CRSC/ISSC History

Center for Research on Social Change

The Center for Research on Social Change (CRSC), formerly named the Institute for the Study of Social Change (ISSC), was founded in 1976. CRSC researchers use a combination of qualitative and quantitative social science research methods to undertake empirical investigations into critical social issues in the United States and abroad, with a particular focus on how immigration, globalization, economic restructuring, and development of new technologies are shaping and changing the structure and culture of various spheres within societies throughout the world. Center research seeks to illuminate the lived experiences of people whose social locations are profoundly affected by broad processes of social change. Over the years, research projects at CRSC have helped to establish new research agendas and fields of study in the social sciences, and key findings have influenced academic research, public debate and social policy.

Center for Research on Social Change continues to examine pressing social issues concerning national and global processes of social change.

Institute for the Study of Social Change

The Institute for the Study of Social Change (ISSC), was founded in 1976 as the first research institute in the University of California system with an explicit focus on race, social change, and stratification. In 2009, the university merged ISSC with the Survey Research Center to form the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. At that time, CRSC was established to carry on the specific social change focus of ISSC.

ISSC Director Emeriti

  • Troy Duster, UC Chancellor's Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley; Professor Emeritus, New York University
  • Pedro Noguera, Dean, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California
  • Michael Omi, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
  • Rachel F. Moran, Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Irvine

"UNDERSTANDING CHANGE, CHANGING OUR UNDERSTANDING:

THIRTY YEARS OF THE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL CHANGE (ISSC)"

A video oral history by Eric Pido and Oscar Medina, University of California, Berkeley

Presented at ISSC's 30th Anniversary Banquet Celebration, Thursday, October 19, 2006

Thirty Years of the Institute for the Study of Social Change