Medical Sociology
The sociological study of health, illness and medicine is a vibrant part of the graduate and undergraduate curriculum. Courses examine the production of disease and the cultural meanings of illness, the social organization of the medical care system, the impact of science and technology upon health, the social meanings of genetics, and new conceptualizations of the body and health. Related courses are offered on the sociology of aging, birth, and death. Study of medical anthropology and health policy are available in cognate departments.
Core Faculty and Research Interests
Wendy Cadge: Sociology of religion, culture, health and medicine, immigration, gender, sexuality, organizations, research methods.
Peter Conrad: Medicalization of Deviance, Experience of Illness, Social Meanings and Impacts of the New Genetics.
Sara Shostak: Science and Technology Studies; Relationships between the Body, Identity, and Social Structure; Sociology and Bioethics; Environmental Health and Justice.
Other Resources
Joint Ph.D. Program in Sociology and Social Policy with the Florence Heller School of Advanced Studies in Social Welfare.
The Schneider Institute for Health Policy at the Heller School.
Selected Ph.D. Graduates Emphasizing Medical Sociology
Phil Brown, Professor of Sociology, Brown University; author of Transfer of Care: Psychiatric Deinstitutionalization and its Aftermath; Perspectives on Medical Sociology (ed.); Catskill culture: a mountain rat's memories of the great Jewish resort area (Temple University Press, 1998); No safe place: toxic waste, leukemia, and community action (University of California Press, 1990).
Jean Elson, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of New Hampshire; author of Am I still a woman? hysterectomy and gender identity(Temple University Press, 2004).
Jeanne Guillemin, Professor of Sociology, Boston College; co-author of Mixed Blessings: Intensive Care for Newborns (Oxford University Press, 1986).
Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, Professor of Sociology, Boston College; co-author of Mixed Blessings: Intensive Care for Newborns (Oxford University Press, 1986); Rape: victims of crisis (R. J. Brady, 1974); The two-career family (Schenkman, 1972); author (with Ann Wolbert Burgess) of The victim of rape: institutional reaction (Wiley, 1978).
Janice Irvine, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; author of Disorders of desire: sex and gender in modern American sexology (Temple University Press, 1990); Sexuality Education Across Cultures; Sexual Cultures and the Construction of Adolescent Identities (ed.).
Valerie Leiter, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Director of Health and Society program, Simmons College. She received the Irving K. Zola award for Emerging Scholars in Disability Studies in 2004 for her work on "Parental Activism, Professional Dominance, and Early Childhood Disability." She is co-editor of Health and Health Care as Social Problems (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003) and author of numerous professional journal articles. Professor Leiter is a William T. Grant Foundation Scholar (2006-11), working on a five-year project examining the transition to adulthood among youth with disabilities.
Donald Light, Professor of Sociology and Health Care, New Jersey College of Medicine; author of Becoming psychiatrists: the professional transformation of self (Norton, 1980); author (with Norman Daniels) of Benchmarks of fairness for health care reform (New York, Oxford University Press, 1996); Britain's health system: from welfare state to managed markets (Faulkner & Gray's Healthcare Information Center, 1993); author (with Alexander Schuller) of Political values and health care: the German experience (MIT Press, 1986); Reviving Primary Care.
Marcia Millman, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz; author of The Unkindest Cut: Life in the Backrooms of Medicine (Morrow, 1977); Such a pretty face: being fat in America (Norton, 1980); Warm hearts and cold cash: the intimate dynamics of families and money (Free Press, 1991); editor (with Rosabeth Kanter) of Another voice: feminist perspectives on social life and social science (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1975).
Karl Pillemer, Associate Professor of Sociology and Family Studies, Cornell University; author of Elder Abuse: Conflict in the Family; and Helping elderly victims: the reality of elder abuse (Columbia University Press, 1989).
Victoria Pitts, Associate Professor of Sociology, Queens College, City University of New York; author of In the flesh: the cultural politics of body modification (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
Lynn Schlesinger, Assistant Professor of Sociology, SUNY- Plattsburgh; editor of Resource Set for Sociology of Disability.
Katarina Weger, Associate Professor of Sociology, Old Dominion University; author of Adoption, identity, and kinship: the debate over sealed birth records (Yale University Press, 1997); editor of Gender, Work and Medicine: Women and the Medical Division of Labour (Sage Publications, 1993), Adoptive Families in a Diverse Society (Rutgers University Preess, 2006)..
Karen Wolf, Associate Professor, Institute of Health Professions at Massachusetts General Hospital; editor of Joann Ashley: Selected Readings.
Michael Yedidia, Professor of Sociology, NYU School of Management; author of Delivering Primary Care: Nurse Practitioners at Work (Auburn House, 1981).
Kathy MacPherson, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern Maine.
Susan Bell, A. Myrick Freeman Professor of Sociology, Bowdoin College.
Linda Andrist, Institute of Health Professions (MGH).