Special Sessions

After GPT: How do we do Higher Ed now?
Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) have been rapidly immersed in the teaching, learning and functioning of higher education. This special session aims to bring in multidisciplinary approaches to explore how to use AI and LLM responsibly, ethically, and strategically in human-AI interactions within complex social contexts and institutions. A deep understanding of the promises and pitfalls of AI and LLM will put higher education back in control of how to adopt to the new technology.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Lingxin Hao, Johns Hopkins University; (Presider) Amy J. Binder, Johns Hopkins University

• Algorithmic Bias and Implications for AI in Higher Education – Denisa Gandara, University of Texas-Austin
• Teaching and Learning with Generative AI: Same Theory, New Practice – Rene Kizilcec, Cornell University
• Whose ChatGPT? Uncovering Digital Inequalities in Education in the Age of Generative AI – Renzhe Yu, Columbia University
• Enhancing STEM Problem-Solving through Scaffolding: Analyzing Student-ChatGPT Interactions in Gateway Courses – Lingxin Hao, Johns Hopkins University

America’s Housing Crisis
Housing insecurity is an all too common experience in the U.S. Tens of millions of American households are currently housing cost burdened, the threat of eviction remains rampant across urban and rural places, and the median sale price to median income ratio and homelessness are at record highs. This panel brings together expertise from across academia, activism, and journalism to discuss the myriad causes and consequences of American’s current housing crisis, as well as what can be done to fix it.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Max Besbris, University of Wisconsin-Madison; (Presider) Max Besbris, University of Wisconsin-Madison; (Panelist) Matthew Desmond, Princeton University; (Panelist) Maria Hadden, Chicago City Council; (Panelist) Debra Kamen, New York Times; (Panelist) Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Princeton University

Bringing Sociology and Sociologists into Leadership/Administrative Roles: Perspectives, Experiences, and Impact
This session will feature a panel of sociologists in various leadership roles at the university, foundation, political, and association levels. The panelists will engage in conversation and Q&A, giving perspective to others who might be thinking about the administrative path, as well as speaking to how we as sociologists can impact higher education and social policy via these leadership roles.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Anna R. Haskins, University of Notre Dame; (Presider) Anna R. Haskins, University of Notre Dame; (Panelist) Nina Bandelj, University of California-Irvine; (Panelist) Christina Ciocca Eller, Harvard University; (Panelist) Adam Gamoran, William T. Grant Foundation; (Panelist) Zulema Valdez, University of California-Merced; (Panelist) Frederick F. Wherry, Princeton University

Critical Studies of Technology at Home
Domestic life is intimately linked to the ubiquity of personal media, communication technologies, and digital platforms, as well as the unprecedented scale of information flowing in and out of homes through these devices, screens, and interfaces, and its associated opaque data collection, storage, profiling, and analysis. This panel will focus on critical approaches to understanding the sociotechnical assemblages of families, media, technology, and the domestic sphere across public, private, and hybrid spaces, and how the risks and benefits of such mediation, digitization, and datafication are unequally distributed among children and caregivers and across generations. This session will aim to cover various social, political, economic, and health-related stakes for families, attentive to differences that emerge across age, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and geography. The panel will consider critical aspects of media and communication technology through the lens of the family as a social institution from within, as well as institutional forces such as education, employment, and healthcare from without.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Meryl Alper, Northeastern University; (Presider) Matt Rafalow, Google

• Digital Assistants, Generative Artificial Intelligence, and the Rhythm of Family Life – Tawfiq Ammari, Rutgers University
• Classed Dynamics of Family Media Use in the U.S. – Annaliese Grant, University of Nevada-Las Vegas
• Using Media to Deal with an Unfair World: Representation for U.S. Marginalized Youth and Their Families – AnneMarie McClain, Boston University
• Children’s Gender and Parenting around Technology Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic – Stefanie Mollborn, Stockholm University

Doom, Disaster, Dystopia, and Escape: Visions of an Apocalyptic Future
We have entered what many believe to be a dystopian and apocalyptic age. Indeed, the breadth and scale of the problems we face from climate change to increasing armed conflict to the rise of fascism have led academics to draw upon terms like ‘polycrisis’ and ‘postnormal’ times to describe it. Given that we are living in an era of heightened risk and uncertainty, with growing fears of societal collapse, there is burgeoning scholarly interest in understanding this moment. This panel will discuss sociological thinking on disaster, doomerism, dystopia, and apocalypse. The discussion will focus on key emerging questions such as how do people make sense of and cope with an age that seems to be spinning out of control? How do they think about and approach their futures in these dark times? What role does religion, culture, political ideology, and social movements play in steadying or comforting people (or not) in such precarious times? And what are the social, political, and emotional consequences of all of it?

