2024-2025 Binghamton University Academic Guide
Department of Sociology
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 Return to: Harpur College of Arts and Sciences
The sociology curriculum seeks to broaden and deepen students’ understanding of social organization and social change in the United States and throughout the world. To do this, it provides perspectives and methods that will be useful in examining real-world social problems. By connecting immediately experienced social troubles to broader social issues, students will be encouraged not just to understand the social world but to think about how they can change it for the better.
An undergraduate degree in sociology offers an excellent foundation for a critically informed understanding of and engagement with contemporary social issues. It is excellent preparation for graduate-level work leading to careers in journalism, law, politics, healthcare, social planning, social services and other professions that must take into account social organization and social relations.
A sociology major or minor combines readily with racial, ethnic, area and women’s studies, as well as with other interdisciplinary social sciences.
Honors Program
To earn honors in sociology, a student majoring in sociology must earn a grade-point average of 3.5 or above in sociology, 3.3 or above overall and have completed four courses toward the sociology major. In the fall, the student must enroll in the senior Honors Seminar (SOC 471), and in the spring in SOC 499 (to write the honors research paper). In order for the student to receive honors, that paper must be judged to be of honors quality. SOC 499 constitutes an “11th course”; that is, a course in addition to the 10-course requirement to fulfill the sociology major.
Consult the director of undergraduate studies for more information.
Doctor of Philosophy Program
The doctoral program of the Department of Sociology is distinguished by its emphasis on world-historical social science. It offers promising scholars the opportunity to pursue the critical study of political economy, culture, power, knowledge and hierarchies of class, race and gender. Inquiry is guided by multiple theoretical approaches and research methodologies and addresses the interplay of the local and the global, as well as the past and the present. Substantive research interests include, but are not limited to, labor, work and world-scale capital accumulation; imperialism, colonialism and diasporic formations; state formation and hegemony; social movements; racial, ethnic and gendered forms of domination; processes and institutions of knowledge production and distribution; world-systems studies; historical sociology; and alternative paths of technological and economic change and their divergent social and environmental consequences.
Within this broad framework, the department stresses independent scholarly development, rather than standardized training in established specializations. Students are encouraged to develop their own intellectual pursuits and, in consultation with faculty, design their programs of study and select their own areas of scholarly competence. Individual programs of study generally include introductory and advanced seminars, colloquia and doctoral research seminars in the department. Relevant coursework in other departments, programs or schools and independent study with department faculty may be taken only with the approval of the director of graduate studies. Students may also have occasion to collaborate with faculty on research of mutual interest, including in collaborative student/faculty research groups.
Students considering the program should carefully note the department’s thematic strengths, faculty breadth and research interests, and course and program requirements.
Programs
Return to: Harpur College of Arts and Sciences
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