•    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

2025

Precarious Protections: Unaccompanied Minors Seeking Asylum in the United States 
University of California Press, 2023
Chiara Galli, University of Chicago

Honorable Mention: Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora 
University of Chicago Press, 2023
Sharon M. Quinsaat, Grinnell College 

2024

Defining Sexual Misconduct: Power, Media, and #METOO 
University of Regina Press, 2022
Stacey Hannem, Wilfred Laurier University, and Christopher J. Schneider, Brandon University

Honorable Mention: Revolution and Witchcraft: The Code of Ideology in Unsettled Times 
Palgrave McMillan, 2023
Gordon C. Chang, Western Illinois University 

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

MSS The Sociological Quarterly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award

2025 - Daniel J. Bartholomay and Meagan Pendleton for their article, ""Doing Sexuality: How Married Bisexual, Queer and Pansexual People Navigate Passing and Erasure." (64:3); 

Honorable Mention: A.P. Davis and Y. Zhang for their article, "Civil Society and Democracy under Pressure: Does Authoritarian Mobilization and Party Incapacity Diminish the Positive Effect of Civil Society?." (65:2)

2023 - Jennifer M. Whitmer for their article, ""Between a Regular Person and a Brand": Managing the Contradictions." (62:1); 

Honorable Mention: Jess Lee for their article, "Race. Same-Sex Marriage, and the Politics of Respectability among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Racial Minorities." (62:3)

2021 - Mehr Latif, Kathleen Blee, Matthew DeMichele, Pete Simi & Shayna Alexander for their article, "Why White Supremacist Women Become Disillusioned, and Why They Leave." (60:1); 

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."

MSS Early Career Scholarship Award

MSS Jane Addams Outstanding Service Award