The C. Wright Mills Award is a distinction awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Social Problems to the author of the book that "best exemplifies outstanding social science research and a great understanding the individual and society in the tradition of the distinguished sociologist, C. Wright Mills."[1]
| Year | Name | Book Title | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | David Matza | Delinquency and Drift | |
| 1965 | Robert Boguslaw | The New Utopians | |
| 1966 | Justice Without Trial | ||
| 1967 | Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro Street Corner Men | ||
| 1967 | Co-Winner, Travis Hirschi and Hanan C. Selvin | Delinquency Research: An Appraisal of Analytical Methods | |
| 1968 | The Social Order of the Slum: Ethnicity and Territory in the Inner City | ||
| 1969 | Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places | ||
| 1970 | Jacqueline P. Wiseman | Stations of the Lost: The Treatment of Skid Row Alcoholics | |
| 1971 | Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare | ||
| 1972 | Theories of Poverty and Underemployment: Orthodox, Radical, and Dual Labor Market Perspectives | ||
| 1973 | Co-Winner, James B. Rule | Private Lives and Public Surveillance: Social Control in the Computer Age | |
| 1973 | Co-Winner, Isaac D. Balbus | The Dialectics of Legal Repression: Black Rebels before the American Courts | |
| 1974 | |||
| 1975 | Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Science | ||
| 1976 | Janice E. Perlman | The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro | |
| 1977 | Men and Women of the Corporation | ||
| 1978 | The Working Class in Welfare Capitalism: Work, Unions and Politics in Sweden | ||
| 1979 | States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China | ||
| 1980 | Street Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services | ||
| 1981 | Father-Daughter Incest | ||
| 1982 | The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry | ||
| 1983 | The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements | ||
| 1984 | The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K. | ||
| 1984 | Morality and Power in a Chinese Village | ||
| 1985 | Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children | ||
| 1986 | The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women | ||
| 1986 | The Contentious French: Four Centuries of Popular Struggle | ||
| 1986 | Co-Winner, Joyce Rothschild and J. Allen Whitt | The Cooperative Workplace: Potentials and Dilemmas of Organizational Democracy and Participation | |
| 1987 | The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy | ||
| 1988 | Socialist Entrepreneurs: Embourgeoisement in Rural Hungary | ||
| 1988 | Stubborn Children: Controlling Delinquency in the United States, 1640-1981 | ||
| 1989 | Freedom Summer | ||
| 1989 | Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation | ||
| 1990 | Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment | ||
| 1991 | Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World | ||
| 1992 | Life is Hard: Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua | ||
| 1993 | David Wagner | Checkerboard Square: Culture and Resistance in a Homeless Community | |
| 1994 | Robert Thomas | What Machines Can’t Do: Politics and Technology in the Industrial Enterprise | |
| 1995 | In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio | ||
| 1995 | Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality | ||
| 1996 | Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge | ||
| 1997 | John L. Hagan and Bill McCarthy | Mean Streets: Youth Crime and Homelessness | |
| 1998 | Monica J. Casper | The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery | |
| 1999 | Sidewalk | ||
| 2000 | The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration | ||
| 2001 | Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence | ||
| 2002 | The Job Training Charade | ||
| 2002 | Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago | ||
| 2003 | Sharon Hays | Flat Broke With Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform | |
| 2004 | Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio | ||
| 2005 | Pun Ngai | Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace | |
| 2006 | Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor | ||
| 2007 | Daniel Jaffee | Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival | |
| 2008 | Martín Sánchez-Jankowski | Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods | |
| 2009 | Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life | ||
| 2010 | Mark Hunter | Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender, and Rights in South Africa | |
| 2011 | Shamus Khan[2] | Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School | |
| 2012 | Cybelle Fox[3] | Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal | |
| 2013 | Nancy DiTomaso[4] | The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism | |
| 2014 | Laurence Ralph[5] | Renegade Dreams: Living Through Injury in Gangland Chicago | |
| 2015 | Carla Shedd[6] | Unequal City: Race, Schools, and Perceptions of Injustice | |
| 2016 | Roberto G. Gonzales[7] | Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America | |
| 2017 | Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon[8] | Juárez Girls Rising: Transformative Education in Times of Dystopia | |
| 2018 | Ranita Ray[9] | The Making of a Teenage Service Class: Poverty and Mobility in an American City | |
| 2019 | Adia Harvey Wingfield[10] | Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy | |
| 2020 | Danielle T. Raudenbush | Health Care Off the Books: Poverty, Illness, and Strategies for Survival in Urban America | |
| 2021 | Joseph C. Ewoodzie Jr. | Getting Something to Eat in Jackson: Race, Class, and Food in the American South | |
| 2022 | Michael L. Walker | Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail |