David A. Snow

Picture of David A. Snow
Professor, Sociology
School of Social Sciences
PH.D., University of California, Los Angeles
Phone: (949) 824-9323
Fax: (949) 824-4717
Email: dsnow@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
4295 Social Sciences Plaza B
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Collective Behavior and Social Movements, Social Psychology, Urban, Social Problems, Culture and Qualitative Methods
Research Abstract
Professor David A. Snow joined the UCI Department of Sociology in 2001 after previous appointments at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona, where he was Head of the Department of Sociology for nine years. He earned an MA in Urban Studies form the University of Akron and his Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA. His teaching and research interests include collective behavior, protest and social movements, qualitative field methods, social psychology with an emphasis on self and identity from a symbolic interactionist perspective, changes in cognitive orientation and interpretive perspective, and socioeconomic inequality and marginality with an emphasis on homelessness and poverty. He is the author of over 100 articles and chapters on these various topics, as well as the author of a number of books, including Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People (with Leon Anderson, 1993), winner of numerous scholarly awards; Shakubuku: A Study of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Movement in America, 1960-1975 (1993); The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (with Sarah Soule and Hanspeter Kriesi, 2004); Together Alone: Personal Relationships in Public Places (with Calvin Morrill and Cindy H. White, 2005); Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observations and Analysis (with John Lofland, Leon Anderson, and Lyn H. Lofland, 2006); A Primer on Social Movements (with Sarah Soule, 2009); and Social Movements: Readings on Their Emergence, Mobilization, and Dynamics (with Doug McAdam, 2009). His current work includes analysis of social movement activity among the homeless across U.S. cities, research on framing processes in relation to social movements, and involvement as the Principal Investigator of an NSF-funded interdisciplinary, comparative study of homelessness in four global cities (Los Angeles, Paris, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo). He is currently co-authoring a book on the latter project, titled The Sidewalks of Globalization, and is the lead co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements. Professor Snow is past President of both the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and the Pacific Sociological Association, and Vice-President Elect of the American Sociological Association. He was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1999-2000, was the 2008 recipient of the Society for the Study of Social Problems' Lee Founders Award for career contributions to the study of social problems, and is currently a Chancellor's Professor at UCI, where he also serves as the Co-Director of the Center for Citizen's Peacebuilding and the university's Faculty Athletic Representative.
Last updated
06/23/2009