Annual Meeting of The American Sociological Association 8-12 Rabi' al Awwal 1415/August 5-9, 1994 Los Angeles, California

Abstract

Thi conference, which consisted of many sessions, was very well
attended. Since giving a review of each session is impractical, I will discuss
those points that relate to academic trategies and intellectual trends
and that are relevant to Muslim academia.
Organization: Social disciplines have become very diverse.
Sociology, if not at the top, is no exception. Thus it seems that organizing
a conference aroW1d a theme is rather limiting. This meeting, entitled "The
Challenge of Democratic Participation," consisted of nine categories: plenary,
thematic, regular/section session, special session, didactic seminar,
open topic refereed roundtables/informal discussion roundtables, book
panel/poster sessions, and professional and teaching workshops. Plenary
sessions discussed subjects of national or statewide policy concerns, such
as "Reconstructing the Political," or "Reflection of the 1992 Los Angeles
Rebellion: Views of Community Leaders." The thematk sessions analyzed
democratic participation on many levels: labor's role in democratization,
trade unions, religion and institutions, governance in higher
education, mass media strategies, and gender. The thirty-three special sessions
focused on timely topics: pan-ethnicity in the United States; the relevance
of the Black church; the politics of educational texts, health care,
and the family values debate; xenophobia in Europe; fundamentalism in
the Middle East; NAFTA; and federal support to social sciences ...