Department Areas of Concentration
The Sociology Department at Texas A&M University provides graduate coursework
covering a wide range of subjects. Doctoral students may declare a major in several
specific areas. These are:
Culture
Crime, Law, and Deviance
Demography
Political and Economic Sociology
Race, Class, and Gender
Social Psychology
Doctoral students also declare minors. These may be taken from any of the areas named here provided the minor does not duplicate the major area of concentration. In addition, students may work with their committees to formulate other minors not listed here. Please note, this option is not available for the major.
Culture 1
Please note that the materials for this portion of the page are presently in preparation.
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Crime, Law, and Deviance 1
Faculty in the area of Crime, Law, and Deviance investigate: how sociocultural systems and change influences institutions of social control and social definitions of crime and deviance, and how patterns of crime and deviance affect the structure and functioning of sociocultural systems; how social positions or identities (including those related to changes over the life course) and related social-psychological processes affect individual motivation to engage in deviant behavior, the adoption of deviant/criminal patterns, (dis)continuity of such patterns, and the consequences of crime and deviance for the relationships, groups, communities, and the wider society in which the criminal/deviant participates.
Crime, Law, and Deviance graduate seminars:
• Crime and the Life Course
• Minorities and Drugs
• Violence
• Deviant Behavior
The Faculty:
Jeff Ackerman: Crime and Deviance; Quantitative Methods; Social Psychology
Holly Foster: Crime and Deviance; Life Course; Social Inequality; Quantitative Methods
Howard Kaplan: Social Psychology; Deviant Behavior/Social Disorganization; Mental Health
Wendy Moore [Psychology Department]: Economics; Social Psychology; Social Sciences
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Demography
Demography is the study of the basic demographic processes of fertility, mortality, and migration and their consequences for population distributions of various kinds including age and sex composition and the spatial distribution of population. The subfield of social demography examines the intersection of demography with social distributions and dynamics, particularly population composition and differences in demographic distributions by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Demographic analysis draws on a specialized set of methods and models including life table analysis; survival analysis; measurement of demographic rates, ratios, and population composition; stable population theory; decomposition analysis; mathematical and simulation models; and a wide range of related methods and techniques of analysis. Examples of topics studied include trends in population growth and how it is shaped by the components of fertility, mortality, and migration; spatial distribution of population; immigration; age and sex composition of the population; residential segregation of social groups including racial and ethnic groups and socioeconomic groups; socioeconomic distributions, poverty, and inequality; and how social outcomes of different kinds are impacted by demographic distributions and processes. The Department has strengths in both quantitative and qualitative analysis of demographic outcomes and processes. Regarding areas of substantive focus, the Department has particular strengths in the demography of China and East Asia; the demography of racial and ethnic groups broadly and the Latino/a population in particular; international migration; residential segregation and spatial assimilation; and poverty and socioeconomic inequality.
Demography graduate seminars: Seminar in Social Demography (Survey seminar), Fertility and Mortality; Migration; International Migration; Demographic Techniques; Demographic Techniques II; Demography of Minorities; Demography of Inequality; Urban Sociology; Demography of China; Demography of Latino/as.
The Faculty:
Nadia Flores studies international migration and the demography of the Latino/a population. She teaches the seminar in International Migration. Her current research is focused in two areas. One set of investigations draws on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to study the factors -- especially immigrant solidarity and mutual support and how they are embedded in social networks and vary across different immigrant populations – involved in shaping the settlement patterns and immigrant outcomes of Mexican and Central American families and individuals who immigrate to the United States. Another set of investigations focuses on variation in socioeconomic characteristics such as education and occupational background across different Latin American immigrant populations.
Mark Fossett studies topics relating to the intersection of demography and social inequality including racial and ethnic differences in socioeconomic outcomes, residential segregation dynamics, and the measurement of inequality and segregation. He teaches seminars in Urban Sociology and the Demography of Social Inequality. His current research program has two primary areas of focus. One is refined measurement of residential segregation and the integration of micro- and macro-level analyses of residential segregation. The other is the use of computer simulation models to explore the implications of different theories of residential segregation.
