The Department of Sociology offers a distinctive approach to the investigation of social life. This approach builds on historical connections to European social science, develops The New School’s tradition of critical inquiry, and engages with contemporary international debates and communities.
The department has defined some core areas of study: social inequalities; culture and politics; law, rights, and citizenship; historical and comparative sociology; and cities and publics. We emphasize theoretically-informed ethnographic, historical, and interpretive inquiry into the significant social issues of our times in local, national, and transnational contexts. For our students, faculty, and visitors from many countries, our department is a vibrant hub of scholarship and intellectual life.
The Master of Arts program provides a thorough grounding in the historical, theoretical and methodological development of the field of sociology and gives students the tools to make this knowledge relevant to the world around them.
At the PhD level, the program seeks to provide students with the theories and methods to develop new forms of sociological study that cross disciplinary boundaries and/or subareas of the field in innovative and imaginative ways through sustained treatment of a single topic.
At both levels, the department’s goal is to help students better understand the major transformations in modern and postmodern societies and to prepare them for the normative or analytical challenges these transformations have posed.
