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The Department of Sociology offers a comprehensive graduate program offering the doctorate and master’s degree in sociology:

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
• Master of Arts (MA)
  • The MA degree has an optional track in Public and Applied Sociology.

The teaching and research interests of the majority of the department's faculty fit into two broad areas:

• Urban Society and Social Policy
• Religion, Knowledge, and Culture

These are areas where the department has developed exceptional strengths and where we can offer students a program of uncommon depth. But these certainly do not delimit the range of research and teaching interests of the faculty. Our faculty and students also have interests and expertise in the sociology of gender, social movements, the sociology of science, medical sociology, public and applied sociology and the sociology of culture.

Loyola's graduate program is distinctive in two major ways:

• An extensive commitment to value-oriented research. Students in the department are exposed to faculty who are committed to making their research accessible to the wider community. This has been most fully institutionalized in the Department's leadership role in the Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) through which community organization leaders and academics collaborate as equal partners in research projects. Variously called "public sociology”, “value-oriented," "action" or "participatory," this style of research plays an important role in the Sociology program.

• A genuine commitment to methodological pluralism and classroom skills. All students receive an extensive training in qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Field studies, in-depth interviewing, participant observation, archival research, as well as surveys and sophisticated quantitative data analysis are equally stressed and represented in the department's research and teaching agenda.