Welcome to UIC Sociology!
The UIC sociology department is an energetic community of scholars committed to teaching, research, and using our sociological expertise to engage with the world around us for the public good. UIC Sociology’s research expertise focuses on two broad areas (which also correspond to our graduate training areas): the study of race, ethnicity and gender, and the study of work, organizations and the economy.
Dynamic and Diverse Research
Across these and other broad categories, faculty study diverse topics ranging from measures of child care center quality to neighborhood segregation, from the emerging Latino middle-class to neoliberal globalization. The research sites range from down the street, around the country, and across the globe. The Department’s active “Center on Organizational Dynamics” reflects our growing strength in the area of work, organizations and the economy, which is comprised of scholars who research, present and participate in broader conversations about spatial dynamics of networks and markets, workplace discrimination, the relationship between social movements and markets, and the historical legacies of voluntary associations in modern institutions. Our department has long been considered one of the leading places locally and nationally to study racial inequality, and faculty focus on processes across a range of institutions, from education to housing to labor markets, social movements, and politics. Finally, over the past decade, our department has become one of the top departments in the country to contribute empirical research to questions of gender and sexuality, with faculty studying topics including adolescent and young adult sexuality, uncovering how contemporary youth are punished for transgressing mainstream gender norms, and understanding gender discrimination.
A Commitment to Public Sociology
A hallmark of the faculty in UIC Sociology is that not only do we study the world, but we actively engage in it using our research-based evidence to increase the quality of life for the residents of Chicago, the state, the nation and the world. Our faculty are routinely found taking their expertise and research-based findings into non-academic settings, and their academic and broader community participation results in frequent appearances in print, radio, and television including national and international outlets as varied as WBEZ, Chicago Tribune, BBC, USA Today, the New York times, slate.com, and the like. For more media mentions, visit our news page.
Nurturing Great Educators and Citizens
Our department is committed to nurturing a sociological perspective in the next generation of scholars and citizens through our teaching mission. Our faculty’s commitment to graduate and undergraduate education is evident in the abundance of teaching and mentoring awards our faculty have received. Our graduate and undergraduate students are integrated into the life of our department, such that undergraduates have many opportunities to be involved in faculty research projects and graduate students regularly collaborate on research projects with faculty, frequently co-authoring research articles. Our department is also unique in its developmental program for training our graduate students in the art of teaching, where students begin as graders in undergraduate courses, progress to leading discussion sections, and ultimately teach their own course. Along the way, they enroll in courses that address teaching skills such as managing classroom dynamics, developing their syllabi, and giving them weekly support as they teach their own class for the first time. We pride ourselves on producing serious scholars who are fabulous teachers.