2025 PSA Conference – Call for Submissions

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CALL FOR PAPERS AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION

The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2024 (extended from October. 15, 2024) for graduate students/faculty/etc. and December 1 (extended from November 1, 2024) for undergraduate students. The conference will be held on March 27-30, 2025 at the PARC 55 in San Fransico, CA.

Please read this page before ENTERING THE SUBMISSION SYSTEM THROUGH THIS LINK. 

You will need to create an account within the submission system the first time you access it. Please know that our Call for Submissions system is separate from our Membership system with separtate login credentials. 

IMPORTANT: If someone has already put your name and email address in the system–like if they added you as an author for a paper–then you will still need to set up your submission system account, BUT you will need to start by clicking the Forgot Your Password link (see image below). You will tell the system to send a password reset link to your email address. Once you receive that (check your junk mail!), just click and follow the screens to provide a password. Once you get into the system, update any other profile information once you get into the system.

This is a picture of the submission system login page:

FAQs about the PSA conference, submissions, etc.

FAQs about Submitting and Presenting at the PSA Annual Conference.pdf

Downloadable instructions for 2025 submission system: 

PSA 2025 Submission Instructions.pdf

To organize its annual meeting, PSA primarily uses an online system of open submissions to topical areas. 

You may not submit the same paper to more than one place within the online submission system.  You may, however, submit multiple different papers.

Please submit only papers you really intend to present.  At PSA, papers are generally accepted.  Do not submit a lot of papers in hopes that a few will be accepted.   Submit only papers you firmly expect to be ready to present.

Note: General questions about the conference, submission system, or other general information should be directed to the PSA Executive Office, executivedirector@pacificsoc.org. 

Faculty and other professional sociologists as well as graduate students will access the online system, and select to either submit a paper or a complete session.

For a paper submission, indicate if your paper is (or will be at the time of presentation) research in progress or a formal (finished) paper.  Then select the best topical area; you can find the list of topical areas below, as well as the program committee members who will organize submissions into sessions for each of these areas. PSA committees also sponsor some special sessions and seek paper submissions. DO NOT submit the same paper more than once! Faculty, graduate students, and other professional sociologists need to provide an abstract of their proposal, with a maximum 200 words, to include the objective, methods, results, and findings as appropriate.

Faculty, graduate students, and applied sociologists can also submit a proposal for a complete session.  This might be a film or other creative media session, or a panel of scholars who want to present together on a particular topic.  However, submissions of sessions completely composed of presenters from one school are discouraged; these sessions are often not well attended, and space in the program is limited.  Presenters instead should submit their individual papers, where they will be placed appropriately in sessions with other presenters—and thus also have the opportunity to learn from these other presenters.  

Undergraduate students first select either the undergraduate poster or roundtable format, then choose the topical area that best fits their work. 

For a poster, students will prepare a large poster about their research, then stand next to it and explain to any interested viewers.

For a roundtable, students will send their completed paper to the faculty assigned as Discussant for their table prior to the conference. Then, at the conference, they will be seated at a large table with several other students whose research is on related topics; each student will orally present a summary of their work, and then the faculty Discussant will guide discussion.

 At the time of submission, undergraduate students are asked to provide a longer proposal that includes two pages of information on their research question, intended contribution of their research, description of theory and methods, and a third page of source references.  Undergraduates also are required to give name and contact information for a faculty mentor who is familiar with their work. Undergraduate submissions are organized into sessions by Undergraduate Coordinator Robert Kettlitz. 

TOPICAL AREAS

You will choose from these Topical Areas when you submit your paper.  There are also some committee-sponsored and other sponsored that may be added. Please be sure to check back here regularly to see new sponsored sessions. Topic Organizers will be listed on 8/15/2024. The Organizers, when listed,  will review submissions and organize them into sessions. Please do not send your paper to an Organizer unless you are asked to do so. You must submit your paper in the online submission system.

