Steven Barkan (born 1951), an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

sociologist, is

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

and

chairperson The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of the

Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

department at the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a public land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System. It is classifie ...

. Barkan is a

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

graduate of

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, in

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

where he studied sociology and later received his Ph.D. from the

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...

in the same field of study. Upon receiving his doctorate in 1980, he joined the faculty of the University of Maine. Barkan served as president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)from 2008 to 2009, a position that has been held previously by such notables as Gary Alan Fine and

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. Barkan has chaired the SSSP's Law and Society Division and served as an editor of ''Social Problems'', the Society's journal. Barkan has also edited the newsletter of the

American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...

's Collective Behavior and Social Movements section. Barkan's work focuses on

criminology Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and s ...

and the collective behavior of

social movements A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and ma ...

, especially commitment and participation in social movement organizations. His other areas of interest include the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

feminist activism The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such iss ...

, public opinion about crime and punishment, and racial attitudes, and household crowding and child well-being. He has published in many different journals, including the American Sociological Review, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Social Forces, Social Problems, ''

Sociological Inquiry ''Sociological Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of Alpha Kappa Delta. The journal explores the human condition through a sociological lens. It was established in 1928 as ''The Quarterly ...

'', and Race and Society. Barkan is noted for incorporating advanced

statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers propertie ...

to test hypotheses; one of his most popular teaching techniques is to incorporates ExplorIT software with large demographic data sets to provide students an interactive means of applying statistics tol sociology. Barkan's Ph.D. dissertation, ''Protesters on Trial: Criminal Justice in the Southern Civil Rights and Vietnam Antiwar Movements'', explored the dynamics between a

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

and those who protest its policies, both by traditional means and

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...

. Using the title movements as case studies, Barkan concluded that the government publicizes trials to exert social control on

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...

in general. Barkan uses criminology as a means to understand deviant behavior on an individual and social level rather than as a tool for law enforcement. In addition to numerous journal articles and essays on the subject, Barkan has written two popular and widely adopted introductory textbooks. ''Essentials of Criminal Justice'' (with George Bryjak) and ''Criminology: A Sociological Understanding'', currently in its fifth edition.

Publications

Books

* ''Essentials of Criminal Justice''. Allyn & Bacon, 2004 (with George Bryjak) * ''Criminology: A Sociological Understanding''. Prentice Hall, 2nd ed., 2001 * ''Collective Violence''. Allyn & Bacon, 2001 (with Lynne Snowden) * ''Discovering Sociology: Using Microcase Explorit.'' MicroCase Corporation, 2nd ed., 2003 * ''Protestors on Trial: Criminal Justice in the Southern Civil Rights and Vietnam Anti-War Movements.'' Rutgers University Press, 1985.

Journal articles

* ''Household Crowding and Aggregate Crime Rates.'' Journal of Crime and Justice, 23(2000):47-64 * ''Racial Prejudice and Support by Whites for Police Use of Force.'' Justice Quarterly 15 (December 1998):743-753 (with Steven F. Cohn) * ''Race, Issue Engagement, and Political Participation: Evidence from the 1987 General Social Survey.'' Race & Society 1 (Spring 1998):63-76 * ''Beyond Recruitment: Predictors of Differential Participation in a National Anti-Hunger Organization.'' Sociological Forum 10 (March 1995):113-134 (with Steven F. Cohn and William H. Whitaker) * ''Racial Prejudice and Support for the Death Penalty by Whites.'' Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 31 (May 1994):202-209 (with Steven F. Cohn) * ''Commitment Across the Miles: Ideological and Microstructural Sources of Support in a National Anti-Hunger Organization.'' Social Problems 40 (November 1993):362-373 (with Steven F. Cohn and William H. Whitaker) * ''Activists Against Hunger: Membership Characteristics of a National Social Movement Organization.'' Sociological Forum 8 (March 1993):113-131 (with Steven F. Cohn and William H. Whitaker) * ''Predictors of Rank-and-File Feminist Activism: Evidence from the 1983 General Social Survey.'' Social Problems 39 (November 1992):332-344 (with Pat D. Dauphinais) * ''Punitive Attitudes Toward Criminals: Racial Consensus or Racial Conflict?'' Social Problems 38 (May 1991):287-296 (with Steven F. Cohn and William A. Halteman) * ''Law, Power, and Political Trials.'' Sociologie et Societes 18 (April 1986):153-161. * ''Interorganizational Conflict in the Southern Civil Rights Movement.: Sociological Inquiry 56 (Spring 1986):190-209 * ''Legal Control of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.'' American Sociological Review 49 (August 1984):552-565 * ''Jury Nullification in Political Trials.'' Social Problems 31(October 1983):28-45. * ''Political Trials and Resource Mobilization: Towards an Understanding of Social Movement Litigation.'' Social Forces 58 (March 1980):944-961. * ''Strategic, Tactical and Organizational Dilemmas of the Protest Movement Against Nuclear Power.'' Social Problems 27 (October 1979):19-37. * ''Political Trials and the Pro Se Defendant in the Adversary System.'' Social Problems 24 (February 1977):324-336

Book chapters

* ''Racial Prejudice and Support by Whites for Punitive Sanctions Against Criminals.'' In Sandra Browning et al. (eds.), For the Common Good, forthcoming (with Steven F. Cohn) * ''The Social Science Significance of the O.J. Simpson Case.'' In Greg Barak (ed.), Representing OJ: Murder, Criminal Justice and Mass Culture. Harrow and Heston, 1996. * ''Criminal Prosecutions in the Southern Civil Rights and Vietnam Anit-War Movements: Repression and Dissent in Political Trials.'' In Steven Spitzer (ed.), Research in Law and Sociology, vol. 3. JA1 Press, 1980.

Encyclopedia articles

* ''The Drug Legalization Debate.'' In Clifton D. Bryant (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis, 2000. * ''Clamshell Alliance.'' In Christopher Kruegler et al.(eds.), An Encyclopedia of Non-Violent Action. Garland Publishing Company, 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barkan, Steven Living people 1951 births American sociologists University of Maine faculty