The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fifty people, the first president of the association would be Lester Frank Ward. Today, most of its members work in academia, while around 20 percent of them work in government, business, or non-profit organizations. ASA publishes ten academic journals and magazines, along with four section journals, including the American Sociological Review and Contexts. The ASA is currently the largest professional association of sociologists in the world, even larger than the International Sociological Association. The ASA consists of over 13,000 members—composed of researchers, students, college/university faculty, high school faculty, and various practitioners—while its 52 special-interest sections contain more than 21,000 members. The "American Sociological Association Annual Meeting" is an annual academic conference held by the association consisting of over 6,000 participants. Source: Wikipedia (en)