Social Inequality
Addressing social inequality is at the heart of our research and teaching
Addressing social inequality is at the heart of our research and teaching.
As a UIC sociology graduate student
In our research and teaching, we analyze how social inequalities are structured and legislated, how they are supported by cultural representations and hegemonic ideologies, and how people navigate and push back against them in their everyday lives. As a UIC Sociology graduate student, you can focus on any of these six areas of specialization:
Gender & Sexuality
Sociology of Gender/Sexuality focuses broadly on social, cultural and historical processes relevant to gender and sexuality, such practices, the body, health; feminist and queer perspectives on gender and sexuality; gender and sexuality at the level of institutions, interactions, and identities; and how gender and sexuality articulate with other social categories and locations, such as race, ethnicity, class, and age.
Race & Ethnicity
Sociology of Race/Ethnicity examines the shifting dynamics of racial formation and racial inequality, including immigration and deportation, policing and incarceration, segregation, education, and identity formation within the United States and from a comparative and global perspective.
Organizations & the Economy
Sociology of Organizations & the Economy focuses on the historical and contemporary study of how groups of people come together to accomplish collective goals, the institutionalization of social forms, and how labor is organized and enacted as well as the individual and structural consequences of these processes.
Politics, Globalization, & Social Change
Politics, Globalization, & Social Change focuses broadly on global socioeconomic and political processes, the history of the modern world-system, shifts in global capitalism and interstate relations, the cultural dynamics of globalization, and patterns of global migration.
Urban & Spatial Inequality
Urban & Spatial Inequality focuses on the unequal distribution of resources and services across different areas or locations, such as healthcare, welfare, public services, household income and infrastructures.
Research Practicum
UIC Sociology’s Research Practicum is an important way we address social inequality through research. The practicum provides graduate students with hands-on research experience in a variety of methodologies.