Department of Sociology

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About Our Department

Sociology at Washington University strives to understand the origins and reproduction of social inequality and apply that knowledge to address issues of pressing public concern. As a new and growing department, we adopt an approach rooted in the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, focused on undertaking rigorous empirical research to identify and suggest solutions to social problems. Our faculty and students engage core questions through diverse cutting-edge methodological approaches, from interview-based and historical analyses to large-scale quantitative experimental designs. Our location in St. Louis provides an ideal vantage to engage the complex interplay of inequity and policy, along with the vibrant social movements that have emerged to address entrenched injustices in the city and region.

Our faculty occupy positions of leadership both in the discipline and within associations and networks at the forefront of social change efforts. We invite you to explore their research programs, the attention their work has garnered in media and policy circles, the many exciting courses that they have to offer, and the focus of our newly-inaugurated graduate program.

WUSTL Sociology

Sociology program soars five years after its revival

"While the availability of sociology as field of study at WashU might seem unremarkable, it is, in reality, the result of a rare and exciting event only five years ago: the revival of the Department of Sociology."

A Place of Belonging

In just a few years, students have come to think of the sociology department as a home, as their own special place at the university.

New Institute will eliminate ‘data science divide’ in grant-making

The Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, and Mixed Methodologies (ICQCM) has been established at Washington University in St. Louis, thanks to a $500,559 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to Odis Johnson, professor of sociology and of education, both in Arts & Sciences.

Rallying point

In 2015, Washington University re-established the Department of Sociology in Arts & Sciences. Concentrating on the origins and impacts of inequality, faculty and students are investigating some of the nation’s most critical and urgent social challenges.

WashU Creates Diverse Sociology Department from the Ground Up

This article highlights to rediscovery of Washington University's Sociology. In 2015, Sociologists Adia Wingfield, David Cunningham, and Jake Rosenfeld joined hands to create a department that encouraged diversity and focused on the demographics of the St. Louis area. Over the last 6 years the department has made an impact on WashU's campus, while paving the way for several other universities across the country.

How racial violence affects Black Americans’ mental health

Hedwig Lee, a Sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, was recently featured in The Source. In the article the study found that racial violence was not consistently associated with national distress. Lee gives insight on what must take place in order to improve the health of our population.

The one word women need to be saying more often

Caitlyn Collins, an assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis was featured in USA Today. Collins talks more about using the word "no" is a right and not a privilege, and should be used more often.

Getting Lost & Found in Peru

In this video feature, recent graduate Mariel Ehrlich, who double majored in sociology and Latin American studies, talks about her time abroad in Lima, Peru and how studying Spanish has changed her perspective on what it means to be a global citizen.

Anti-Asian racism nuanced and often intertwined in misogyny

Ariela Schachter, an assistant Sociology Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, was recently featured in The Source. In the article Schachter studies public opinion toward immigrants, race relations and inequality in the United States.

Why You're Paid What You're Paid (It's Not What You Think)

Washington University Sociology Professor Jake Rosenfeld discusses his new book, "You're Paid What You're Worth And Other Myths of the Modern Economy," and the complicated issues surrounding compensation.

What History Tells Us About The Mobilization Of Hate Groups In The U.S.

Washington University's Sociology Professor David Cunningham, was a guest on an episode of St. Louis on the Air, on our local NPR station. This encore episode gives insight on what we can learn about right-wing, white nationalist groups today and best practices for defeating them, by studying their mobilization during other moments in our nation's history.

upcoming
events

Fear and Loathing in New Spain: Antiblackness in Colonial Mexico

October 21, 20213:00 PM

Virtual - RSVP

21October

Fear and Loathing in New Spain: Antiblackness in Colonial Mexico

Miguel Valerio, assistant professor, Department of Romance Languages & Literatures, Washington University

Region and Enmity: A RaceB4Race Symposium, October 19–22, 2021

Download program

Enmity is a sustaining force for systemic racism, a fervent antipathy toward a category of people. Enmity exists at the nexus of individual and group identity and produces difference by desiring opposition and supremacy, imagining separation by force, and willing conflict. Enmity unfolds in different ways in different places, according to local logics of territory, population, language, or culture, even as these geographical divisions are subject to constant change.

This interdisciplinary symposium, hosted by Rutgers University, focuses on how premodern racial discourses are tied to cartographical markers and ambitions. The notions of enmity and region provide a dual dynamic lens for tracing the racial repertoires that developed in response to increasingly hostile contention between premodern cultural and political forces. The symposium will invite scholars to take up this intersection between region and enmity, and to examine how belief in difference, or the emergence of polarizing structures and violent practices, configured race thinking and racial practices in ways that are both unique to different territories and that transcend them.

Miguel A. Valerio is an assistant professor of Spanish at Washington University in St. Louis. His work has appeared in several journals, including Slavery and Abolition and Colonial Latin American Review. He is currently completing a book on Afro-Mexican festive practices, “Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Festive Practices, 1539–1640,” under contract with Cambridge University Press. Besides exploring black joy and communal sovereignty, the book studies how Iberian racial ideology impacted Afro-Mexicans’ daily and festive lives.

Co-sponsored by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University.

Full Event Details

Print Media, Radio

About Our Department

WUSTL Sociology

Sociology program soars five years after its revival

A Place of Belonging

New Institute will eliminate ‘data science divide’ in grant-making

Rallying point

WashU Creates Diverse Sociology Department from the Ground Up

How racial violence affects Black Americans’ mental health

The one word women need to be saying more often

Getting Lost & Found in Peru

Anti-Asian racism nuanced and often intertwined in misogyny

Why You're Paid What You're Paid (It's Not What You Think)

What History Tells Us About The Mobilization Of Hate Groups In The U.S.

Trauma, Incarceration and Ability to Learn

Trauma, Incarceration and Ability to Learn

Faculty Book Talk: Jake Rosenfeld

Faculty Book Talk: Jake Rosenfeld

Fear and Loathing in New Spain: Antiblackness in Colonial Mexico

Fear and Loathing in New Spain: Antiblackness in Colonial Mexico

Celebrating Our Alumna Alia Nahra

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