Dudley Poston studies a wide range of topics in demography including most especially the demography of China and East Asia, the demography of racial and ethnic minority populations in China, Chinese immigration to the United States, and the causes and consequences of poverty in rural areas of the South and Southwestern United States. He teaches seminars in Quantitative Research Methods, Demographic Techniques (I & II), Fertility and Mortality, Social Demography, and the Demography of China. His recent research includes a focus on the causes and consequences of variation in sex ratios in countries of East Asia. It also includes investigation of the commonalities and differences of poverty for rural minority populations in the Mississippi Delta region and the Texas Rio Grande Valley region.
Rogelio Saenz studies immigration, the demography of racial and ethnic groups, especially the demography of the Latino/a population, ethnic intermarriage, and poverty and inequality among minority populations. He teaches seminars in Social Demography, Immigration and Migration, and the Demography of Racial and Ethnic Groups. His research covers many different areas. Three areas of recent focus include patterns of new settlement for the Latino population in the United States, the comparison of poverty among minority populations in the Mississippi Delta Region and the Texas Rio Grande Valley, and aging and health patterns among Mexican immigrants living in the United States and Mexico.
Kazuko Suzuki studies international migration, ethnic assimilation, gender, and intersection of demography, gender, and racial and ethnic relations. Currently she is focusing on two areas of study. The first, drawing on a variety of sources of data, examines the commonalities and differences in experiences and outcomes of Korean immigrants to Japan and to the United States. The second, involving field work and in-depth interviews, focuses on gender and sexuality as they come together in human trafficking and forced migration in East Asia, the United States, and other countries.
Zulema Valdez studies international migration, Mexican Americans and Latinos, dynamics of ethnic stratification and assimilation, and demography of the labor force and labor force outcomes. She teaches the seminar in International Migration. Currently she is focusing on two areas of study. The first, utilizing a national sample of immigrant, examines the commonalities and differences in immigrant experiences and socioeconomic assimilation experiences of different groups. The second, involving in-depth interviews with small business owners and entrepreneurs from three different ethnic groups (African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans, examines commonalities and differences in entry into and success in entrepreneurship.
Wenchuan Zhang studies the spatial distribution of population with particular emphasis on the spatial assimilation and residential segregation of racial and ethnic groups, international migration and spatial distribution of immigrant settlement, and quantitative and GIS techniques of spatial analysis of population patterns. He teaches the seminar in Demographic Methods. His current research is focused in two primary areas. One involves examination of cross-sectional and longitudinal patterns of spatial assimilation and residential segregation of racial and ethnic groups. The other involves examination of census and survey data to assess factors shaping the settlement patterns of immigrant populations, particularly Asian immigrant populations.
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Political and Economic Sociology
The Political and Economic Sociology section of the graduate program at Texas A&M University studies the fundamental determinants of social change at the organizational, societal, and global levels. A third of the faculty in the Department are actively involved in research and teach courses that focus on political and economic sociology. The program emphasizes theoretically driven empirical research that contributes to the understanding of continuity and change in social structures. Explicit attention is given to economic systems, the state, class, power and inequality, the corporation and other formal organizations, social movements, and the conflicts that occur among these units of analysis. The faculty and graduate students use diverse methods to analyze large quantitative data sets, surveys, interviews, and historical documents. Opportunities exist for graduate students to work with faculty as research assistants on funded research projects.
Political and Economic Sociology Graduate Seminars: Comparative & Historical Methods, Complex Organizations, Economic Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Political Sociology, Professions, Social Change, Social Movements, Social Organization, Sociology of Work, War and Democracy, Work and Gender.
The Faculty:
James Burk studies political sociology. His current research asks how chronic war affects liberal democratic societies. He teaches graduate courses on War and Democracy, Classical Theory, and Contemporary Theory.
Samuel Cohn does research on economic sociology, economic development, social conflict, discrimination, and stratification. His current research involves innovative strategies for increasing employment and income in Brazil. He teaches the graduate course in Economic Sociology.
Ashley Currier does research on social movements, gender, sexuality, and race in southern Africa. Her current research is on the ways that sexual minority social movement organizations in Namibia and South Africa use public visibility as a strategy.
Joseph O. Jewell does research in historical sociology, social inequality, and sociology of education. His current research examines the salience of intersections between race, ethnicity, and gender for middle class identity and mobility in late nineteenth and early twentieth century cities. He teaches graduate courses in Comparative & Historical Methods, Sociology of Education, and Sociology of Race/Ethnicity.
