VOLUME 28 NUMBER 1

Spring 2001

As I write this, I'm looking out the window at the snow surrounding my house in Winona, MN thinking about the wonderful, warm, time I had with my family in Thailand just three weeks ago. When I boarded my return flight to the United States, it was 95 F in Bangkok and when I deplaned in Minneapolis, it was - 10 F!

For this (and other reasons) I'm looking forward to our 30^th annual meeting in San Diego, February 21-25, 2001. I hope to see many of you there. Last year's meeting in New Orleans was well-attended and I was pleased to see a wide diversity in papers and presenters (in terms of cultural backgrounds and disciplinary membership). I believe we had more students at this meeting than we have ever had. This is a good sign. I hope we are on our way to broadening our membership and attracting new young scholars to our society. I encourage each of you to recruit one new member to the society during the coming year in preparation for the 2002 meeting in Santa Fe.

We were saddened by the passing of one of our most dedicated and long-term members in the crash of EgyptAir flight 990 - Leigh Minturn. However, Leigh's devotion to the society continues with a bequest that has allowed us to provide ten travel grants of $100 each to graduate or undergraduate students who apply to attend and register for this, and future, meetings. In addition, in her honor, we have established two prizes of $200 each to be given to the authors of the best Graduate Student Paper and the best Undergraduate Student Paper presented at annual meetings. Winning papers will also be considered for publication in the SCCR journal, Cross-Cultural Research or in the journal World Cultures. More information about these grants and prizes can be found on the SCCR web page.

This year, as in the past, the SCCR will be holding its meeting simultaneously with the Society for the Study of Play. I hope to see and talk with many of you in San Diego.

Message from the Program Chair

30th Annual Meeting of SCCR San Diego, CA February 21-25, 2001

SCCR & TASP Meetings

Feb 21-25, 2001

Play) group. We will have 4 concurrent sessions on Thursday, and 5 concurrent sessions on Friday and Saturday. About 45 people have signed up for the banquet so far, and we have about 80 registrants with a similar number forTASP. On Thursday afternoon, TASP will have a keynote speaker, and Harry Gardiner will give the SCCR Presidential Address after the banquet on Friday night.

Session topics are as follows:

 New Research on Female Status and Sex

 Mental Health

 Play and its meanings

 Cross-Cultural Studies of Socialization

 The "Self" and Ethnicity

 Cross-Cultural Studies of Health Risk Behavior

 Cross-Cultural Studies of Illness and Healing

 Parenting Cross-Culturally

 War and Conflict

 Morals and Values

 Sociological and Anthropological Cross-Cultural Studies

 Cross-Cultural Studies of Refugees

 Culture and Cognition

 Seminar Workshop: Culture Matters: Communities that Care

It will also be a truly international and cross-cultural meeting; we have people coming from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

The sight-seeing in San Diego should be very good as well. We are 25 miles from Mexico, and San Diego's Old Town and Sea World are within walking distance.

You can get information on the Hotel, Program and Abstracts at the meeting web site:

Bill Divale