Participation of sociologists at two-year and four-year colleges in the American sociological association

This paper assesses the effects of Council’s 1988 commitment to increasing participation in ASA of faculty at two-year and four-year colleges. An extensive check of records from 1983 to 1994 shows that sociologists in two-year and four-year colleges: (1) now occupy about the same percentage of slots in the Annual Meeting as ten years ago, though the amount of participation by four-year college sociologists has increased significantly (due to the expanded size of the program); (2) are increasingly involved in ASA governance, though a large portion of the participation is confined to a small number of committees; and (3) are now more likely to serve on ASA Journal Editorial Boards, though much of the increased participation has occurred on only a couple of journals for sociologists in four-year colleges and on only one journal for those in two-year colleges. Whether increased participation is better understood in absolute or relative terms is discussed.