Dongxiao Liu does research on state-society relations in developing countries. Her current research includes historical comparisons of social movements, gender, and social policy in China and India.
Rob Mackin does research on religion and politics in Latin America. His current research is on the origins of liberation theology, a radical religious movement that emerged in the Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. He teaches graduate courses in Social Organization and Comparative & Historical Methods.
Hiroshi Ono does research in economic sociology, stratification and inequality, and work and labor markets. His current research focuses on how worker behavior is conditioned by institutions and by the organizational environment with particular focus on Japan, U.S., and Sweden. He teaches graduate courses in Economic Sociology and Sociology of Work.
Nancy Plankey Videla does research on globalization, work, and gender. Her current research examines how changes in the global economy have forced manufacturing firms to adopt new production practices and how these practices impact social relations on the shop floor. She teaches a graduate course on Work and Gender.
Harland Prechel does research on the corporation, class, globalization, and political, economic, and comparative and historical sociology. His current research is on the relationships among changes in corporations’ political-legal environment, the emergence of the multilayer-subsidiary form, and financial malfeasance in corporate America. He teaches graduate courses in Political Sociology, Complex Organizations, Social Theory.
Lu Zheng does research on corporations and institutions in China. His current research is on organizational behaviors of firms listed in China’s stock market and corporate restructuring of state-owned enterprises. He teaches a graduate course in Complex Organizations.
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Race, Class, and Gender 2
Faculty in the area of race, class and gender are generally concerned with understanding social inequality as experienced by members of multiple social groups, and/or their intersection, at the individual, group and structural level. The faculty associated with this concentration investigate a wide variety of social phenomena associated with social group relations in the United States and internationally from different theoretical and methodological perspectives including ethnography, demography and mixed (quantitative and qualitative) methods. Individual faculty specialize in such broad topics as African and African American studies, Asian American studies, critical race theory, gender and sexuality, health disparities, international migration, intersectionality, Latino/a sociology, race and culture, and individual and systemic racism and anti-racism. Additionally, many of our members share common interests in the reproduction of racism in society, the racialization of Latinos, racial, ethnic and gender discrimination and stratification, racial and ethnic residential and occupational segregation, segmented assimilation, and immigrant incorporation. The department’s strength in race, class and gender is further enhanced by institutional and personal connections with the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute, the Mexican American and Latino Research Center, and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
Race, Class and Gender Seminars: Racial and Ethnic Relations; Comparative Ethnic Relations; Theories of Race and Ethnic Group Relations; Sociology of Gender; International Migration; Black and Latino Americans; Racism and Anti-Racism; Mexican Americans and Latinos; Minorities and Drugs
The Faculty
Ashley Currier conducts research on social movements, gender, sexuality, and race in southern Africa. She has a joint appointment with Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies. Her past research considered how, when, and why multiracial lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement organizations in Namibia and South Africa used public visibility as a strategy. Her current research investigates gender, sexuality, and decolonization in Africa; these new projects examine racial, gender, and sexual ideologies in the Namibian national liberation movement and political homophobia in postcolonial Africa. She has offered a graduate seminar in queer theory (Spring 2009). Her work has appeared and is forthcoming in Qualitative Sociology, Gender & Society (February 2010) and Mobilization (February 2010).
Joe R. Feagin focuses his current research efforts on U.S. racial and ethnic issues. His recent books--The Many Costs of Racism (2003); Black in Blue: African-American Police Officers and Racism (2004); Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Frontstage and the Backstage (2007); Systemic Racism (2006); The White Racial Frame (2010), and How the United States Racializes Latinos (2009)--illustrate his range of current research interests. He teaches the Comparative Ethnic Relations and Theories of Race and Ethnic Group Relations seminars, as well as specialized seminars on topics suggested by these book titles. He has served as the Scholar-in-Residence at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Nadia Flores studies international migration and the demography of the Latino/a population. She teaches the seminar in International Migration. Her current research is focused in two areas. One set of investigations draws on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to study the factors -- especially immigrant solidarity and mutual support and how they are embedded in social networks and vary across different immigrant populations – involved in shaping the settlement patterns and immigrant outcomes of Mexican and Central American families and individuals who immigrate to the United States. Another set of investigations focuses on variation in socioeconomic characteristics such as education and occupational background across different Latin American immigrant populations.
