewart, Julie. 2012. "A Tale of Two Communities: Divergent Development and Embedded Brokerage in Post-war Guatemala." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 42, 4: 402 - 430. Available on-line at: http://jce.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/30/0891241612442215 Sociologists of development are increasingly interested in better understanding the reasons for intracountry variation of development outcomes, often focusing on community-level studies. I draw on extensive fieldwork in two return-refugee communities in rural, postwar Guatemala to explain why some community development initiatives succeed while others fail. I attribute this divergence to the presence of embedded brokerage, a new form of brokerage that is particularly useful in the context of aid relationships, which frequently cross transnational cleavages of class, power, and privilege. In particular, I argue that when brokers who are embedded in both the sending and receiving communities facilitate aid relationships, the outcome is more successful. This study demonstrates how embedded brokers responded to community initiative, attracted specialized funding, and helped institutionalize key development values in one community. In contrast, the absence of brokers in the second community contributed to the absence of community initiative, the delivery of generic projects and the failure to institutionalize development values. Young, Frank W. 2012. "Population Health as a Fundamental Criterion of Social Ecology." Social Indicators Research. Available online at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11205-012-0141-6 This essay elaborates the common insight that "strong" communities respond more successfully to serious threats than "weak" communities and it claims that the successful communities will have better population health rates. It nominates an appropriate measure of population health as the criterion of success, and advances a universally applicable concept of strength, conceptualized as institutionalized problem-solving capacity, based on three components: the application of specialized knowledge, open debate on policy alternatives and mobilization behind reformers and reform movements. The relationship may be compressed into a threat-capacity ratio interaction formula: ph = C/t where ph is a measure of population health, C is problem-solving capacity and t is one or more existential threats. The community is the locus of causality and it is assumed that communities attempt to adapt to threats by problem-solving. The Threat-Capacity dynamic is explained by a combination of neo-Darwinian and neo-Durkheimian theory. Three kinds of applications support its plausibility. Recent Dissertation: "From Tragedy to Opportunity: Long-term Development in Post-Disaster Intentional Communities in Honduras" Ryan Alaniz University of Minnesota Recent natural disasters have spurred debates about how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should respond with long-term development strategies in post-disaster resettlements. To address this issue, the author conducted a comparative case study of two intentional Honduran communities built for survivors of Hurricane Mitch (1998) by two different organizations in subsequent years.  Although one community has high crime, low participation, and low social capital, the other maintains a high degree of social cohesion and health.  This doctoral research combines field surveys, interviews, ethnography, and archival research in an analysis of the processes involved in the divergent trajectories of these two new communities. Announcements and Opportunities Editorial Opportunity The Editorial and Publications Committee of the Society for the Study of Social Problems is soliciting applications for the position of Editor of the Society's journal, Social Problems. The Editor's three-year term will begin with the operation of the new editorial office at mid-year 2014.  The new editor will be responsible for editing Volumes 62-64 (years 2015-2017).  Applicants must be members or become members of the SSSP by the time of their application and for the duration of their tenure as editor. The committee seeks editorial candidates with distinguished scholarly records, previous editorial experience (e.g., service as journal editor or associate editor, editor of scholarly editions, etc.), strong organizational and management skills, and the ability to work and communicate well with others.  A familiarity with, and commitment to, Social Problems and the SSSP are essential. Please direct all questions, inquiries, nominations, expressions of interest, and application materials to: David A. Smith, Chair, SSSP Editorial and Publications Committee at dasmith@uci.edu. The deadline for applications is February 1, 2013. Additional information on the position is available at:  http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/510/Call_for_%3Cem%3ESocial_Problems%3C/em%3E_Editor/ Writing Opportunity A scholar is needed to write a chapter on cities and urban development for the textbook, Social Problems: A Service Learning Approach. Timing is short, so please contact Corey at cdolgon@stonehill.edu ASAP if interested. Call for Papers A conference entitled 'Grassroots in the City: Urban Movements and Activism in Central and Eastern Europe' will be held at Södertörn University, Sweden on May 24-25, 2013. The conference seeks to gather researchers working in the field of social movements and civic activism in the urban environment of Central and Eastern Europe. The aim is to discuss the prerequisites for, and forms of, collective action in cities in this social context. To present a paper, submit an abstract no later than December 1st 2012. The full call can be downloaded at: http://webappl.web.sh.se/p3/ext/res.nsf/vRes/cbees_engelsk_grassroots_in_the_city_pdf/$File/Grassroots%20in%20the%20City.pdf Teaching Workshop The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now accepting applications for its inaugural Teaching