Primary Faculty: Professors BLEE (Director, Women's Studies), DOREIAN (Chair), FARARO, HOLZNER (Director, University Center for International Studies), HUMMON, MARKOFF, MARX, MORENO, ROBERTSON, SINGH (Associate Chancellor); Associate Professors HASHIMOTO, LOVELL, SCHOTT; Assistant Professors BROADED (Coordinator, Contemporary China Program), BRUSH; Lecturer ROMESBERG

Affiliated Faculty (Adjunct faculty and those with primary appointments in other areas): Professors DRESCHER (University Professor, History), GINSBURG (Education), HSU (University Professor Emeritus, History; Weilun Professor, University of Hong Kong), KARSTEN (History), LIDZ (Medicine), RICCI (Public Health), SCHULZ (Medicine), SHARMA (Public Health), WEIDMAN (Education), WOOD (Business); Associate Professors COONTZ (Public and International Affairs), KARNS (Public and International Affairs); Assistant Professor ERLEN (Adjunct, Falk Library)

Emeritus Faculty: Professors AVERY, BAUM, HENDERSON (Provost Emeritus), LIEBERMAN, MOORE, SHAPIRO, SUDA, YANG (Distinguished Service Professor); Associate Professor LAULICHT

The Department of Sociology, established in 1926, shares with the University of Pittsburgh a strong international and comparative orientation. The faculty conduct research and offer courses within three broadly defined fields: global and comparative sociology; social network processes; and gender, race, and class. Within each of these fields, graduate students are able to pursue a variety of theoretical, substantive, and methodological interests.

Global and Comparative Sociology: Faculty in global and comparative sociology are internationally recognized for their work on globalization and the analysis of the world society. Integrating global and comparative sociology, students can interpret and explain social and cultural phenomena beyond the boundaries of nation-states and national cultures, yet recognize the continuing salience of these boundaries. The department’s faculty are currently active in research on Latin America, East Asia, and Western Europe.

Social Network Processes: The social network processes field has as its central goal to understand how social processes generate, maintain and change social structures. Pittsburgh is one of the world’s leading centers of social network analysis. An active research agenda is pursued by faculty and students of the University of Pittsburgh together with those at Carnegie Mellon University.

Gender, Race, and Class: The study of the interconnections between gender, race, and class has become the basis of some of the most persuasive and intellectually exciting contemporary research as well as a topic of interest within the classical canon of sociological theory. Faculty members have teaching and research expertise in a variety of genres including feminist theory, development studies, and policy analysis.

Graduate students are encouraged to combine their work in sociology with multidisciplinary study in a particular area by enrolling in one of the following certificate programs: Asian Studies, Cultural Studies, Latin American Studies, Russian and East European Studies, West European Studies, or Women’s Studies.

Publications
Journal of Mathematical Sociology: Members of the department founded the journal in 1971. For the last fourteen years, the journal has been edited in the department.

First-year graduate students will be advised by the Director of Graduate Studies. After a student completes one term of full-time graduate work, she or he will choose an advisor who represents the field that the student plans to choose for the MA comprehensive examination.

Credit Requirement: The PhD program requires 72 credits earned from a combination of the required core course sequences, MA courses, additional graduate sociology seminars and any suitable combination from course work, independent study, research or dissertation work as detailed elsewhere in this bulletin.

Advising and Supervision: First-year graduate students will be advised by the Director of Graduate Studies. After a student completes one term of full-time graduate work, she or he will choose an advisor who represents the field that the student plans to choose for the MA comprehensive examination. In preparation for the PhD comprehensive examination, students will establish a comprehensive committee consisting of three Graduate Faculty members: two examiners from the major Area of Concentration (one of which will be designated as chair) and one examiner from the minor area. Following successful completion of the comprehensive examination, the student will form a doctoral committee, consisting of four Graduate Faculty members, including one faculty member from a department other than Sociology (see Doctoral Committee in the first section of this bulletin). All doctoral committees must be approved by the full faculty of the department.

Supervised Teaching Experience: Supervised teaching experience is an integral part of the doctoral program. Typically, teaching experience is gained by conducting recitation sections of an introductory course, by assisting a faculty member in an undergraduate course, or by teaching an undergraduate course.

Comprehensive Examination: The PhD comprehensive examination consists of two stages. The first stage is either a take-home or in-class written examination covering questions in the student’s major and minor fields. The second stage, contingent upon successful completion of the written examination, consists of an oral examination covering both fields. Two-thirds of the comprehensive examination will focus on one of the three general concentration fields of sociology offered by the department: global and comparative sociology; social network processes; or gender, race, and class. One-third of the examination will be on the student’s minor field, which may include work done in other departments. The comprehensive examination should be taken at the middle or end of the student’s third year of study.

Dissertation Overview: At this stage students will have selected, in consultation with their dissertation committee, a suitable dissertation topic. Students present a written prospectus to their committee describing the purpose, scope and method of proposed study and the sources upon which it will be based. Students are encouraged to give careful thought early on in their graduate work to possible doctoral research topics and discuss their interests with related faculty.

Final Oral Examination: The final oral examination in defense of the doctoral dissertation is conducted by the dissertation committee.