David A. Snow

David A. Snow is a Chancellor's Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine.^[1] His research focuses on social movements and protests.

Snow is best known for his research on homelessness and for being one of the originators of the "framing perspective on social movements". The framing perspective focuses attention on the signifying work or meaning construction engaged in by movement adherents (e.g., leaders, activists, and rank-and-file participants) and other actors (e.g., adversaries, institutional elites, media, counter movements) relevant to the interests of movements and the challenges they mount in pursuit of those interests. Snow's work problematizes the meanings associated with relevant events, activities, places, and actors, suggesting that those meanings are typically contestable and negotiable and thus open to debate and differential interpretation. From this vantage point, mobilizing grievances are seen neither as naturally occurring sentiments nor as arising automatically from specifiable material conditions, but as the result of interactively-based interpretation or signifying work.

Education, Teaching, and Service

Born in Saginaw Michigan, Snow received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1976. Snow has taught at Southern Methodist University, University of Texas, Austin, University of Arizona, and most recently at UC Irvine.

At UC Irvine, Snow has been the co-director for Center for Citizen Peace Building. Snow has served as the vice president of the American Sociological Association (2010–2011)^[2] and as the president of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and the Pacific Sociological Association.

Selected Books

• D. A. Snow and L. Anderson. 1993. Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• D. A. Snow and S. A. Soule. 2010. A Primer on Social Movements. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
• D. A. Snow, S. Soule, H. Kriesi (eds.) 2004. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
• D. A. Snow, D. della Porta, B. Klandermans. D. McAdam (eds.). Forthcoming. Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

Articles or Chapters

• Snow, D.A., L. Zurcher, and S. Ekland-Olson. (1980) "Social Networks and Social Movements: A Microstructural Approach to Differential Recruitment." American Sociological Review 45 : 787-801.
• Snow, D. A., Rochford, Jr., B., Worden, S. K. and Benford, R. D.(1986) Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation. American Sociological Review, 51, 464-481.
• Snow, D. A. and Benford, R.D. (1992) Master Frames and Cycles of Protest. In A. D. Morris and C. M. Mueller (eds.), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, pp. 133–155.
• Snow, D. A. (2004) Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields. In: Snow, D.A., Soule, S.A. & Kriesi, H. (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, pp. 380–412.

References

1. ^ http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4669
2. ^ http://asanet.org/about/Vice_Presidents.cfm

• http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4669