Rita J. Simon

Rita J. Simon

Fellow: Awarded 1966
Field of Study: Sociology

Competition: US & Canada

University of Illinois, Urbana

 Rita J. Simon is a Sociologist who earned her doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1957.  Before coming to American University in 1983 to serve as Dean of the School of Justice, she was a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the University of Chicago.  She is currently a University Professor in the School of Public Affairs and the Washington College of Law at American University.

Professor Simon has authored forty-five books and edited nineteen, including: Immigration the World Over, with James P. Lynch (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); In Their Own Voices, with Rhonda Roorda (Columbia UP, 2000); Adoption Across Borders, with Howard Altstein (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000); In the Golden LandA Century of Russian and Soviet Jewish Immigration (Praeger, 1997); The Ambivalent Welcome: Media Coverage of American Immigration, with Susan Alexander (Praeger, 1993); New Lives: the Adjustment of Soviet Jewish Immigrant in the United States and Israel (Lexington Books, 1985); Women’s Movements in America; Their Achievements, Disappointments, and Aspirations, with Gloria Danzinger (Rowman and Allanheld, 1986); Rabbis, Lawyers, Immigrants, Thieves; Women’s Roles in America (Praeger, 1993);  Continuity and Change; A Study of Two Ethnic Communities in Israel, (Cambridge UP, 1978); The Crimes Women Commit, The Punishments They Receive, with Jean Landis (Lexington, 1991); Adoption, Race and Identity, with Howard Altstein (Praeger, 1992); The Case for Transracial Adoption, with Howard Altstein and Marygold Melli (American UP, 1994).

She is currently editor of Gender Issues.  From 1978 to 1981 she served as editor of The American Sociological Review and from 1983 to 1986 as editor of Justice Quarterly.  

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