Graduate

Harvard is one of the world’s leading centers for training and mentoring the next generation of sociologists. The Department of Sociology offers several programs of graduate study leading to the Ph.D. in Sociology, the Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy, and the Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior.

The aim of the Graduate Program in Sociology is to prepare students for scholarly and applied research and for teaching in sociology. The program combines an emphasis on competence in social theory and research methods with opportunities for the development of each student's own interest.

Doctoral candidates are expected to achieve a solid proficiency in fundamentals that will enable them to teach basic and advanced sociology courses and engage in both quantitative and qualitative research. Students are trained in several sub fields of sociology in which the faculty has concentrations of expertise. Among these are social stratification and inequality (including race and ethnic relations), the study of complex organizations, economic sociology, political sociology, comparative/historical sociology, health and social policy, cultural analysis, urban sociology, criminology, and life course. The program includes a sequence of required courses on theory and theory construction, designed to acquaint every student with skills necessary for developing social explanations, and required courses in both qualitative methods and advanced statistics to familiarize students with techniques for collecting and analyzing data.

Sociology Faculty and Student Involvement in University Initiatives

For further information on the research topics that Harvard students have explored and the careers of some recent graduates, see Graduate Degrees Awarded.