Participants: (Session Organizer) Marianne Cooper, Stanford University; (Presider) Marianne Cooper, Stanford University; (Panelist) Dana R. Fisher, American University; (Panelist) Jordan McKenzie, University of Wollongong; (Panelist) Ming-Cheng M. Lo, University of California-Davis; (Panelist) Roberto Blancarte, Center for Sociological Studies at El Colegio de México

Enduring Social Movements
Some social movements persist over time. Others are short lived. This panel focuses on the former. We consider examples of social movements that managed to endure, at least more than a decade and sometimes considerably longer, despite changing resources and political circumstances. We refer to them as “Enduring Social Movements.” Taking examples as diverse as the US, Argentina, and Tunisia, we ask what strategies allowed these movements to maintain a public presence and sustain activities. The panel contributes to the study of social movements in raising a question that has received insufficient attention. More often than not, the focus has been on short-term wins or losses, rather than on a movement’s ability to weather both and mobilize over the long run. The panel moves the inquiry to the consideration of issues that are central to the development and potential effectiveness of social movements in reaching their stated objectives. Across the proposed papers, we identify a number of key strategies through which social movements persist. In raising little studied yet critically important questions and offering a comparative, longitudinal perspective, the panel opens new venues for research on social movements.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Mounira Maya Charrad, University of Texas, Austin; (Session Organizer) Allison Lang, University of Texas at Austin; (Presider) Javier Auyero, University of Texas-Austin

• Feminist Strategies Under Authoritarianism: From the 1970s to Today in Tunisia – Mounira Maya Charrad, University of Texas, Austin
• How the Grassroots Grow: Sustaining Horizontality in the Argentine Anti-Mining Movement – Allison Lang, University of Texas at Austin
• All Politics is Social: The Microfoundations of Social Movement Momentum and Abeyance – Elizabeth McKenna, Harvard University
• The Endurance of Feminism and Environmentalism as Social Movements – Suzanne Staggenborg, University of Pittsburgh
• Abeyance Theory and Social Movement Continuity – Verta A. Taylor, University of California-Santa Barbara

Family Estrangement
Family estrangement has become a contested topic in op-eds and on social media, as well as a site of prolific research in the fields of psychology and social work. However, despite the potential for sociology to provide a critical lens on estrangement, only recently has this phenomenon garnered research attention from sociologists. This panel brings together a diverse group of scholars to discuss patterns and experiences of family estrangement from a variety of sociological perspectives.  Panelists will enter the ongoing debate about the sociological significance of estrangement, provide empirical and theoretical insights into the sociological experiences, causes, and consequences of family estrangement, theorize the role of power and inequality in family life during estrangement, and speak to how estrangement lends new insight into conversations regarding social isolation, social networks, and loneliness. This panel will generate a path for future work on family estrangement in sociology.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Rin Reczek, Ohio State University; (Presider) Rin Reczek, Ohio State University

• I don’t help anymore: How parental estrangement shapes young adults’ language brokering practices – Vanessa Delgado, Washington State University
• Theorizing the complex processes of intergenerational estrangement and reconciliation across time – Megan Gilligan, Iowa State University; Kale Monk, University of Missouri; J. Jill Suitor, Purdue University
• Forgotten family members: How siblings navigate a brother’s incarceration – Estéfani Marín, University of California-Irvine; Kristin Turney, University of California-Irvine; Angie Belen Monreal, University of California-Irvine
• Conflict, Reconciliation, and Race: Daughter-Mother Relationships in Adulthood – Amy Irby-Shasanmi, Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis
• Estrangement and the New Culture of Quality-Contingent Kinship – Rin Reczek, Ohio State University

Global Crises and Social Movements
Protest movements sometimes emerge in response to distant events and issues, including war, famine, and human rights abuses.  The geographic and political distance between the organizing effort and the provocation that inspires creates distinct challenges for organizers who want to change the world, including heightening awareness, informing publics, finding proximate targets, formulating actionable demands, and sustaining attention. The papers in this session consider the social movement responses to recent global crises in light of such challenges.