Topical Area	Organizer
Community-based & Applied Research	Janet Muñiz, CSU long Beach
Disability	Faye Wachs, Cal Poly Pomona
Body Politics	Dana Chalupa-Young, University of the Pacific
Urban Ethnography	Duke Austin, CSU East Bay
Art, Culture, & Popular Culture	Xuan Santos, CSU San Marcos
Black Sociology	Lori Walkington, CSU San Marcos
Race & Ethnicity	Heidy Sarabia, CSU Sacramento
Race & Gender	Amalia Perez Martin, CSU Sacramento
Gender & Sexualities	Miriam Abelson, Portland State University
Families	Cristina Ortiz, SJ Delta Community College
Social Inequalities	A C Campbell, Santa Ana College
Regional Studies, Transnationalism, Globalization, & Development	Kent Henderson, CSU Bakersfield
Rural Sociology	Jennifer Sherman, Washington State University
Environmental Sociology	Erik Johnson, Washington State University
Education	Celeste Atkins, University of Arizona
Teaching Sociology	Laura Earles and Leonard Henderson
Marxist/Critical Theory	Michel Estefan, UCSD
Anti-racist Pedagogy	Uriel Serrano, UC Irvine
Crime, Law, & Deviance	Annika Anderson, CSUSB
Medical Sociology, Health, & Reproductive Politics	Christopher Rogers, CSU Sacramento
Work, Labor, & Economics	Hyeyoung Woo, Portland State University
Social Psychology	Amanda Shigihara, CSU Sacramento
Immigration, Demography, & Social Change	Louis Esparza, CSU Los Angeles
Asian/Asian American Sociology	Nitika Sharma, CSU Sacramento
Indigenous Sociology	Adam Fleenor, CSU Stanislaus
Latinx Sociology	Manuel Barajas, CSU Sacramento
Digital Sociology	Leslie Kay Jones, Rutgers University & Jessie Daniels, Hunter College
Undergraduate Roundtables & Posters	Robert Kettlitz, Hastings College

Open Sponsored Sessions - As of 9/15/2025

Open Sponsored Session are sessions hosted by PSA Committees or partner organizations. These sessions are open and host are seeking submissions for these sessions as part of our Call for Submissions.

Committee	Session Topic/Title	Organizer
Committee for Community Colleges	Supporting Community College Students	Liz Bennett, Central New Mexico Community College
Committee for Community Colleges	DEI on Community College Campuses	Allison Hicks, Olympic College
Committee for Freedom of Research and Teaching	How Did We Get Here? The Attack on Sociology in an Anti-DEI Context	Matthew Grindal, Univ, of Idaho
Committee for Freedom of Research and Teaching	Unionists, Activists, and Scholars: Faculty Engaging in Activism and Labor Actions on Campus	Jennifer Strangfeld, CSU Stanislaus & Beth Wilson, Utah State Univ.
Committee on the Status of LGBTQIA+ Persons in Sociology	Gender and Sexuality in Sport	Jordan Grasso, UC Irvine
Committee on the Status of LGBTQIA+ Persons in Sociology	Medicalization and Criminalization of LGBTQ+ People	Jordan Grasso, UC Irvine
Committee on the Status of LGBTQIA+ Persons in Sociology	Queer Spaces	Jordan Grasso, UC Irvine
Committee on Practicing, Applied, and Clinical Sociology	Sociological Skills and Knowledge in Real-World Settings	Kristin Atwood, Independent Scholar
Committee on Teaching	Reacting and Adapting to AI in the Sociology Classroom.	Laura Earls, Lewis Clark St. Col. & Leonard Henderson, Utah State Univ.

About the 2025 PSA Annual Conference

Sociology in Crisis: Strategies for Teaching and Researching in a Culture of Anti DEI 

In the United States, we are confronted with the realities of race, gender, sexuality, disability, and class inequalities, which intersect to present several types of social and sociological challenges. When those in power seek to subordinate  the teaching of critical race theory, remove sociology from the general education curriculum in higher education, ban books that document the atrocities of settler colonial nation projects, and fire teachers who seek to bring a critical perspective to our understanding of history, we are left with one key weapon in our arsenal: critical sociological analysis—a weapon that has two dialectically related parts, theory, and methods.

In the struggle for equality, we as academics and researchers utilize social context and knowledge to provide perspective; we use history as hindsight to provide insight in order that we might gain foresight.  As T.S. Eliot once noted: “time present and time past are both present in time future.” For we know that history holds the key to understanding society’s structure and functioning, the key to understanding the forces that make for social order, social disorder and social change and therefore the key to fashioning a more equitable society. Thus, in shredding the myth of biological race, Stuart Hall was able to demonstrate just how the racial subordination of Black people has had to do not with what is in their genes, but what was in their histories. Their histories include: colonialism, enslavement, Jim Crow, and Christianity. To ban teachers and books that document these histories is to perpetuate the myth that America was/is the freest, fairest, and most equal democracy in the world. For these reasons I remind you of C. Wright Mills’  observation in The Sociological Imagination that all history worthy of the name is historical sociology.

