79th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society
Baltimore Sheraton Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD
March 19-22, 2009

At the outset of a new century, sociology’s enduring concern with how societies and individuals change has never been more relevant. On the one hand, growing demographic and cultural diversity has expanded options to create new ways of living, working, and building families. On the other, institutional resistance to these shifting social realities has posed new dilemmas for individuals and created new conflicts and inequalities among social groups.

The 2009 ESS Meeting will highlight emerging tensions between changing lives and resistant institutions, exploring how they play out in domains ranging from the private realms of family and personal life to the public worlds of work, politics, culture, and civil society. How are institutions shaping life chances across gender, class, race, ethnic, and generational divides? How can – and do – individual and collective actions influence the course of social change? How do the clashes between personal needs and institutional forms create new insecurities, but also give rise to new options and choices? Can we expand opportunity while also bridging our social divides?

With Baltimore and nearby Washington, D.C. as our backdrop, the 2009 meeting will consider the basic forces fueling social change as well as how political shifts in the wake of the 2008 elections are likely to alter our prospects for achieving a future that is both more diverse and more equal.

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