Welcome to the UK Department of Sociology

The Department of Sociology faculty consists of 13 faculty with full appointments in the College of Arts and Sciences. Our graduate program faculty also includes 7 sociologists with full or partial appointments in the College of Agriculture’s Department of Community and Leadership Development.

The Department of Sociology offers an undergraduate major and minor. Through these programs, students gain sociological training and learn to apply sociological knowledge in seeking solutions to local, state, national, and international problems. The graduate program offers Master of Arts and Ph. D. degrees with training in both qualitative as well as quantitative methodologies. Faculty research and teaching interests include emphases in areas such as social inequalities, political sociology and social movements, rural sociology and community development, criminology and deviance, youth at risk, and various topics relating to work, organizations, and the economy. Our faculty have interests that span the globe with research being conducted in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Poland, Germany, Northern Ireland, Italy, India, Egypt, Japan, and China.

We are very excited to have recently hired 6 outstanding assistant professors from some of the nation’s strongest Sociology graduate programs. These scholars are already having a tremendous impact on our research and teaching programs. Most recently, we have hired two new faculty in collaboration with three new faculty in the Department of Psychology around the topic of “Children at Risk”. We look forward to realizing great potentials in this innovative cross disciplinary hiring strategy around this critical issue.

In these pages, we hope you can find the information you are looking for regarding our mission, Undergraduate or Graduate programs, research and publications, and service commitment to our profession, the university, and the public.

Patrick H. Mooney
Professor and Chair
Department of Sociology