Participants: (Session Organizer) David S. Meyer, University of California-Irvine; (Presider) David S. Meyer, University of California-Irvine; (Panelist) Dana M. Moss, University of Notre Dame; (Panelist) Kenneth Andy Andrews, Washington University-St. Louis; (Panelist) Khoi Ngo, Washington University-St. Louis; (Panelist) Lesley J. Wood, York University; (Discussant) David S. Meyer, University of California-Irvine

Immigration and Child Labor
Child migrant labor has long been a feature of the US economy. Yet, recent reporting on the rise of child migrant exploitation, injury, and death in factories and construction sites and on farms across the country has brought it to the fore of debates about the future of immigration, child welfare, and the economy. Indeed, many are concerned that states’ move to weaken child labor laws will put more children—migrant and non-migrant— at risk of entering a “new economy of exploitation.” This panel examines the contemporary causes and consequences of labor among im/migrant children and children of immigrants in the US, offering new perspectives to understanding the rising phenomenon. Papers in this session will attend to how laws and policies produce the conditions that prompt children to enter low-wage occupations and ask why violations of children’s rights and harm to them are accepted by the public. From children’s and youth’s perspectives, papers also consider how migrant children and children of immigrants negotiate their entry into work, their pathways into low-wage labor, and the meanings they make of their everyday efforts to contribute to their families and their futures. Together, this panel offers insights into the formal and informal, visible and invisible, and agential and oppressive work kids do and thoughtful solutions for a meaningful way forward.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Stephanie L. Canizales, University of California, Berkeley; (Presider) Stephanie L. Canizales, University of California, Berkeley

• What we talk about when we talk about child labor: Policy, polarization, and the new social value of children – Isabel Jijon, Harvard University
• Housing (In)security as a Risk and Response to Child Migrant Labor in the United States – Stephanie L. Canizales, University of California, Berkeley
• “I feel a responsibility to help”: Understanding immigrant-origin young adults’ early entry into the labor market – Karina Chavarria, CSU Channel Islands
• The Invisible Family Labor of Children of Immigrants- Vanessa Delgado, Washington State University

Innovative Scholarship in the Sociology of Trans Studies
The sociology of trans studies is a lively field of inquiry; spanning every section in ASA. This session will offer new and innovative work in the field – empirically, methodologically, and applied – across a breadth of topics.

Participants: (Session Organizer) stef m. shuster, Michigan State University; (Session Organizer) Alithia Zamantakis, Northwestern University; (Presider) Alexander Hill, Michigan State University; (Panelist) Xavier Luciano Guadalupe-Diaz, Framingham State University; (Panelist) Opal Gay, Georgia State University; (Panelist) Andréa Becker, University of California; (Panelist) Ian Kennedy, University of Illinois-Chicago; (Panelist) Hannah Elizabeth Curtis, University of Washington; (Panelist) Leo Stewart, University of Washington; (Discussant) stef m. shuster, Michigan State University; (Discussant) Alithia Zamantakis, Northwestern University

Interrogating Moral and Economic Harm
Over recent decades, societies and populations around the world have endured mounting economic injuries. They have seen rising inequalities and declining commitments to social safety nets, education, good jobs, housing, humane immigration, and more. But economic injuries are always also moral ones. How have shifting economic realities compromised the humanity of individuals, families, communities and societies? How do people collectively experience and navigate these currents? This panel seeks to investigate, empirically and theoretically, the many intersections of moral and economic degradation in current times. It will touch on areas such as housing provision, immigration, the criminal legal system, and post-colonial nationhood.

Participants: (Session Organizer) John N. Robinson, Princeton University; (Presider) John N. Robinson, Princeton University; (Panelist) Faith M Deckard, University of California – Los Angeles; (Panelist) Ricarda Hammer, University of California-Berkeley; (Panelist) Heba Gowayed, CUNY-Hunter College; (Panelist) Esther Sullivan, University of Colorado-Denver

Moral panics in the 21st century: theoretical issues and empirical challenges
To contribute to this exploration of current trends in moral panic studies, this session hosts papers that investigate a range of different moral panics with the aim to better contextualizing the concept of moral panic in relation to the construction of social problems – and how this construction changes – in contemporary societies.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Sean P. Hier, University of Victoria; (Session Organizer) Morena Tartari, Northumbria University; (Presider) Morena Tartari, Northumbria University

• “I still love my daughter. I hate Autism”: Framing the Filicide of Autistic Children in Canada – Jennifer Silcox; Hannah Jane Walsh, Queen’s University
• Moral Panic, Political Polarization, and Mass Shootings – Jennifer Carlson, Arizona State University-Tempe
• Methods in moral panic research: contemporary challenges and future paths – Morena Tartari, Northumbria University
• Amoral Panics and the rise of the new Folk Devil – the ‘basket of deplorables,’ Sean P. Hier, University of Victoria

Political Contention and Children’s Rights in the United States
The United States is the only UN member state that has not signed the Convention on the Rights of the Childhood. Children’s rights, as an ethical, political, and analytic framework only occasionally appears within U.S. sociological research and analysis. However, at the same time, we see significant public debates regarding children’s rights, often not named as such. From attempts to limit young people’s access to information and knowledge via book bans and other curricular interventions, to the serious threats to trans children’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies, to the court cases that seek to hold governments and corporations accountable for the climate crisis and its impacts on young people, to the campaigns to lower the voting age to 16, to the varied responses to young people who migrate across national borders, to racialized and gendered claims about children’s culpability or innocence when confronting police and carceral systems, it is clear that the figure of the child plays a critical role in contemporary US politics. This panel brings together scholars working across some of these different sites of social and political contention around childhood to consider the following questions: What does a children’s rights lens illuminate about this issue? How might the international debates and diverse theoretical frameworks surrounding children’s rights shift the terrain of our analysis and engagement with this struggle? What are the conceptual and political benefits to thinking across these various sites of contestation over children and childhood?

Participants: (Session Organizer) Jessica Taft, University of California-Santa Cruz; (Presider) Jessica Taft, University of California-Santa Cruz; (Panelist) Carla Shedd, CUNY-Graduate Center; (Panelist) Chiara Galli, University of Chicago; (Panelist) Chris A. Barcelos, University of Massachusetts Boston; (Panelist) Amanda Evelyn Lewis, University of Illinois-Chicago

Politics on Campus
Sociologists who have recently held or currently hold roles in prominent University leadership positions ranging from President, Dean to Vice Dean, in dialogue about the ways in which politics are permeating today’s university, ranging from external attacks by activists, state and federal legislators, and alumni donors to internal conflicts over free speech and political partisanship among the university community.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; (Presider) Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; (Panelist) Enobong (Anna) Branch, Rutgers University-New Brunswick; (Panelist) Rogelio Saenz, University of Texas at San Antonio; (Panelist) Teresa A. Sullivan, University of Virginia; (Panelist) Katherine Shelley Newman, University of California

Reproductive Rights in Flux
In this session, participants whose work spans a range of issues related to reproductive rights and justice will discuss the challenges that people face in an ever-changing social landscape, what they see on the horizon, and their visions for the future. Participant research foci include birth and birthing justice, contraception and abortion, youth contraception and abortion needs, child support policy and carcerality, youth activism among Black and Brown youth, and reproductive justice writ large. Participants will leave this panel discussion with a richer and more nuanced understanding of the broad scope of reproductive rights and justice and the work that sociologists are doing across subfields to contribute to social change.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Krystale E. Littlejohn, University of Oregon; (Presider) Katrina E. Kimport, UC San Francisco; (Panelist) Alicia D Bonaparte, Pitzer College; (Panelist) Brittany Battle, Wake Forest University; (Panelist) Emily S. Mann, University of South Carolina-Columbia; (Panelist) Zakiya Luna, Washington University-St. Louis; (Panelist) Uriel Serrano, University of Southern California

