Major: Sociology

Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. Sociological inquiry shows that much of what people do, believe, and become arises from their social relationships and that social life has discernible patterns. The subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to the hostile mob; from organized crime to religious cults; from the divisions of race, gender and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture; and from the sociology of work to the sociology of sports. In fact, few fields have such broad scope and relevance for understanding and engaging with the world.

The Department of Sociology is committed to a program of research and teaching that is both firmly grounded in the classical tradition of the discipline and addressed to contemporary issues. The Department’s intellectual distinction is based on work that is macro-sociological, theoretically driven, and empirically grounded. To take some representative examples, current research includes studies of the culture of science, organizations, and the city; collective memory, and the collective identities of race, ethnicity, and nation; gender and inequality in global perspective;religion and the family; care and caregivers; class and education; economic and historical sociology.