Our department features undergraduate and graduate programs, innovative research opportunities that cut across disciplinary boundaries, and award-winning faculty who are widely recognized for their scholarly publications.
The Department of Sociology at Notre Dame has signature strengths in cultural sociology, the sociology of education, political sociology and social movements, and the sociology of religion.
On the ground in Ghana, Notre Dame sociologist studies how developing nations build effective areas of government
Plenty of scholars study governmental problems and failures in developing nations. Erin McDonnell is interested in what’s going right. McDonnell, the Kellogg Assistant Professor of Sociology at Notre Dame, is examining certain pockets of government in Ghana and other countries to determine how they are succeeding.
Sociologist Christian Smith wins book award for research building innovative theory of religion
Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology at Notre Dame, has won the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s 2018 Distinguished Book Award. The honor, conferred upon the most outstanding book published by an SSSR member in the past two years, lauded the “impressive accomplishment” of Smith’s Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters (Princeton University Press, 2017).
Q&A with Kayla Pierce, Ph.D. student in sociology
Kayla Pierce is a Ph.D. student in sociology and a doctoral affiliate with the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. She received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Auburn University and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her areas of interest include group processes, identity, and emotions.