Resisting Interconnected Systems of Oppression: Academic Boycott and Divestment Movements
In an interconnected world, we profit from systems of oppression elsewhere. This panel focuses specifically on the role of universities in maintaining, reproducing and legitimating systems of oppression. How can we stand in solidarity with one another and what are the most effective ways to do so? The conference theme asks us to reimagine the future of work and this panel takes a reflexive stance on institutions of higher education. This allows us to examine our own role in maintaining systems of oppression, but it also makes visible possible strategies for resistance. The panelists will discuss solidarity movements, academic boycotts, sanctions, and other forms of resistance in historical and comparative perspectives. What has the role of academic institutions been in furthering systems of oppression? How effective can international solidarity be? The panel brings together a diverse set of perspectives, ranging from the South African anti-Apartheid struggle, Israel/Palestine and the United States, to discuss our own role in political change.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Ricarda Hammer, University of California-Berkeley; (Panelist) Gay W. Seidman, University of Wisconsin-Madison; (Panelist) Rana Sukarieh, American University of Beirut; (Panelist) Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; (Panelist) Maya Wind, University of British Columbia; (Presider) Andy Clarno, University of Illinois-Chicago; (Discussant) Andy Clarno, University of Illinois-Chicago

Sociology Hesitant: Exploring the Methodological Implications of Contemporary Du Boisian Sociology
Contemporary U.S. sociology is undergoing a long delayed but welcome Du Boisian transformation. Sparked by several recent works—most importantly Aldon Morris’ (2015) The Scholar Denied—a slate of sociologists has begun to recover Du Bois from the margins of disciplinary history and work towards the elaboration of a distinctly Du Boisian sociology. This panel seeks to reflect on the methodological implications of this development. How does Du Boisian sociology challenge dominant methodologies? How does embracing a Du Boisian focus on racialized modernity shape the practice and purpose of sociological research? What do research ethics and data collection look—and feel—like from a Du Boisian perspective? How might Du Boisian sociology generate a more accountable, relevant, and emancipatory sociological project? With such questions in mind, this panel shifts the Du Boisian conversation from the empirical and theoretical to the methodological and ethical.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, University of California-Berkeley; (Panelist) Jordan Conwell, University of Texas-Austin; (Panelist) Brittany Battle, Wake Forest University; (Panelist) Vilna Bashi, Northwestern University; (Panelist) Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, University of California-Berkeley; (Presider) Cedric de Leon, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; (Discussant) Aldon Morris, Northwestern University

Sociology in Red States
In recent years, a noticeable shift within conservative politics and cultural orientations prioritizes parental control over children’s educational content, evidenced by increased efforts to influence school curricula and challenge perceived inappropriate material. Concurrently, institutions of higher education face criticism for allegedly promoting liberal ideologies, reflecting broader debates on education’s role. Being a sociologist in a red state presents unique challenges due to prevailing conservative values and resistance to social change. This landscape impedes research on pressing social issues, as sociologists face increased skepticism and limited funding. Sociologists may encounter social isolation or backlash for their work, which may be perceived as threatening traditional values. Nonetheless, they play a crucial role in advocating for social justice and diversity and fostering critical thinking in their communities despite these obstacles. In this session, we will discuss the experiences of sociologists working in red states: how the political climate affects their work and how they respond to it.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Elizabeth E. Mustaine, University of Central Florida; (Presider) Elizabeth E. Mustaine, University of Central Florida

Teaching and Learning Sociology: We Can Do It!
Teaching our students how to “do” sociology can take a wide variety of forms in our classrooms. Whether it’s because of the changing expectations of increasingly diverse student bodies, technological advances in the field of generative AI, cuts to social sciences departments, or the increasing reach of political authoritarianism, how we teach sociology continues to evolve and change. Faculty and instructors who seek to diversify their pedagogical methods, approaches to the sociological canon and course content, or assessments of their students’ learning often turn to Teaching Sociology for inspiration. This session seeks to reconsider the future of the work of teaching sociology with invited panelists who have recently published innovative approaches to the scholarly work of teaching in Teaching Sociology.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Amanda May Jungels, University of Chicago; (Session Organizer) Elizabeth S. Cavalier, Georgia Gwinnett College; (Presider) Amanda May Jungels, University of Chicago; (Panelist) Cody R. Melcher, Loyola University-New Orleans; (Panelist) Nicole Bedera, Beyond Compliance Consulting; (Panelist) Alanna Gillis, St. Lawrence University; (Panelist) Michel Estefan, University of California-San Diego

