Membership Benefits

How does ASA membership benefit you? Whether you are employed in a research-oriented institution, a teaching-focused institution, or a practice setting, ASA membership benefits you in five career-enhancing ways. It helps you stay up to date on the discipline. It helps you with professional development. It helps you connect with people and opportunities. It helps you save money. And critically, it gives you the opportunity to make a difference.

ASA membership helps you stay up to date on the discipline.

  • Included in your membership is online access to the full archive of 9 ASA journals from inaugural to current issues, plus one print journal subscription of your choice. (International associate membership does not include a print journal option.)
  • As an ASA member, you also get access to TRAILS, an online database of nearly 4,000 class activities, assignments, syllabi, and other sociology-specific teaching tools.
  • A subscription to ASA’s digital magazine, Footnotes, is included in your membership. Each issue offers a fresh, sociological perspective on a focal topic. Recent issues have addressed the potential of community-engaged scholarship; the cost of higher education; sociological careers in practice settings; mental health; environmental challenges; and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
  • A subscription to ASA’s e-newsletter, Member News and Notes, is also included in your membership. The newsletter provides an easy-to-scan overview of the latest information from ASA, including funding opportunities, submission deadlines, and new featured articles and teaching resources.

ASA membership helps you with professional development.

  • As an ASA member, you are invited to be part of the live, interactive audience for all of ASA’s professional development webinars. New webinar topics are regularly announced, and participation is free for members.
  • Members also have exclusive access to the ASA videos and webinars archive, including recordings of sessions on such timely topics as “Thriving Outside Academia: Advice from Sociologists in Practice Settings,” “Teaching as Social Activism,” and “Flexible Coding: A 21st Century Approach to Coding Interview Data.” The archive also includes ASA’s 10-part video series on academic publishing, providing guidance on how to prepare your manuscript, choose a journal, deal with R&Rs and rejections, and turn your dissertation into a book, among several other topics. ASA’s five-part series on working with the media, developed specifically for sociologists and covering the basics of message, audience, and the rules of media, can also be found in the members-only ASA video and webinars archive. These are just a few examples of the broad array of useful offerings in the video and webinars archive.

ASA membership helps you connect with people and opportunities.

  • According to a recent survey of ASA members, the opportunity to join any of ASA’s 53 special interest sections is one of the most highly valued member benefits. Sections are where sociologists with similar research interests connect. Many sections offer year-round programming, and section members receive regular communication through their respective listservs. When you join an ASA Section, you are automatically added to the listserv for that Section.
  • ASA Job Bank access is free for ASA members. Each year, the ASA Job Bank provides hundreds of employment positions for sociologists at every professional stage. If you are searching for your first job or looking for a new one, the ASA Job Bank is an invaluable tool.
  • All student members are included in the Student Forum, which has its own elected leadership. Student Forum members communicate through the Student Forum listserv and organize sessions and events at the Annual Meeting. Student members can apply to the Student Forum Travel Fund to request assistance with the cost of attending the Annual Meeting.
  • All retired members, and those anticipating retirement, can participate in the ASA Retirement Network (ASARN). ASARN maintains a list of retirement resource links, produces a semi-annual electronic newsletter, and holds special sessions at the Annual Meeting, including the annual “A Life in Sociology” distinguished lecture. All ASA members who are in the Retired membership category are automatically included in the ASA Retirement Network listserv.  Participate in online discussions, access the ASARN newsletters, and make connections with others in the Group.
  • ASA’s searchable Member Directory gives you a powerful tool for identifying and connecting with members who share your interests from across your city or across the country.
  • Access to ASA’s Department Directory gives you a way to quickly identify sociology departments offering different levels of degrees in specific states. Looking for sociology departments offering PhDs in California, or Texas, or Rhode Island? The ASA Department Directory can help you find that information, as well as contact information for each listed department. Accessible by logging in to the ASA Member Portal.
  • All regular ASA members whose membership is, and will remain, active between March 1 and June 1 of a given year are eligible to run for ASA elected office in that year’s election.
  • All regular ASA members whose membership is, and will remain, active between April 1 and June 1 of a given year can vote in that year’s election.
  • As an ASA member, you are eligible to apply for an ASA editorship and to serve on an ASA journal editorial board.

ASA membership saves you money.

  • Discount on ASA Annual Meeting registration.
  • Discounts on ASA publications and merchandise in the ASA Store.
  • Discounted access to JPASS, a collection of more than 1,500 journals in JSTOR. ASA members have free access to ASA’s journals in JSTOR; JPASS provides access to all the other journals in JSTOR for $99 per year (a 50% discount off the regular $199 price). Log in to the member portal and click on the JPASS link under “Benefits.” When you get to the JPASS site, click on “Chose My Plan.” You will see that the annual rate will have been discounted to $99.
  • ASA members receive a 20% discount on SAGE books. Use promotion code S21ASA when ordering online or by phone (800) 818-7243 from SAGE.

ASA membership gives you an opportunity to make a difference.

  • With the support of members like you, ASA works to bring relevant, timely sociological research findings to policy makers. We take positions on issues related to public policy for which there is consensus in the sociological literature or related to matters concerning the well-being of the discipline and profession. Read more about our advocacy efforts here.
  • We also work to bring sociology to the general public, through the Sociological Insights video series, by helping sociologists develop their capacity for sharing scholarship with the public through traditional media and other outlets, and through ASA’s Sociology Action Network, which connects sociologists interested in volunteering with not-for-profit organizations in need of technical expertise.

ASA Membership Is Valuable for Students

I value my ASA membership for professional development, and having a sense of community and opportunities to make a difference. Through ASA Sections, I embraced a longstanding community of scholars, educators, and sociological practitioners. Many members have become my good friends and trusted mentors. And by utilizing ASA travel and research funds, I have built on projects that positively impact society. To give back to the ASA community, I became active in the Student Forum, supporting student peers as they come to embody the future of our discipline.

— Aaron Arredondo, Doctoral Candidate
Department of Sociology, University of Missouri

ASA is a Community

Something I really value about ASA is being part of a community. Although it didn’t happen right away, at this point I feel like sociologists all over the country and the world are among my closest friends and contacts, and meetings feel like reunions. It has given me lots of opportunities to get involved and to get to know new people every time I do. That’s given me a broader sense of the discipline and a feeling that I’m a part of it.

— Wendy Roth, Professor
University of Pennsylvania

ASA Has Collective and Individual Benefits

I value being part of an association that is fundamentally committed to increasing knowledge about society and that is willing to speak publicly about pressing issues.  As an individual sociologist I value the opportunities to connect to like-minded colleagues from whom I learn, by whom I am inspired, and with whom I have often collaborated.   

— Rhys Williams, Professor
Loyola University Chicago