Neil J. Smelser

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Neil Smelser is a University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and former director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His research has focused on what he calls the "macroscopic social structural level" of collective behavior, including economic sociology, social change, and the sociology of education.

Smelser is a former president of the American Sociological Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1958 and has authored fifteen books, including The Theory of Collective Behavior.

Recent Publications

"Problematics of Affirmative Action: A View from California." Neil J. Smelser. In Promise and Dilemma: Perspectives on Racial Diversity and Higher Education. Eugene Y. Lowe, Jr., ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 169-192. 1999.

Social Paralysis and Social Change: British Working-Class Education in the Nineteenth Century. Neil J. Smelser. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

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