The department’s mission is to help students acquire the necessary competencies for a critical analysis of human society and social life. Consistent with the University’s liberal educational philosophy, students will also develop valuable conceptual and analytic skills that they can use in many different settings upon graduation.

The goal of the program is to provide a solid foundation in the substantive scope, key concepts, theoretical perspectives, and research methods used in Sociology. The core training is complemented by elective courses that take advantage of specific areas of faculty expertise, including globalization, population dynamics, the political economy of media and communication, educational sociology, cultural sociology, race/ethnicity, urban poverty and social exclusion, disabilities studies, the sociology of development, social movements and the sociology of migration and refugees.