Poverty 101 Workshop, to take place at IRP from June 2 through 6, 2013. The summer workshop is designed to help college instructors plan college-level courses on the causes, consequences, and cures of poverty. It is open to all college faculty and instructors in any postsecondary institution-university, college, or community college. Visit IRP's website at http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/workshops/teachingpoverty101.htm for further details and a link to the online application form. Grant Opportunity The National Academy of Education, in partnership with the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, is pleased to announce the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Early Career Research Grants competition. This program will award up to 10 grants of $25,000 each to conduct a research study using the extensive Measures of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database. In conducting this study, grantees will receive free technical assistance from members of the National Academy of Education and participate, at no cost, in a series of networking meetings aimed at building a new cadre of scholars interested in research on teaching. Eligibility for the grants program is limited to scholars who received their doctorate after August 31, 2007. Individuals working in a variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to education, economics, psychometrics, psychology, sociology, and statistics are encouraged to apply. Applications from members of under-represented groups are encouraged. Additional information about the Measures of Effective Teaching Early Career Research Grants program, including proposal application forms, can be accessed at www.naeducation.org. Completed applications must be submitted to the National Academy of Education's online submission system by 11:59 Pacific time on December, 15 2012, with funding decisions announced in January, 2013. Career Opportunities The Department of Sociology at Wayne State University invites applications for a Professor and Department Chair to begin fall 2013.  We are seeking an active scholar who has the experience, vision and energy to take the department to a new level. Area of expertise is open, but preference will be given to candidates whose research agenda fits within one of the department's current concentrations in the areas of medical sociology and urban sociology. In addition to administrative experience, we seek candidates with a strong research record, a record of external funding, and demonstrated excellence in teaching. Additional information about Wayne State University and the Department of Sociology can be obtained from the following websites: www.wayne.edu and http://clasweb.clas.wayne.edu/Sociology.  Applicants should submit a letter of interest, current CV, and the names and contact information of three professional references (letters of reference will be requested at a later date) to Douglas Whitman, Ph.D, Chair, Search Committee, Sociology, 2228 F/AB, 656 W. Kirby St., Detroit, MI  48202.  PDF versions may be submitted to sociologychair@wayne.edu.  Review of applications will begin November 15, 2012 and continue until the position is filled. Applicants will also be required to officially apply on-line and instructions for that process will be sent to all applicants. The Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver invites applications for the position of Head of the Department of Sociology, with anticipated start date of July 1, 2013. We expect that the successful candidate will be appointed at the rank of full Professor; however, exceptional candidates at the senior Associate Professor level also will be considered. The successful candidate must have a Ph.D., a distinguished record of research preferably in any of the Department's broad areas of specialization, a strong commitment to advancing all areas of research, a demonstrated commitment to high quality teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and possess a track record of successful graduate supervision.  The Department is committed to international visibility, research excellence and societal impact. The successful candidate will be expected to demonstrate vision and creativity as a leader, administrator, and advocate for the Department. The Head is responsible for recruiting and evaluating faculty, developing scholarly initiatives, and overseeing the educational programs and the financial health of the unit. For information about the Department, visit www.soci.ubc.ca.  The position is subject to final budgetary approval. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.  The appointment as Head is typically for a five-year term with the possibility for reappointment. Applications should include a letter of application, curriculum vitae, a brief description of research interests, a sample of research publications, evidence of teaching effectiveness and the names and contact information of four referees, whom we may contact for confidential letters of reference. Applications and inquiries may be addressed to Professor Geraldine Pratt, Office of the Dean, Faculty of Arts, 1866 Main Mall, Buchanan A240, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1. Review of applications will begin on December 1, 2012 and will continue until the position is filled. UBC hires on the basis of merit and is committed to employment equity and diversity within its community. We encourage all qualified persons to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority. About the Community Research and Development Division: The CRD Division's mission is to provide opportunities for scholars, researchers, students, activists, and others to share and discuss their scholarship and experiences in a supportive setting. In order to further the goal of a just world the Division seeks to integrate the theory, empirical findings, and practice of both scholars/researchers and grassroots activists. We're on the Web! See us at http://www.sssp1.org/