This British Sociological Association Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.
The British Sociological Association (BSA) is the national learned society for sociology. It was founded in 1951, when sociology was starting to develop in British universities, and expanded rapidly as sociology expanded. It now has a wide range of functions (not, as in some associations, including the certification of sociologists qualifications). It both organizes activities for sociologists, and represents them in the wider society.
Membership is open to all sociologists, and to other interested individuals; most members are university staff and students or researchers outside universities. Subscription rates are related to income, reflecting egalitarian principles also shown in its broader concern for gender equality. Funding also comes from the profits from publications and conferences.
There is an annual BSA conference, with distinguished plenary speakers and other papers in many parallel sessions, attended by several hundred participants. The association also runs over 40 study groups on specialist fields, such as sociology of education; the Medical Sociology group is particularly strong. The first BSA journal, Sociology, started in 1967; this was followed by Work, Employment, and Society in 1987, the electronic journal Sociological Research OnLine in 1996, and Cultural Sociology in 2007. A members newsletter appears three times a year. Summer schools for graduate students, and other training activities, are regularly organized. Codes of practice, on subjects such as the ethics of research practice, guidelines on non-sexist language, and postgraduate research supervision, have also been promulgated. Other activities have arisen from the felt need to respond to external situations, often in cooperation with other learned societies on national issues of policy for social science.
For fuller details, see the BSA website, https://www.britsoc.co.uk/.
Bibliography:
- Platt, J. (2000) The British Sociological Association: A Sociological History. Taylor and Francis, London.