Mark Fosset studies topics relating to the intersection of demography and social inequality including racial and ethnic differences in socioeconomic outcomes, residential segregation dynamics, and the measurement of inequality and segregation. He teaches seminars in Urban Sociology and the Demography of Social Inequality. His current research program has two primary areas of focus. One is refined measurement of residential segregation and the integration of micro- and macro-level analyses of residential segregation. The other is the use of computer simulation models to explore the implications of different theories of residential segregation.
Sarah Gatson studies the parallel development of race, community, and citizenship, and how these concepts intersect with gender, class, and the law, using comparative historical methods, specializing in the American Midwest, as well as women’s labor policy/legislation, and how this has intersected with cultural concepts and practices of parenting. She also studies multiracial identity, using comparative historical methods, autoethnography, and discourse/text analysis. Additionally, she researches community and identity development in online/offline environments as they intersect with mass media products (such as television series and blogs), using ethnographic methods. She teaches seminars in Culture, Popular Culture, Qualitative Methods, The Contemporary Family, Sociology of Law, and Racial and Ethnic Relations. In each, attention to race, gender, and class, and often their intersectionality, is emphasized. She is a past Dissertation Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, and is a participant in collaborative grants from the NIDA, NSF, and NIH. She is an affiliated faculty member of the Africana Studies program, the Women’s and Gender Studies program, the American Studies program, and an advisory board member and past Interim Director of the Race & Ethnic Studies Institute.
Verna Keith is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute (RESI). Dr. Keith returns to TAMU, having most recently been professor at Florida State University. Her research focuses on health disparities with emphasis on inequality in mental and physical health along race, gender, and class lines. She is currently investigating the effects of colorism (i.e., the valuing of light over dark skin complexion) and discriminatory experiences on depressive symptoms, substance use, and hypertension. She is also consulting on an NIH funded project that will take a comprehensive look at race and class differences in stressors, mental health outcomes, and physical health outcomes, including cell aging and allostatic load. Her most recent publications appear in Sex Roles and, with colleagues, Sociological Quarterly.
Reuben A. Buford May studies aspects of race, class, and culture within the context of everyday interaction. He is currently working on an ethnographic study of the ways in which individuals negotiate public and semi-public urban space. He uses the case of the downtown party scene in Athens, Georgia to examine how race, class, and culture influence interactional dynamics across categories of space users. This project will articulate the taken-for-granted rules that individuals follow in sharing the integrated, yet segregated urban space. By understanding these dynamics we might better understand the influence that policies of integration have on interpersonal interaction.
Wendy Leo Moore holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School. Her work focuses on the intersections of race, racism, and U.S. law. She is the author of Reproducing Racism in Elite Law Schools: White Institutional Space and Social and Political Inequality (2008, Rowman & Littlefield).
Edward Murguia studies the Mexican American/Latino experience and currently is focusing on two areas of study. The first, utilizing a national sample of Mexican Americans, is a study of variables related to happiness among this ethnic group. A key variable of interest here is locus of control. The second, also using a national sample, is a study of variables related as to how Mexican Americans view themselves politically, as conservative, middle-of-the-road, or liberal. Of particular interest here is the religiosity of respondents.
Rogelio Saenz studies immigration, the demography of racial and ethnic groups, especially the demography of the Latino/a population, ethnic intermarriage, and poverty and inequality among minority populations. He teaches seminars in Social Demography, Immigration and Migration, and the Demography of Racial and Ethnic Groups. His research covers many different areas. Three areas of recent focus include patterns of new settlement for the Latino population in the United States, the comparison of poverty among minority populations in the Mississippi Delta Region and the Texas Rio Grande Valley, and aging and health patterns among Mexican immigrants living in the United States and Mexico.
Kazuko Suzuki studies international migration, ethnic assimilation, gender, and intersection of demography, gender, and racial and ethnic relations. Currently she is focusing on two areas of study. The first, drawing on a variety of sources of data, examines the commonalities and differences in experiences and outcomes of Korean immigrants to Japan and to the United States. The second, involving field work and in-depth interviews, focuses on gender and sexuality as they come together in human trafficking and forced migration in East Asia, the United States, and other countries.
