Sociology

Also see Department Website:
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Sociology/

The Ph.D. Program in Sociology is designed to develop professional sociologists of broad theoretical background and demonstrated research competence through a training program that uses macrosociological, historical, and comparative approaches. In methodology training, a balance is sought between quantitative and qualitative techniques: students receive training in multivariate analysis, as well as in ethnographic field methods and in phenomenological research.

Social and Critical Theory. Classical sociological theory, critical social theory and the Frankfurt school, and contemporary social theories.

Sociology of Gender. Studies in family interaction and the psychosocial interior of the family; macro- and microstructural, Marxist, socialist-feminist, and psychoanalytic approaches to gender study.

Race and Ethnicity. Immigration, empirical and theoretical studies of various ethnic groups, including African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans.

Sociology of the State, Social Class, Political Economy. Neo-Marxist and neo-Weberian approaches; comparative social stratification and social mobility in capitalist and socialist countries; legitimation problems of modern states; political economy of fiscal crisis and international capital, problems of development and underdevelopment.

Urban Sociology. Changing social and ecological structure of New York City; ethnicity and the urban labor markets; international and comparative urbanization.

Sociology of Arts, Culture, Mass Media. The social and cultural production of knowledge, ranging from science and technology and political ideologies to mass communications and everyday linguistically mediated practices. The social basis of aesthetic discourse (e.g., the distinction between high and low/mass culture, popular culture, subcultures, and folk cultures). Emerging discourses and cultural practices in various subcultures, with particular emphasis on marginal and marginalized groups.

Sociology of Work, Occupations, Organizations. Research ranging from ethnographic and interview-based studies to survey-based and quantitative analyses, in a variety of workplace and organizational settings. Topics include business elites, work and personality, theories of the labor process, the sociology of labor unions, workplace culture, work and technology, and studies of individual occupations and professions.

Sociology of Health and Illness. Studies in development of modern medical institutions, history of medical sociology, social construction of illness, gender and health care, political economy of health care, and the sociology of mental illness.

Other areas. Methods (survey research, ethnomethodology, urban ethnography, sociohistorical methods); deviance (social responses to crime, drug abuse).