About the Department
In the Sociology Department at UC Santa Cruz, we want to shake things up. We challenge the basic precepts people bring to their understanding of society and culture. We are leaders in theoretically-oriented, empirically-grounded, and methodologically diverse social science. Across a range of quantitative, qualitative, and interpretive approaches, we remain committed to interdisciplinary collaboration and critically engaged research and teaching.
Our approach reflects the vast complexities of the modern, interconnected world. In order to adequately understand large-scale social problems, we combine areas that are often viewed separately: politics and emotion, science and justice, nature and the city. We imagine social actors working together to create new and different possibilities. Our approach is both critical and interdisciplinary. We study macro-level social issues, examine social systems, and focus on how these problems are experienced and affect people’s everyday lives.
Our mission
Sociology considers how society is organized in relation to a vision of a just, liberatory, and equal society—a vision that may require fundamental social change. As such, our teaching aims to help students develop an understanding of the double aspect of society: the interrelationship between social order and social change. An equally important and necessarily implicated teaching goal is the development of an appreciation for disciplined inquiry, observation, and research.
Our department’s research offers new insights on social groups, institutional structures, and social interaction, including the contexts of human action, like social institutions, systems of beliefs and values, and the patterns to which social relations conform. We focus our efforts within five broad research areas:
- political economies and ecologies
- space, place, and mobility
- culture, knowledge, and power
- publics, policy, and law
- world building, political imaginaries, and alternative futures.
We invite you to learn more about our approach to research and how these five major research focus areas inform our academics. The Sociology Department also houses the interdisciplinary Community Studies Program, which teaches strategies for social justice movements through extensive field study.
Alumni success stories
Darrick Smith: A mission to give back
Darrick Smith (Oakes, ‘96) is an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of San Francisco where he teaches graduate students in the areas of transformational leadership and social justice.
Ada Recinos: Council crusader
Ada Recinos (College Ten, ‘15) became the city of Richmond’s youngest council member in 2017. As a first generation college graduate, her time in the Everett Program gave her the tools she needed to pursue social justice.
Axel Alonso: Diversity’s superhero
Axel Alonso (Cowell, ‘87) is the former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Now he is the Chief Creative Officer of his own entertainment company dedicated to creating original stories for comics, TV, movies, and more.
More alumni stories
More student stories
Are you one of our alumni? If so, we’d love to stay in touch. Be sure to update your contact and employment information with the campus, so that we can celebrate your successes and keep you in the loop on opportunities. You can also follow the Sociology Department on social media at the links on the bottom of this page.
Support Sociology
Our research works to change the way people commonly understand the social and physical world in ways that move toward greater social justice. Your contributions help undergraduate and graduate students become social actors working together to create different possibilities and provide new ways of teaching and learning to our campus and community. Explore our department-specific funds:
- Sociology Department Fund: Supports us in preparing students to engage in the study of social groups, institutional structures, and social interaction.
- Sociology of Race, Class, and Gender Endowment: Supports two annual awards, one to a sociology major with the best senior thesis on race, class, and gender during the academic year, and the second to a graduate student focusing on women of color or class.
- Francesca Guerra Undergraduate Student Research Fund: Supports sociology undergraduate student research in honor of Dr. Francesca Guerra.
- Jessica Roy Memorial Award: Supports an award to a graduate student(s) focusing on issues of equity and poverty in international development, especially in relation to women and the environment.
Sociology Department by the numbers
88%
of undergraduates report being fully satisfied with the quality of faculty teaching
23
research awards won in the past five years, supporting faculty and graduate student research
25%
undergraduates participate in credit-bearing internship, practicum, or field experience
3.92
years time to degree, on average for undergraduates entering as first-years
1 in 3
undergraduates participated in community service on or off campus
10
affiliated research centers and initiatives extend faculty and student research opportunities