Department of Sociology

Chair

Robert J. Wuthnow

Director of Graduate Studies

Paul J. DiMaggio

Professor

Miguel A. Centeno

Paul J. DiMaggio

Mitchell Duneier

Thomas J. Espenshade

Douglas S. Massey, also Woodrow Wilson School

Sara S. McLanahan, also Woodrow Wilson School

Katherine Newman, also Woodrow Wilson School

Alejandro Portes

Gilbert F. Rozman

Paul E. Starr, also Woodrow Wilson School

Howard F. Taylor

Marta Tienda, also Woodrow Wilson School

Bruce Western

Robert J. Wuthnow

Viviana A. Zelizer

Associate Professor

Joshua R. Goldstein, also Woodrow Wilson School

Martin Ruef

Mario L. Small

Assistant Professor

Elizabeth M. Armstrong, also Woodrow Wilson School

Scott M. Lynch

Devah Pager

Instructor

King-To Yeung

Senior Lecturer

Patricia Fernández-Kelly

Associated Faculty

Kim Lane Scheppele, Woodrow Wilson School, University Center for Human Values

Burton Singer, Woodrow Wilson School

 

Graduate studies in the Department of Sociology prepare a select group of students who are seeking the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). Undergraduate concentration in sociology is not a prerequisite for admission. The program is primarily designed for students interested in pursuing academic careers, but it is also oriented toward students with skills and applications that are relevant for employment in government and the private sector. Detailed information is available from the department and through the University’s listing on the Web.

Degree Requirements

Students’ programs of study are established in consultation with the director of graduate studies and vary according to individual interests, capabilities, and prior training.

The course of study is oriented toward two goals. The first is competence in the foundations of sociological analysis, including sociological theory, research methods, and social statistics. The second is demonstrated potential for making significant contributions to the sociological literature, as evidenced by the satisfactory completion of major research papers, mastery of knowledge in specialized fields, and, finally, the dissertation.

The foundations of sociological analysis include: (1) a knowledge of general sociological theory, including its basic concepts, their historical antecedents, and the logic of inquiry; (2) competence in research methodology, including computer applications, advanced statistics, theory and procedures, and qualitative methods; and (3) reading comprehension of one modern language besides English.

Students establish competency in theory by completing the work of the following seminars: SOC 501 Classical Sociological Theory, and 502 Contemporary Sociological Theory (or an approved substitute).

Students may choose to establish competence in methodology by enrolling at the appropriate level in a sequence of two or more methodology seminars: SOC 404 Social Statistics, 503 Techniques and Methods of Social Science, 504 Social Statistics, 550 Research Seminar in Empirical Investigation, and WWS 507 Quantitative Analysis; a seminar in qualitative methods; or approved substitutes.

Students may satisfy the foreign language requirement by successfully sustaining an examination administered by the department. While most graduate students satisfy the language requirement without additional course work or tutoring, they may take any of several special courses that are offered when there is sufficient demand.

Each student is expected to write two empirical papers, exemplifying distinctive modes of sociological inquiry. The papers should be written in a form suitable for submission for publication and may deal with any fruitful topic within the discipline. One of the papers must be a quantitative study, normally written in conjunction with SOC 550 Research Seminar in Empirical Investigation. The other may be quantitative or qualitative, and is ordinarily prepared in conjunction with one of seven departmental clusters (comparative regional sociology, cultural sociology, demography, economic sociology, ethnography, inequality, and migration and development).

Year-long workshops and seminars combine training with a format for writing and presenting papers. Workshops or seminars in Demography, Economic Sociology, Migration and Development, Comparative Studies, and Social Differentiation and Inequality offer corresponding opportunities for the other clusters. Students are encouraged to participate in the cluster workshops throughout their graduate studies. The research of the participants is jointly supervised by the workshop leader and other members of the faculty, with special expertise in the area of the student’s particular interests. Faculty-student collaboration in tutorials, projects, and publications may augment the workshop.

Students qualify for the award of the Master of Arts (M.A.) degree by completing all course work satisfactorily, passing the language requirement, and completing the two empirical papers at a satisfactory level.

Students normally take the general examination in the fall of their third year. The examination covers three fields identified by the student in consultation with a faculty committee and includes a written and an oral component. Preparation for the examination normally occurs through participation in seminars, workshops, reading courses, and individual study.

In their dissertation, students are expected to demonstrate command of a major theoretical issue in sociology and control of the empirical and theoretical literature relevant to their research topic. They must show high-level competence in research procedures, including design, analysis, and evaluation. Normally, a thesis proposal is submitted to the department by the middle of the third year of study. This proposal contains a statement of the problem to be studied, an explanation of its theoretical relevance to sociology, a survey of pertinent literature, and a statement about the sources of data and methodological procedures to be employed. An oral examination is the final degree requirement.

Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Study

The sociology department encourages its graduate students to engage in programs of interdisciplinary study and otherwise pursue work in any instructional units that may add to sociological analysis. Every effort is made to help students establish close working relationships with faculty members in neighboring departments whose work may enhance the student’s command of sociology. Students in the program may take seminars in the Departments of Economics, History, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, and Religion; the Program in Population Studies; and, for those with a special interest in social policy, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Finally, the University sponsors a variety of centers and programs in which department faculty and students are active participants. These include the Industrial Relations Section; the Office of Population Research; the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; the Princeton Environmental Institute; the Programs in African-American Studies, East Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, Near Eastern Studies, and Russian Studies; and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies.

In recent years, students have found additional support for summer language study, research trips, and dissertation research and writing. The Program in East Asian Studies, the Center for Human Values, the Center for the Study of Religion, and the Princeton Society of Fellows have all offered generous assistance. The Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies provides many opportunities as well.

Facilities and Centers

The sociology department has a networked computer cluster adjacent to the departmental offices in Wallace Hall. Social science research centers at the University include the Industrial Relations Section, the Office of Population Research, the Center for the Study of Religion, the Center for Child Wellbeing, the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy, and the Center for Migration and Development. These organizations provide facilities for study and research in the form of data processing and computational equipment and specialized libraries. The professional staffs are available for consultation. Students interested in these research centers or special programs should consult the director of graduate studies.

Courses

In addition to the courses listed below, a wide variety of independent reading courses and tutorials is available.

SOC 501 Classical Sociological Theory

Staff

The origins of sociology, with a particular emphasis on the major works of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

SOC 502 Contemporary Sociological Theory

Paul J. DiMaggio

Systematic treatment of the main concepts of sociology and the major tendencies of contemporary sociological theory.

SOC 503 Techniques and Methods of Social Science

Alejandro Portes

Systematic study of research methods in social science, with an emphasis on empirical procedures.

SOC 504 Social Statistics

Bruce Western

Methods for analyzing data arising from observational studies, such as social surveys. Reviews multiple regression and analysis of variance and covariance models for quantitative data. Introduces logistic regression and log-linear models for qualitative data, including contingency tables. Emphasis is on the use of statistical models to understand social processes, not the mathematical theory. The problem sets used involve the use of computer packages. Assumes a previous course in statistics, covering multiple regression.

SOC 510 Selected Topics in Social Structure (half-term courses)

Staff

Systematic orientation, review of the literature, and critical analysis of theory and research in areas such as:

SOC 520 Selected Topics in Social Institutions (half-term courses)

Systematic orientation, review of the literature, and critical analysis of theory and research in areas such as:

SOC 521 Religion and Public Life

Robert J. Wuthnow

Presentation and critical discussion of research in progress by participants. Focuses on the use of social scientific methods in the study of religion and on applications of recently published work about religion and society. Includes an emphasis on religion and public policy in the U.S. and in comparative perspective.

SOC 527 Social Network Analysis

Martin Ruef

A review of present and past developments in the analysis of social networks. Course goals are (1) to provide a historical background on theoretical approaches to network analysis; (2) to develop skills in applying network methodology to empirical data, focusing on both descriptive and inferential techniques; and (3) to provide a forum in which students can present findings from their network-relevant research and receive feedback from other seminar participants.

SOC 530 Selected Topics in Social Processes (half-term courses)

Systematic orientation, review of the literature, and critical analysis of theory and research in areas such as:

SOC 536 Immigration, Ethnicity, and Public Policy

Alejandro Portes

Examines the historical and contemporary literature on immigration and the relationship between these flows and the development of ethnic relations. The emphasis is on the U.S., although comparative material from Canada, Europe, and Latin America is discussed. Classical and recent theories of immigrant adaptation, language acculturation, ethnic entrepreneurship, and ethnic conflict are presented and discussed. The bearing of recent research findings on public policy toward immigrant groups and domestic minorities is examined.

SOC 550 Research Seminar in Empirical Investigation

Bruce Western

Preparation of research papers based on field observation, laboratory experiments, survey procedures, and secondary analysis of existing data banks.

SOC 560 Research Seminar in Comparative Studies

Gilbert F. Rozman

Preparation of papers based on existing literature or empirical investigation, which systematically distinguish the commonalities and differences in selected aspects of social behavior across two or more societies or historical periods.

