Welcome

Society and culture are all around us.  They are the water we swim in, the routines and expectations we take for granted.  The Department of Sociology at Boston University invites students to take a step back to view those everyday routines with a more critical eye.  Why doesn’t the U.S. have universal health care?  Why do citizens of the U.S. never think about our history as an imperial power?  How do educational institutions close doors at the same time that they open opportunity?  How does religious participation both empower and dis empower people?  Why do nonprofit organizations play such an important role around the world?  Why do crimes with similar levels of monetary harm result in very different punishments?  Why are Bostonians so attached to their neighborhoods?  How do we come to trust the person to whom we lend money?

These and dozens of other questions are at the heart of the teaching and research we do. Undergraduate students explore such questions in courses with topics ranging from health care, family and law to gender, race and developments in our globalizing world.  Our graduate students take these questions to the far corners of the globe as they pursue M.A. and Ph.D. degrees.  Our faculty members contribute a steady stream of new insight into the social world with their books, articles, and contributions to public conversation.  And visitors to the Department from throughout the world continually enrich our understanding.

BU Sociology is also home to the annual journal Political Power and Social Theory, published by Emerald Press and edited by Professor Julian Go, as well as to BU’s Social Science and Religion Network (SSRN), coordinated by Professor Nancy Ammerman.

Stay up to date with Sociology Events! Click on our Seminar Series to see when the next great lecturer will be visiting our department.  All lectures are held Fridays throughout the month at 12pm.

 

 

HELPFUL TOOLS FOR UNDERGRADUATES

Interested in contacting your advisor or have a question about transfer credit forms?  Find answers to these and many more (or even ask your own questions) by going over to our “Helpful Tools for Undergraduates” page  here designed for up-and-coming and current undergrad students.