2021 Conference: Call for Papers/Sessions

Submissions to present at the 2021 conference will open July 15, 2020 and close October 15, 2020, via the PSA Portal.

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

Faculty and other professional sociologists as well as graduate students will access the online system, choose a topical area, and indicate their preferred type of participation (formal research presentation, research-in-progress, or some other type of session).  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; the list of these sessions is also included below. 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 book salon (formerly called author-meets-critics session), 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. 

You may not submit the same paper to more than one place within the online submission system.  You may, however, submit  different papers to one or more topical areas or open-call committee-sponsored sessions.

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.

New(ish) topical areas include Black Sociology, Indigenous Sociology, and Rural Sociology. A few topical areas have been joined: Education is now for all levels of education; Economic Sociology has been joined to Work and Organizations; Applied Sociology explicitly includes Public Sociology and Community Research; Youth, Aging, and Lifecourse have been joined; Population and Demography is included with Migration/Immigration; the Military is included with Politics and the State; and Theory covers Classical, Marxist, and Critical strands.

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

2021 Program Committee

Program Chair:  Marcia Marx, California State University, San Bernardino    mmarx@csusb.edu

You will choose from these Topical Areas when you submit your paper.  The Organizers 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.