SOC 570 Selected Topics in Ethnographic Methods

Systematic introduction, review of the literature, and critical analysis of theory, research and practice of ethnographic methods

SOC 570a The Ethnographic Tradition (half-term course)

Katherine Newman

This half-term course, the first in a sequence designed to train graduate students in ethnographic methods, introduces students to classical and contemporary works of ethnography that exemplify the contributions this method has made to sociological theory. Weekly readings are drawn from texts on topics such as the social ecology of the city, the study of the self, race and ethnicity, organizational ethnography, disasters, and social movements. Students who select to do original research papers over the course of the entire sequence begin their preparation in this class.

SOC 570B The Logic of Inquiry in Ethnographic Research (half-term course)

Mario Small

This half-term course covers basic techniques for collecting, interpreting, and analyzing ethnographic data. Course will address the central questions facing ethnographic research in sociology today, such as what are the roles of induction and deduction in qualitative research? Can qualitative research verify hypotheses, or only generate them? Do ethnographies have a small-n problem? Is true replicability possible in ethnographic or interview-based research? Open to graduate students or undergraduates with permission of the instructor

SOC 570C Fieldwork Methods (half-term course)

Patricia Fernandez-Kelly

Half-term course designed to deepen expertise about the logic and application of ethnographic methods by exploring the epistemological and technical issues surrounding ethnographic research, including in-depth interviewing, participant observation, community mapping, and other related strategies. The seminar will be most successful when used to advance projects in the early or midway stages of implementation. Alternatively, the course may be used to practice qualitative techniques through exercises not necessarily related to the student’s long-term research agenda.

SOC 570D Ethnographic Analysis and Writing

Mitchell Duneier

A six-week practice course. Training comes from writing exercises, which will be reviewed collectively in the seminar. Students will be directed to gather data at a location of the student’s choosing. The written field notes will be made available to classmates, and class meetings will consist of a discussion of the field notes and other writing related to assignments.

SOC 571 Survey of Population Problems (also ECO 571)

Noreen J. Goldman

A survey of past and current trends in the growth of the population of the world and selected regions. Analyzes the components of growth and their determinants as well as the social and economic consequences of population change.

SOC 572 Research Methods in Demography (also ECO 572)

Joshua Goldstein

Source materials used in the study of population; standard procedures for the measurement of fertility, mortality, natural increase, migration, and nuptiality: and uses of model life tables and stable population analysis and other techniques of estimation when faced with inaccurate or incomplete data are studied. Prerequisite: SOC 571, or the instructor’s permission.

SOC 573 Topics in Demography

Staff

Study of the family as a social institution. The emphasis is on the demographic determinants of its structure and life cycle. Special attention is given to comparative cross-cultural data concerning nuptiality, fertility, and mortality under the impact of modernization.

SOC 574 Nuptiality and Fertility

Staff

Fertility, with an emphasis on the demography of fertility, the physiological nexus, the decision context, fertility as a sociocultural phenomenon, current and prospective fertility, and predicted consequences of future fertility.

SOC 577 Theories of International Development

Alejandro Portes or Miguel A. Centeno

An introduction to sociological thinking on issues of national economic and political development. Classical theories, including those of Weber, Marx, and Durkheim are reviewed, but the emphasis is on 20th-century perspectives, such as modernization, dependency, world systems, and flexible specialization. The interplay between economic and sociological theories of development receives special attention. Specific topics include third-world urbanization, political systems and their bearing on economic growth, the social consequences of neo-liberal adjustment programs, and the effects of industrial and financial globalization.

SOC 578 Sociology of Immigration and Ethnicity

Alejandro Portes, Marta Tienda, Thomas Espenshade, Patricia Fernández-Kelly

A review of the historical and contemporary literature on immigration, and the relationship between these flows and the development of ethnic relations. Emphasis is on the United States, although comparative material from Canada, Europe, and Latin America is discussed. Classical and recent theories of immigrant adaptation, language acculturation, ethnic entrepreneurship, and ethnic conflict are presented and discussed. The bearing of sociological findings on current policy debates about immigration control and uses of immigrant labor is highlighted.

SOC 590 Seminar in Applied Sociology

Staff

The uses of sociology in government, industry, and the professions.

SOC 591 Seminar in Teaching

Staff

Instruction in teaching sociology at the graduate and the undergraduate levels.

SOC 599 Special Problems in Sociology

Staff

An advanced seminar on selected problems of current interest in sociology. The specific subject matter varies from year to year, reflecting the changing interests of both faculty and students.

Pertinent Courses in Allied Departments

Program in Population Studies

501 Statistical Demography

503 Evaluation of Demographic Research

Woodrow Wilson School

507b Quantitative Analysis

509 Generalized Linear Statistical Models