Why Choose Michigan Sociology?

The University of Michigan’s Department of Sociology is committed to providing you with the most rigorous sociological graduate training in the country. Our Department has an outstanding reputation for its intellectual breadth, faculty expertise, research and methodology.

Consider these key aspects of the Michigan experience:

RESEARCH & TEACHING

The Department of Sociology has strong traditions of research and teaching in macrosociology and social psychology, dating back to Charles Horton Cooley and Robert Cooley Angell, and in population and human ecology since the days of Roderick D. McKenzie, a pioneer in the field of human ecology. The Department offers training in most major subfields of sociology, organized around eight broad areas of concentration—Culture and Knowledge; Economic Sociology and Organizations; Gender and Sexuality, Health, Aging and Lifecourse; Power, History and Social Change; Race and Ethnicity; Social Demography; and Social Psychology. Students may also work with faculty to develop individualized areas of specialization.

Historically, Michigan's program has been known for its pioneering research and training in survey research and quantitative methods. However, as nationally prominent scholars specializing in field research and comparative historical methods have joined the faculty over the last fifteen years, the Department now offers excellent, rigorous training in qualitative methods that complements its continued, traditional strength in quantitative research strategies. At Michigan, students who wish to learn more than one method are encouraged to do so.

INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY & INSTITUTES

In a setting that encourages collaboration across the University, our faculty and students are able to combine disciplinary excellence with exceptional international and interdisciplinary opportunities. Michigan has what is arguably the strongest collection of social science departments of any university in the world. The Institute for Social Research, the largest and most influential academic social science research institute in the world, brings together sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists, and members of other departments and schools to conduct a wide range of basic and applied research. At the Population Studies Center, faculty in sociology, economics and public health conduct research on such areas as fertility, mortality, migration, social inequality, the family, the demography of race and research methodology. The University maintains strong and vital interdisciplinary programs in Women's Studies, Latino Studies, Afro-American and African Studies, and American Culture. Many of our faculty and students actively participate in these programs.

INTERNATIONAL STUDY

The University's considerable investment in international studies extends the department's already broad global engagement. The International Institute provides a home for interdisciplinary research, programming, instruction and student support in international and area studies, with particular regional foci on Japanese, Chinese, Korean, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Russian and East European, Latin American and Caribbean, Middle Eastern and North African, European, European Union, and African Studies, and more thematic interests in world performance studies, science, technology and society, and the comparative study of social transformations.

Read what one of our newest alums had to say about sociology in his graduation reception speech.

"The traditional boundaries that separate departments and academic disciplines simply don't exist in Michigan 's sociology program. Graduate students benefit from working alongside faculty mentors who actively collaborate with departments outside of sociology. "