Graduate Program Overview

Programs of Study

The Sociology Program offers graduate work on the Logan campus leading to the MS and PhD degrees in Sociology. The MS program is also offered through distance learning. The Master's program in Sociology is focused on foundation courses in sociological theory, methodology, and a set of electives consistent with the student's career goals. At the PhD level, the Program offers three interdependent specialization areas: (1) Demography; (2) Environment & Community; and (3) Social Inequality. A basic underpinning of the Program's doctoral program is the integration of general sociological theory and methods into these areas of program strength.

Specialization Areas

Demography

Graduate coursework is provided in social demography, population theories and policy and demographic methods, as well as various special topic seminars. The orientation is twofold: (1) basic and policy-oriented research on sociological aspects of demographic structure and processes including migration, marriage and fertility, morbidity and mortality and technical demographic topics such as population estimates and projections; and, (2) the provision of demographic training to domestic and international students relevant to their respective settings. Research endeavors encompass a broad range of local, regional,
national, and international projects in the areas of health, migration and population redistribution, family demography, life course and aging, disability, population/environment interactions, labor force, and population estimates and projections.

Environment & Community

The faculty in this specialization maintain active research agendas in natural resource development and social change, global environmental change, coupled human and natural systems, natural resource dependency patterns, energy development, landscape and land use planning, community change and social well-being, public participation in environmental planning, social responses to hazardous technologies and other environmental risks, environmental equity and environmental justice concerns, public land management policies, linkages of environmental conditions with population change, applied community
development, and a variety of other natural resource policy and management issues. Our faculty members have extensive domestic and international experience examining rural community development, labor market restructuring, agrarian transformations, population and development, social movements, human-nature relationships, and land use changes. Faculty members are engaged in cooperative research ventures with faculty in many other disciplines, including engineering, natural resource sciences, applied economics, geography and other physical and social sciences. Graduate curriculum offerings are focused on the sociology of natural resources, environmental sociology, community sociology, public sociology, and historical sociology.

Social Inequality

The Social Inequality specialization allows graduate students to explore how states, policies, organizations and labor markets come together to create differing opportunities and outcomes for diverse groups within society, as well as across societies. Our faculty conduct research on gender, racial, ethnic, and class inequalities within the United States and other countries, as well as
comparative, cross-national research. Many important topics studied by faculty within our program – migration behavior, the effects of job quality on family stability and child well-being, health outcomes, environmental problems, labor market outcomes, the promotion of women and minorities to leadership positions, community development, etc. – are integrally linked to various forms and consequences of social inequality.