Welcome to Sociology
At the University of Connecticut
Thank you for visiting the Department of Sociology!
Every year, our department strives to continue its legacy of excellence in the field of Sociology through outstanding scholarly research, teaching, and public engagement. Our faculty are internationally and nationally prominent; we have a history of leadership in professional organizations. Our faculty and graduate students are engaged in exciting, socially meaningful research; many of them have been featured in the media this year.
By the Numbers
225
Undergraduate Majors
100+
Minors
100+
Course options
Quick Links
Undergraduate Advising
The Sociology Department offers in-person and virtual advising for majors and minors.
Graduate Programs
Learn more about our graduate programs, graduate students, and how to apply.
Department Directory
Meet our award-winning faculty and learn more about their teaching and research.
News
- Sociology Graduate Course Schedule: Fall 2024Please see this news post for a list of all Sociology Graduate courses being offered this semester.Posted on March 8, 2024
- Mangala Subramaniam, ’01 (Ph.D.): VCU Senior Vice Provost for Faculty AffairsMangala Subramaniam, '01 (Ph.D. ), has been named Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs in the Virginia Commonwealth University Office of the Provost.Posted on February 9, 2024
- Gino Herring, ’89 (BA): Election Candidate Search EngineGino Herring (BA 1989) has launched the world's first voter education tool box and candidate search engine, Best Candidate.Posted on February 9, 2024
Upcoming Events
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Mar
20
Reproductive Justice: The Intersection of Health, Rights, and Social Justice 6:30pm
Reproductive Justice: The Intersection of Health, Rights, and Social Justice
Wednesday, March 20th, 2024
06:30 PM
Student Union
Reproductive justice is a feminist framework, developed by women of color, that center’s the needs of the most marginalized and affirms our human right to bodily autonomy and to live healthy lives with access to the necessary physical, mental, political, economic, social, and sexual resources for the well-being of all people. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments.
This discussion will examine and highlight the disparities in care, access, and how it affects Black maternal health and mortality rates. Attendees will also understand the reproductive justice framework, learn about access and advocacy in Connecticut, and the barriers students have in accessing care.
Please register using the button to the left.
Join us at the Women’s Center for a Watch Party!
This panel is sponsored by the Women’s Center and the UConn Foundation as part of the #ThisIsAmerica series.
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Mar
27
Africana Book Talk with Dr. Fumi Showers 4:00pm
Africana Book Talk with Dr. Fumi Showers
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024
04:00 PM
Homer Babbidge Library
Join the Africana Studies Institute in collaboration with the Department of Sociology as their joint faculty member Dr. Fumi Showers discusses her first book, Migrants Who Care: West Africans Working an Building Lives in U.S. Health Care.
As the U.S. population ages and as health care needs become more complex, demand for paid care workers in home and institutional settings has increased. This book draws attention to the reserve of immigrant labor that is called on to meet this need. Migrants Who Care tells the little-known story of a group of English-speaking West African immigrants who have become central to the U.S. health and long-term care systems. With high human capital and middle-class pre-migration backgrounds, these immigrants - hailing from countries as diverse as Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia - encounter blocked opportunities in the U.S. labor market. They then work in the United States, as home health aides, certified nursing assistants, qualified disability support professionals, and licensed practical and registered nurses.
This book reveals the global, political, social, and economic factors that have facilitated the entry of West African women and men into the health care labor force (home and institutional care for older adults and individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities; and skilled nursing). It highlights these immigrants’ role as labor brokers who tap into their local ethnic and immigrant communities to channel co-ethnics to meet this labor demand. It illustrates how West African care workers understand their work across various occupational settings and segments in the health care industry. This book reveals the transformative processes migrants undergo as they become produced, repackaged, and deployed as health care workers after migration.
Ultimately, this book tells the very real and human story of an immigrant group surmounting tremendous obstacles to carve out a labor market niche in health care, providing some of the most essential and intimate aspects of care labor to the most vulnerable members of society. -
Mar
28
Geography Colloquium - Dr. Caglar Koylu 3:30pm
Geography Colloquium - Dr. Caglar Koylu
Thursday, March 28th, 2024
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Austin Building
Dr. Caglar Koylu
University of Iowa
Associate Professor, Dept of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences
https://clas.uiowa.edu/geography/people/caglar-koylu
Analysis of U.S. internal migration using population-scale family tree data, 1789-1930
Analysis of long-term migration data is crucial for understanding the changing nature of the drivers of migration, regional disparities, demographic changes, and climate variability. Specifically, in the context of the U.S., the study of long-term migration is distinct because the European settlement was significantly influenced by land resources and economic prospects, highlighting the unique role of geographic and demographic expansion in shaping the nation’s complex history, mindful of the profound effects on Indigenous populations. The increasing availability of digitized historical sources on genealogy websites have enabled numerous individuals to assemble and share their family trees. Only a handful of research teams have leveraged extensive datasets of user-contributed family trees, and cleaned, connected and deduplicated them to generate population-scale family trees to investigate social processes, particularly migration. In this presentation, Dr. Koylu will shed light on his team’s efforts to construct the largest connected family tree to date, connecting 40 million relatives spanning across several centuries and continents. He will delve into the innovative techniques that harness the power of geographic information science to analyze and visualize big family tree data. These efforts enable the assessment of how representative the tree data is of the overall population in the U.S., the exploration of migration patterns and kinship networks across geographic space and time and provide valuable insights and historical context crucial for understanding the ongoing socio-economic and demographic transformations.
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Apr
12
Doctoral Dissertation Oral Defense of Zachary D. Kline 9:00am
Doctoral Dissertation Oral Defense of Zachary D. Kline
Friday, April 12th, 2024
09:00 AM
Manchester Hall
Department of Sociology: Announcement of Dissertation Defense
The Rise of “Choice” Programs: 100 Years of Social Sorting in Social Welfare Services -
Apr
12
Doctoral Dissertation Defense (Sociology) 1:00pm
Doctoral Dissertation Defense (Sociology)
Friday, April 12th, 2024
01:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Manchester Hall
Department of Sociology: Announcement of Dissertation Defense
Title: The Counter-Conduct of Labor: How Indian Tech Workers Organize in India and the US
Candidate: Rianka Roy
Chair: Manisha Desai
Committee: Andrew Deener, Bandana Purkayastha, David Embrick, Mary Bernstein
Date: April 12, 2024 (Friday); Time: 1 pm to 3 pm EST; Venue: Manchester Hall Library