The Affordable Care Act at 15: Reflecting Back, Looking Forward
In March 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, marking a historic moment in US healthcare policy. Colloquially known as “Obamacare”, the ACA extended access to health coverage to millions of Americans who were too sick or unable to afford coverage. The landmark reform also removed preexisting conditions as barriers to health coverage and allowed children to remain on their parents’ coverage through age 26. By the time Obama left office, the uninsured population had been reduced from 15% in 2010 to 9%, signaling success of the reform. But Obamacare was not perfect. Some states opted out of the Medicaid expansion and the ACA excluded many noncitizens and did not sufficiently make the healthcare system easier to navigate for Americans with coverage. Once Trump entered office in 2017, he and the GOP Congress worked aggressively to repeal the ACA. Those efforts were unsuccessful, and the policy remains in place today. By the time of the 2025 ASA meeting, the ACA will (hopefully) have turned 15 years old. The purpose of this panel is to reflect on this historic reform and discuss the sociological implications of the ACA for shaping access to health care, addressing health disparities for various populations (e.g. immigrants, people of color, low/middle-income), and connecting health to other forms of social inequality (e.g. employment, housing, transportation). Panelists will also discuss the impact of the socio-political climate on health reform efforts and where they see US health care headed as the ACA gets older.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Tiffany D. Joseph, Northeastern University; (Panelist) Denise L. Anthony, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; (Panelist) Elaine Marie Hernandez, Indiana University-Bloomington; (Panelist) Meredith Van Natta, University of California-Merced; (Panelist) Tiffany D. Joseph, Northeastern University; (Presider) Tiffany D. Joseph, Northeastern University; (Panelist) Colleen Grogan, University of Chicago

The Cultural Pragmatics of the Environment
In the last decade, numerous works have addressed climate and environmental issues from the perspective of cultural performances and processes that generate mobilization among civil, political, and social actors, as well as popular resistance to binding environmental policies. The narrative approach to collective and individual environmental mobilizations has been particularly developed. In cultural sociology more specifically, theatrical performance, for example, has gained a place in the study of the successes and failures of major global climate conferences, as we are now celebrating the 10th anniversary of Philip Smith and Nicolas Howe’s 2015 book Climate Change as Social Drama: Global Warming in the Public Sphere (Cambridge University Press). Taking advantage of the annual ASA meeting being held in the birth city of American sociological pragmatism, Chicago, this thematic session calls for contributions that aim to bridge both the pragmatic considerations in political sociology and the ambitions of cultural sociology, by advancing the program of a “cultural pragmatics” capable of drawing, for instance, from the theories and analytical methods of Erving Goffman as well as Jeffrey Alexander (and many others). The aim will be to explore the cultural and performative dynamics of environmental action, both collective and individual, from the local to the global level, by taking as privileged fields or case studies civil society’s activist groups, state’s interventions, as well as official diplomacy and negotiations on climate, biodiversity, nature protection, or plastic pollution. Attention may also be given to mobilizations that are not directly or explicitly “political,” carried out notably through artistic performances and the dissemination of popular culture (cinema, music, song, etc.) addressing environmental themes and issues. The observable intersection between environmental issues and social or collective identities (as well as intersectionality itself) can also be highlighted.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Charles Simon Berthelet, University of Quebec at Montreal; (Presider) Charles Simon Berthelet, University of Quebec at Montreal; (Panelist) Charles Simon Berthelet, University of Quebec at Montreal; (Panelist) Sylvaine Bulle, EHESS and ENSA Paris-Val de Seine; (Panelist) Brieg Capitaine, University of Ottawa

The Resurgence of Antisemitism in the 21st Century: Patterns, Trends, Solutions
Anti-Jewish hatred and violence have worsened in recent years in the US and globally. Prominent incidents include the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where neo-Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us”; the murderous assault on Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, described as “the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States”; the deadly armed assault on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, in 2019; the armed taking of hostages at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, in 2022; the massacre perpetrated by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, described as “the worst violence committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” and the record-breaking surge in antisemitic incidents that ensued, which included the firebombing of a Jewish community building in Berlin in 2023 and the horrific rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Paris in 2024. This hatred and violence have stimulated growing concern and renewed interest in the sociology of antisemitism, as demonstrated by three successful preconferences on the topic at previous ASA meetings in 2019, 2023, and 2024. This special session gathers distinguished colleagues from around the world to address the sources of increased antisemitism in the 21st century, the diverse forms it takes, and its relationship to other types of hatred. We aim to foster a rigorous but wide-ranging discussion that is empirically grounded, historically and theoretically informed, comparative in perspective, and attuned to pedagogy, public policy, and practical efforts to combat hatred.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Chad Alan Goldberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison; (Session Organizer) Arnold Dashefsky, University of Connecticut; (Presider) Chad Alan Goldberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison; (Presider) Arnold Dashefsky, University of Connecticut; (Panelist) Sina Arnold; (Panelist) Gunther Jikeli, Indiana University; (Panelist) Manuela Consonni; (Panelist) David Hirsh

