Join us for our 97th Annual Meeting:

Understanding Difference in a Divided Age

March 4-7, 2027

At its core, much of sociology is concerned with how societies perceive, construct, and react to differences within our populations. Across axes such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nativity, legal status, family status, and more, social life is organized through systems of classification that shape our lives. How people understand the nature of differences along these lines, how we imbue these differences with cultural meaning, and how we treat people who differ are central questions driving our field.

 

These questions take on heightened urgency in a period marked by profound political polarization, where lines of difference are increasingly mobilized as tools of division and control. We have seen intensified efforts to define and fix the meanings of difference – through rhetoric that advances racial essentialism, initiatives to impose binary definitions of gender, and challenges to long-standing legal and social definitions such as birthright citizenship. At the same time, initiatives aimed at fostering diversity and inclusion have come under sustained critique. Taken together, these developments underscore the broader struggle over who gets to define difference and to what ends. This conference invites participants to examine how people understand the nature of difference, how narratives of difference are produced and leveraged for political or economic purposes, and what initiatives or policy solutions can address them and foster more inclusive and equitable societies.

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We will open our submission portal in late summer. Please continue to check our website for updates. We will also send out an email when it is open.

Here are some guidelines for a very popular submission: Author Meets Critics:

Due: by October 15

Requirements for AMC submissions:

 

All AMC panel session proposals must contain the following (max 500 words). Proposals will be evaluated based on the general interest of the book to sociologists and panels should aim to reflect the diversity of the discipline.

 

1. The title, author, date, and publisher of the book to be discussed (books must be published between January 2026 and March 2027.

2. A paragraph outlining the importance/interest of the book to the ESS membership

3. Session chair (the session chair can be the author, one of the critics, or someone else)

4. A list of 3 or 4 critics who have agreed to participate before being listed. Please list all critics and the session chair as "authors" so we collect everyone's name, affiliation, and email.

​W Philadelphia and Element Philadelphia Downtown Hotels, Philadelphia, PA​​​

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UPDATES AND NEWS:​

CHECK OUT THE INAUGURAL NEWSLETTER FROM THE ESS

COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF ETHNICITY, RACE, AND RACISM