Sociology

Welcome to the Department of Sociology

The Department of Sociology has a long track-record of training undergraduate students for post-college opportunities and graduate students for academic and research careers. Our faculty have national reputations and records of award-winning publications, research grants, and leadership of national and regional sociological associations. The department is a vibrant intellectual space, centered in the multiple research projects of our faculty members and students.

We specialize in the study of social inequality. More specifically, our faculty focus on community and urban sociology, health and medicine, race and ethnicity, and gender and sexuality. We encourage prospective graduate students interested in these issues to join us! Our urban location and proximity to six major hospitals make UC an ideal place to study urban and health issues, and Sociologists for Women in Society have consistently awarded us their seal of approval for gender scholarship.

The intellectual hub of the department is the Kunz Center for Social Research, an endowed center located within and designated to support the research mission of the department. It provides research funding for faculty and graduate students and provides an intellectual commons for faculty and students across the university with research interests in urban and race, family and gender, and health issues.

The department offers the following degree programs:

Bachelor's (BA)
Master's (MA)
4+1 Master's (BA/MA)
Doctorate (PhD)
Dual MA/PhD in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies (MA) and Sociology (PhD) *Coming Soon*

News and Announcements

New Research Grants

Jeffrey Timberlake (with Matthew Hall, Cornell University, and John Iceland, Pennsylvania State University), received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the relationship between housing discrimination and residential segregation at the metropolitan area level.

David Maume has an NSF grant to study how sleep problems affects rates of depression, substance use, and obesity among teenagers.

Dissertation Fellowships

Three of our PhD students won Dissertation Fellowships for 2012-13 from the Taft Research Center: Jennifer Carter for her study, How do Women who Play Tackle Football "Do Gender" on the Football Field?; Mark Killian for his study, Everything in Common: The Strength and Vitality of Christian Intentional Communities; Amanda Staight for her study, Growth and Change in Cincinnati's Westwood Neighborhood.

Recent Professional Honors

Steve Carlton-Ford: President, North Central Sociological Association

David Maume: President-elect, Southern Sociological Society

David Maume: recipient of the 2013-2014 Katherine Jocher-Belle Boone Beard Award from the Southern Sociological Society

Jennifer Malat will be on the Scientific Leadership Council of the newly-established March of Dimes Prematurity Research Collaborative of Ohio. In the Collaborative, she is also an investigator on a project to examine social factors involved in familial aggregation of preterm birth. In addition, she is co-leader on an effort to begin a project in the Collaborative to advance understanding of the sociobiology of racial disparities in preterm birth.

Recent Books by Faculty

Carlton-Ford, Steve and Morten Ender (eds.). 2010. Routledge Handbook of War and Society: Iraq Afghanistan. London: Routledge. Winner of the 2011 Outstanding Book Award from the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association.

Casanova, Erynn. 2011. Making Up the Difference: Women, Beauty, and Direct Selling in Ecuador.  Austin: University of Texas Press. Winner of the 2010 National Women's Studies Association Sara A. Whaley Book Prize.

Adrian Parr. 2012. The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.