About
Overview
The University of Pittsburgh Department of Sociology, established in 1926, has particular strengths in studies of social inequalities and shares with the University of Pittsburgh a strong international and comparative orientation.
Faculty conduct research and offer courses on the variety of organizing principles that structure opportunities and constraints.
We study how individuals and groups define themselves in relation to inequalities of life chances and power as they construct their personal and collective identities; and how such inequalities are perpetuated and challenged in social conflict.
Our Community
We are a community of researchers, teachers, students, and staff. We are focused on social inequalities and on the social movements and global processes that challenge, sustain, or create those inequalities... More >
Our interests range from power inequalities in personal relations to global structures of domination and other forms of structured social inequality.
Within this broad range of interests, we have some clearly identified areas that include gender, race, class, global and comparative sociology, and social movements.
We encourage the formation of links between different substantive approaches and different technical interests. We have a departmental colloquium that changes its focus over time. Currently, we have a Social Movements Forum as a series and a recent colloquium series had the theme of Gender Studies and Social Network Analysis.
We encourage graduate students to pursue multidisciplinary studies by also enrolling in one of the University's certificate programs: Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, Russian and East European Studies, West European Studies, Cultural Studies, or Women's Studies.
We offer students the opportunity to bring to bear the full range of sociological theories and methods on problems of structured inequality, its emergence, its forms and its consequences, at all levels—from global social formations to small groups.
Theoretical preparation in courses includes classical and contemporary social theory. Methodological preparation includes courses that introduce historical and comparative research methods, simulation and other quantitative and qualitative research methods employed in social science today. The focus is on the various means of generating, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting new knowledge about the social world. Much of this work is interdisciplinary with faculty and students active in the Women's Studies Program, the University Center for International Studies, the Center for Race and Social Problems, the University Center for Social and Urban Research and the Cultural Studies Program.