Deepening Our Commitment, Hitting the Streets: A Call to Action

Abstract

The Ž ftieth anniversary of the Society for the Study of Social Problems provides us with an opportunity to reect upon, celebrate, and deepen our commitment to the ideals of the organization. For Ž fty years, the SSSP has brought together academics, practitioners, and activists committed to humanistic ideals in order to encourage both scholarship and action in pursuit of a just society. Our mission is to encourage the critical examination of social problems, their causes, and their solutions and to help solve those problems. Our membership brochure invites people to “get active in the pursuit of social justice,” while our description of the organization claims that the “SSSP works to solve [social] problems and to develop informed social policy” (SSSP 2000). The point of this organization is not simply to understand our social world, but to improve it. Many of us as scholars have taken the Žrst task to heart, but not the second. The Ž ftieth anniversary of the SSSP provides us with an occasion to reect upon our own individual and collective practices and to further strengthen our commitment to social change. This is no easy task. As Alvin Gouldner suggests,