Professor Steve Hitlin received NSF funding to organize a workshop entitled "A Sociological Understanding of Morality." The workshop is designed to increase our understanding of the moral dimension of social life. Debates over right and wrong, justice, values, propriety, deviance, and so on are at the core of organized social life. The scientific study of morality has recently received a number of prominent treatments within popular discourse, for example, Time (Nov. 21, 2007), the New York Times Magazine (Jan 13, 2008), and Newsweek (Sept. 13, 2008). These stories tend to focus on evolutionary and psychological aspects of moral judgment. Other influences on morality -- sociological, religious, legal, political, and economic – are left out of coverage which often focuses on neuroscience. This workshop will address a sociological understanding of morality including its structural, cultural, and interactional bases, but it will also draw from work in other disciplines so that an interdisciplinary dialogue and research agenda can be forged. Experts from across the country will participate in the workshop this summer.