Faculty Research Areas

Crime and Socio-Legal Studies

The department’s strengths in this area are broad. Researchers study historical and contemporary determinants of criminal and deviant behaviour in diverse national and social settings.  Recent and current work in this area also examines emergent penal strategies and why they change, as well as their relationship to risk society.  Faculty in this area also study the relationship more generally between law and society by examining the social bases and influences of the legal field.

Faculty within this area:

Gender and Family

Scholars working in this area are interested in understanding the crucial role of gender in a wide range of social phenomena. This interest extends to how gender is enacted through everyday interactions as well as through social policies and through the media; through the intersectional links between gender, status, and inequality; and through the gendered structure and functioning of family life.

Faculty within this area:

Immigration and Ethnicity
Research in this area examines the relationship between immigration and group dynamics at the individual, community, and national levels.  It also explores ethnic identities and communities, both as phenomena on their own and in their relationship to the immigration experience.  They also recognize the crucial role that race and ethnicity often play in shaping social experiences and in the organization of groups and societies.

Political Sociology

A sociological perspective on the political sphere emphasizes how political phenomena have social underpinnings. Scholars in this area draw on sociological theories and methods to explain political protest and advocacy, state formation and governance, and policy development and implementation.

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Sociology of Culture
Cultural sociology addresses questions of how ideas, meanings, values, and ideologies are implicated in fundamental social processes such as inequality, social change, and social organization.  Work by faculty in this area covers the influence of science on society, the legacies of colonialism, cultural consumption and inequality, cultural legitimation, and media studies.

Stratification, Work, and Labor Markets

The causes and consequences of class inequality have been and continue to be a long-standing central concern of sociology. Faculty in this area teach and carry out research on inequality and the occupational conditions – both the work settings and the societal-level features of the labor market – that play an integral role in shaping the patterns of inequality.

Faculty within this area: