The Department of Sociology has always been a distinctive place to study the social world. Continuing a long-standing commitment to social justice and critical scholarship, our faculty conduct innovative research on a variety of topics that are of interest to sociologists, practitioners, and students alike. While we are broadly interested in inequality, our clusters of faculty expertise are:

• Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Sexuality

  • Informed by feminist, indigenous, antiracist, and postcolonial lenses, this cluster focuses on how gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality are co-constituted within a capitalist system and shape social life.

• Biomedicine, Health/Illness, Science, and Technology 

  • This cluster bridges medical sociology and science and technology studies, integrating work on the body, health, and illness with biomedical and global/public health perspectives.

• Climate, Environment, and Food

  • This cluster focuses on the relationship between humans and the environment, with particular attention to climate, reproductive, and food justice.

• Development, Migration, and Globalization

  • This cluster centers global and transnational perspectives to understand development, (im)migration, and globalization.

• Culture, Institutions, and Political Change

  • This cluster considers the ways that systems of power and meaning shape, and are shaped by, markets, organizations, states, and social movements.

• Communities and Kinship

  • This cluster focuses on the social and political dynamics of communities, particularly those in urban spaces, as well as within family units.

While these six clusters identify our core areas of expertise, our department and faculty are inherently collaborative and cross-cutting in their interests. What ties us together are critical approaches to understanding our world and its social, political, and economic systems, particularly capitalism. We train students in research methods, data analysis, and diverse theoretical perspectives. Through active and collaborative learning, our students also gain skills to engage in the community and the world as active, self-reflective change agents.

"Examining racial inequality in public schools during a pandemic"

Sociologist Derron Wallace saw an opportunity to use his expertise to make a difference.

Read in BrandeisNOW

"How diversity can blind us to society's underlying racism" 

Sociologist Sarah Mayorga argues that even though well-intentioned, the pursuit of diversity can blind us to the underlying racism in society.

Read in BrandeisNOW