The 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) will take place in San Francisco, from August 16 to 19, 2014. The theme this year is "Hard Times: The Impact of Economic Inequality on Families and Individuals." ASA President and former RSF Visiting Scholar and grantee Annette Lareau and the 2014 Program Committee have put together an exciting program, with over 600 sessions highlighting social science research that documents the breadth and depth of economic inequality and its consequences.

Among the twenty-one books that will be discussed at the Author Meets Critics Sessions are two Russell Sage publications:

• The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood (Rose Series in Sociology, 2014), by Karl L. Alexander, Doris Entwisle, and Linda S. Olson
  Scheduled Time: Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 8:30 to 10:10am
  Combining original interviews with Baltimore families, teachers, and other community members with the empirical data gathered from the authors’ groundbreaking research, The Long Shadow unravels the complex connections between socioeconomic origins and socioeconomic destinations to reveal a startling and much-needed examination of who succeeds and why. For more information on this session, click here.

• The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools (2013), by Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann
  Scheduled Time: Mon, Aug 18, 2014, 4:30 to 6:10pm
  The Rise of Women provides a detailed and accessible account of women’s educational advantage and suggests new strategies to improve schooling outcomes for both boys and girls. DiPrete and Buchmann argue that understanding the source and extent of the gender gap in higher education is essential to improving our schools and the economy. For more information on this session, click here.

ASA will also hold a Thematic Session discussing themes from the Foundation's Legacies of the War on Poverty, with RSF president and Legacies co-author Sheldon Danziger and contributors Kathleen McGarry (UCLA) and Harry Holzer (Georgetown), in conversation with David B. Grusky (Stanford):

• Legacies of the War on Poverty (2013), edited by Martha J. Bailey and Sheldon Danziger
  Tue, August 19, 2:30 to 4:10pm
  While some accounts portray the War on Poverty as a costly experiment that failed, the contributors featured in Legacies draw from fifty years of empirical evidence to show that this view is too simplistic. They document many ways that War on Poverty programs improved the educational attainment, incomes and health of the poor and the elderly. Legacies of the War on Poverty, edited by Martha J. Bailey and Sheldon Danziger, analyzes the era’s successful human capital programs and documents the evolution of the safety net for families with children and for the elderly. At a time of high unemployment and wage stagnation, new lessons emerge on what more can be done to eliminate poverty in America. For more information on this session, click here.