This said, my choice of a conference theme, Sociology in Crisis: Strategies for Teaching and Researching in a Culture of Anti DEI, is both timely and pressing for in our divisive times.  The sharp social and political divisions in society mark a stage in which our economic and cultural pursuits clash with the fascist times we live in. To counter divisive ideologies, such as with QAnon conspiracies, replacement theory, White fragility ideologies, and a resurgence of White Supremacy, sociology and sociologists need to rely on historical truths as their main weapon.

Sociologists have understandably become targets of conservative politicians and their frightened, kneejerk, mindless followers. Using the right-wing media and their loud social media megaphones, these same conservatives have railed against voices of protest and have enlisted a cohort of scared and radicalized followers to engage in hegemonic and/or physical violence to combat opposition voices. In this stand-off that is fueled by hate and fantasies of ultimate White supremacy utopia, violence and intimidation become the weapons of choice in the hands of groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters. Thus, Charlottesville’s White Supremacists and the January 6^th insurrectionaries are the conservatives’ answer to sociological truth.

We must not forget that ours is a capitalist society and there is no such thing as “capitalism with a heart.” As a system of oppression and exploitation, capitalism is founded on the naturalization of social inequality. We cannot all be owners (or the “haves”), for non-owners (or the “have-nots”) are needed to complete the picture. But where problems arise is when the non-owners and the have-nots become sociologically informed to see through their inculcated false consciousness concerning the natural superiority of Whiteness, the normalization of race and gender inequality, the scare tactics aimed at immigrants (only those of color), who come to steal jobs, the congenital degeneracy of Mexicans and Muslims etc. The unmasking of such false consciousness, plus the ideologies of order and control, is the task of sociology and sociologists. And herein lies the source of the manufactured fear that ‘sociology is the subversive science.’

The discipline of Sociology gives those in power real cause for concern because it removes the ideological fog that casts privilege as natural, and social inequality (whether of a racial, ethnic, gendered, classed, national or economic type) as normal. The Queer community are our allies in the struggle to make this country live up to the image of a pluralistic and peoples’ democracy. The same goes for our Muslim, Jewish, Atheist and Agnostic co-nationals. Teaching through the lens of sociology theory and sociological research methodology are thus activist undertakings. 

These political and cultural issues spilled into the battle over curriculum content in primary and secondary schools where progressive frontline teachers are denounced as biased for teaching so-called “sensitive” topics and for advancing a so-called “woke” agenda. Similarly, in higher education, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion  programs are also under attack (in Florida, Texas and Utah and spreading like a contagion). In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, conservatives see these programs as inciting “wokeism” (aka critical awareness) and limiting free speech, as well as teaching discrimination, hate, and divisiveness.  On January 11, 2024, the New York Times documented an anti-DEI agenda which would reverse the social and cultural progress made in American universities toward addressing fundamental issues of transphobia, racism, sexism, homophobia, class discrimination, and the intersectionality of these factors. DEI programs address not only the obvious forms of discrimination but also the subtle and structural problems that perpetuate exclusion and mistreatment.  DEI programs continue because universities have not traditionally been places where various minority groups have felt welcomed or supported.  As most such institutions are founded on the assumptions of Anglo-conservative, White, male, heterosexual, Christian ideologies, the exclusion of “the other” is deeply embedded in their DNA.

Not surprisingly, in this growing culture of backlash and revisionism by conservatives, the discipline of sociology has come under concerted attack precisely because of its subversive mandate. Further, sociology is seen as a repository of non-scientific, disaffected, left-wing radicals whose causes are anti-American. And this is where my vision for the 2025 PSA conference theme is born. The main question is, as sociology faculty, researchers, and students, how do we use the tools of theory, and methods at our disposal to rescue, not just sociology, but all critical thinking from the anti-intellectual conservative forces that threaten us? How do we demonstrate that sociological theory and research methods are essential to the general core of higher education curriculum and that all students should have the option of taking these courses? Finally, how do we lead the charge against anti-intellectualism? I invite your input and discussion into these key themes and topics that we will focus on for the 2025 conference in San Francisco.

 

Dwaine Plaza Ph.D.

PSA President 2024-2025