Our Graduate Program

Our scholarly community supports graduate students’ development of a specialized sociological research program. Our faculty hosts a concentration of leading experts in social movements, politics and culture, with additional strengths in gender and sexuality, race, embodiment, and the environment. We are a predominantly qualitative department with special methodological strengths in historical and ethnographic methods. The faculty shares a broad commitment to grassroots democracy, public sociology, and transformative liberatory social processes.

Students receive rigorous training in, and support for, research using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodologies, and gain experience in teaching sociology. We foster a culture of collaboration and mentoring. Faculty work closely with graduate students on their research. Faculty regularly co-author with graduate students, publishing research in general and specialty journals. We offer admitted students 5-year support packages for graduate training.

Joining the Sociology Department embeds graduate students in a lively campus where interdisciplinary opportunities abound. We offer synergies with the University Center for International Studies (UCIS), the university’s path-breaking multidisciplinary institute that houses centers for area studies and centers on topical specializations in international studies. Many students access research networks, support, and opportunities through the Center on Race and Social Problems, the University Center for Social and Urban Research, Political Science, History, Africana Studies, the School of Education, as well as the Digital Humanites, Cultural Studies, and Gender Sexuality and Women's Studies Programs.