Zulema Valdez is a recent Ford postdoctoral fellow (2008-2009). She has been the recipient of grants from the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation, U.C. Mexus, and the Ford Foundation. Her work has been published in The Sociological Quarterly, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Race, Gender & Class: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Dr. Valdez studies international migration, Mexican Americans and Latinos, dynamics of ethnic stratification and assimilation, and demography of the labor force and labor force outcomes. She teaches the seminar in International Migration. She is currently working on a book-length manuscript that investigates how race, ethnicity, class and gender intersect to help or hinder Latino enterprise. In a second area of research she is developing an intersectionality approach to assimilation that challenges classic and contemporary theories, including segmented assimilation.
Charles (Wenchuan) Zhang studies the spatial distribution of population with particular emphasis on the spatial assimilation and residential segregation of racial and ethnic groups, international migration and spatial distribution of immigrant settlement, and quantitative and GIS techniques of spatial analysis of population patterns. He teaches the seminar in Demographic Methods. His current research is focused in two primary areas. One involves examination of cross-sectional and longitudinal patterns of spatial assimilation and residential segregation of racial and ethnic groups. The other involves examination of census and survey data to assess factors shaping the settlement patterns of immigrant populations, particularly Asian immigrant populations.
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Social Psychology 1
Social psychology is an interdisciplinary field of research that emphasizes the interplay among the individual, interactions and macrostructures. Examples of the kinds of issues studied include how individuals' associations and context create the impetus for certain life events; how individuals negotiate their everyday world; how violence might arise; how important characteristics of individuals and groups like gender, age, ethnicity and class structure interactions; how group interactions can increase or challenge inequality; and how social inequality influences mental health, crime, and deviance. The Department offers many different perspectives within the field and differing methodologies as well. There are two laboratories associated with social psychological area: The Laboratory for the Study of Social Deviance and the Social Psychology Experimental Laboratory.
Social psychology graduate seminars: Seminar in Social Psychology (Survey seminar), Social Psychology of the Self, Crime and the Life Course, Minorities and Drugs, Seminar in Violent Behavior, and Deviant Behavior.
The Faculty
Jeff Ackerman studies issues surrounding crime and deviant behavior including intimate partner violence, female offending, peer influences on juvenile delinquency, and innovation among substance abuse treatment and prevention organizations.
Holly Foster studies the influences of parental incarceration on children, the causes and consequences of children's exposure to violence, and the association between delinquency and depression. Her work attends to social inequality as a cause and consequence of crime and deviance. She predominantly uses national and local data sets to conduct statistical analyses of survey data to investigate these subjects.
Stuart Hysom studies small group processes. He focuses on how
status, reward allocation and legitimacy affect interaction, and on
how larger social structures influence these processes. His research
on reward allocation investigates how students in the United States
and Turkey allocate salary to status heterogeneous teams working in
organizational settings. Ongoing experimental studies in the Social
Psychology Lab are devoted to understanding how the unequal
distribution of symbolic, status valued resources among members of a
small groups affects members' levels of influence on group decisions.
Howard B. Kaplan studies large multigenerational in-community samples to test his integrative general theory of deviant/conventional behavior using prospective survey methodology and structural modeling with latent variables analytic techniques.
Edward Murguia studies the Mexican American/Latino experience and currently is focusing on two areas of study. The first, utilizing a national sample of Mexican Americans, is a study of variables related to happiness among this ethnic group. A key variable of interest here is locus of control. The second, also using a national sample, is a study of variables related as to how Mexican Americans view themselves politically, as conservative, middle-of-the-road, or liberal. Of particular interest here is the religiosity of respondents.
Jane Sell studies group interaction and her current research is focused on two different areas. One area concerns different aspects of the status generalization and the other focuses on how groups solve or do not solve social dilemmas, settings in which individual incentives and group incentives conflict. She teaches graduate courses in Social Psychology and Theory Construction.
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Notes
1.The guidelines for the doctoral program permit students who wish to do so to count seminars in the areas of (a) Culture, (b) Crime, Law, and Deviance, and (c)
Social Psychology toward a major entitled "Individuals and Society".
2.The subarea of "Racial and Ethnic Relations" can also be used as a major.
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