U.S. Gun, Ownership, Culture, and Inequality
This panel will present research on U.S. gun ownership, gun culture, and related inequalities. Panelists will describe research from diverse methodologies examining American’s attitudes about beliefs about guns and how U.S. gun culture shapes diverse forms of social inequality. Panelists will present research from diverse perspectives, from attitudinal research on guns, to comparative historical perspectives on the transformation of U.S. gun culture, to gun policy research examining state-level variation and health inequalities more broadly. This panel presents cutting-edge work from diverse perspectives.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Tristan Bridges, University of California-Santa Barbara; (Presider) Tristan Bridges, University of California-Santa Barbara; (Panelist) Jennifer Carlson, Arizona State University-Tempe; (Panelist) David Yamane, Wake Forest University; (Panelist) Tara D. Warner, University of Alabama at Birmingham; (Panelist) Jonathan M. Metzl, Vanderbilt University; (Discussant) Thatcher Combs, University of Texas-Austin

Uprooting and Replanting for Equity: Reflecting and Collectively Addressing Root Causes of Racialized Health Inequities
In the heat of the early Covid-19 pandemic fury, Chief health equity officer and senior VP of the American Medical Association (AMA), Dr Aletha Maybank, organized a webinar titled “The Root Cause: Prioritizing Equity” where interdisciplinary “health equity advocates and trailblazers” discussed research, policy, and advocacy work on addressing the root causes of health inequity during moments of health crises. The webinar has now amassed close to twenty thousand views and was influential in shifting conversations to consider structural systems as root causes. We are now five years out, and the ramifications of the pandemic on exacerbating inequities in marginalized communities are even more clear. Yet, the bridge to health equity is still rocky. This session brings together some of the same trailblazers to share what we have since learned about the root causes of structural racism, structural sexism, and capitalism in harming collective health. Importantly, the panel will also discuss how ASA can work with other disciplines and organizations, to better advance health equity.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Whitney Nicole Laster Pirtle, University of California-Merced; (Panelist) Zini Bailey, University of Minnesota; (Panelist) Jonathan M. Metzl, Vanderbilt University; (Panelist) Camara Jones, Emory University O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination, & Global Health; (Panelist) Joia Crear-Perry, National Birth Equity Collaborative; (Presider) Whitney Nicole Laster Pirtle, University of California-Merced

Young People and Declining Trust in Social Institutions
Parents pushing for book bans in schools, the recruitment of youth to far-right conspiracy theories, increasing support for the teaching revisionist versions of U.S. history, the #defund movement, parents refusing to vaccinate their kids. The current racial and political moment in American society features what appears to be a declining trust in social institutions. This session examines what we know about this declining trust with an emphasis on how this relates to young people. What do these forms of distrust look like, who expresses them and why, and what are the consequences? This session brings together a group of experts who have all written recent books on this urgent topic but with a focus on different institutions, ranging from education to health to families to the state to the criminal justice system. Panelists will share main research findings and, in conversation with each other, offer ideas about what a declining trust in social institutions means for young people today and the future of U.S. democracy.

Participants: (Session Organizer) Margaret A. Hagerman, Mississippi State University; (Presider) Margaret A. Hagerman, Mississippi State University

• When the Extreme goes Mainstream: Youth Exposure and Radicalization to Far Right Conspiracy Theories – Cynthia Miller-Idriss, American University
• Are ‘Parental Rights’ a Threat to School Culture and Student Growth – Laura Pappano, Journalist/Author, Wellesley College
• Vaccine Opposition, Ableist Logics, and the Politicization of Young People’s Health – Jennifer Reich, University of Colorado Denver
• Post-2020: Defund, Youth, Incarceration, and Resistance – Calvin John Smiley, CUNY-Hunter College
• How the Politics of Historical Revisionism Shapes Youth Resistance Against Social Institutions – Hajar Yazdiha, University of Southern California