Awards & Grants

•    Last year, MSS awarded more than $35,000 in grants and awards to MSS members.
•    A history of the professional award winners is here: past winners.

Awards & Grants from the Midwest Sociological Society

• gives awards in several categories of professional service and scholarship,
• sponsors an annual student paper competition with six cash prizes,
• offers small grants to support research by mss members,
• and provides travel grants to members who are students or adjunct/contingent faculty attending the mss annual meeting.

Competitive Awards for Professionals

Annual Jane Addams Outstanding Service Award 
Nominations due November 1
Award Application Details  

Annual MSS Distinguished Book Award
Nominations due October 31
Award Application Details

Biennial Early Career Scholarship Award**
Nominations due November 15, 2025 (awarded Spring 2026)
Award Application Details

Grants for Research
Applications accepted January 15 – February 15 only
Application Details

MSS Annual Meeting Travel Awards

Apply here

Travel Award for Contingent Faculty and Sociology Practitioners
Applications Due: February 15
Application Details

Grants for Grass-Roots Organizations in Support of Social Action

Nomination Details

PAST AWARD WINNERS

Click here for a list of professional awardees since 2008.

MSS Distinguished Book Award

2023

Normalized Financial Wrongdoing: How Re-regulation Markets Created Risks and Fostered Inequality 
Stanford University Press, 2021
Harland Prechel, Texas A&M University 

2022

Upsold: Real Estate Agents, Prices, and Neighborhood Inequality
The University of Chicago Press, 2020
Max Besbris, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2021

Legal Passing: Navigating Undocumented Life and Local Immigration Law
University of California Press, 2019
Angela S. García, University of Chicago

2020

Lesson Plans: The Institutional Demands of Becoming a Teacher 
Rutgers University Press, 2018
Judson G. Everitt, Loyola University Chicago

2019
Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought 
University of Chicago Press, 2017
Chad Goldberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison 

MSS The Sociological Quarterly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award

2021 - Mehr Latif, Kathleen Blee, Matthew DeMichele, Pete Simi & Shayna Alexander, for their article, "Why White Supremacist Women Become Disillusioned, and Why They Leave." (63:1); Honorable Mention: Gretchen Arnold, "The Case of Nuisance Laws and Intimate Partner Violence in the United States" (60:1)  
2019 - Dr. Meghan Burke, Illinois Wesleyan University, for her article, "Racing Left and Right: Color-Blind Racism’s Dominance across the U.S. Political Spectrum."
2017— No award.
2015— No award.
2013— Dr. Aaron M. McCright, Michigan State University, and Dr. Riley E. Dunlap, Oklahoma State University, for their article, “The Politicalization of Climate Change and Polarization in the American Public’s Views of Global Warming, 2001-2010,” published in Vol. 52 (Spring, 2011): 155-94
2011— Dr. Steven H. Lopez, Dr. Randy Hodson, and Dr. Vincent Roscigno, all of Ohio State University, for their article, “Power, Status, and Abuse at Work: General and Sexual Harassment Compared”
2009— Dr. Danny Kaplan, Bar Ilan University, for his article, “Folk Models of Dyadic Male Bonds in Israeli Culture”

MSS Early Career Scholarship Award

2022 - Celeste Campos-Castillo, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2018 - Andrea Nichols, Washington University in St. Louis
2016 - Meghan Burke, Illinois Wesleyan University
2014 - Dr. Mary E Campbell, Texas A & M University
2012 - Dr. ChangHwan Kim, University of Kansas & Dr. Melissa Walls, University of Minnesota Medical School-Duluth
2010 - Dr. Scott Harris, Saint Louis University
2008 - Dr. Jennifer Dunn, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale & Dr. Doug Hartmann, University of Minnesota

MSS Jane Addams Outstanding Service Award