IX. Graduate Programs

Sociology

PhD Program

The doctoral program comprises three fields within the discipline of Sociology that build on current faculty strengths. These fields are:

  • Global Agro-Food Systems, Communities and Rural Change

  • Work, Gender and Change in a Global Context

  • Sociological Criminology

Global Agro-Food Systems, Communities and Rural Change

This field reflects recent sociological interests in food studies and global agro-food systems, resources and the environment, community sustainability, rural-urban linkages, the transnationalization of labour regimes and social movements in the rural context. Students specializing in this field will be encouraged to take a comparative and historical approach, focusing on cross-national and inter-regional studies where possible, and to examine how class, gender, race and ethnicity play out in each particular substantive topic comprising the rural field.

Work, Gender and Change in a Global Context

This field reflects recent sociological interests in changing patterns of work and employment in comparative contexts, labour regimes, industrial and organizational change, organizations and protest, education for work and the regulation of work. These trends are located in the broader processes of globalization, economic restructuring and fundamental shifts in public policy. Students specializing in this field will be encouraged to focus on the dialectical relationship between the configurations of gender, class, race and ethnicity, and the transformation of work.

Sociological Criminology

The field reflects recent sociological interests in homelessness and marginalized peoples, violence against women, homicide, wrongful convictions, crime prevention through environmental design, policing, harm reduction and substance use/abuse, violent offending and victimization, and young offenders.

Degree Requirements

All students in the PhD program are required to successfully complete four courses during the first two semesters of study. Students must also successfully complete two qualifying examinations and a research proposal, and produce and orally defend a dissertation on a topic that has been approved by the advisory committee.

Admission Requirements

Normally, only applicants with a recognized MA degree in Sociology and with high academic standing (80% or higher) in their graduate-level studies will be admitted into the program.

Students are expected to have successfully completed Master’s-level courses in sociological theory as well as Master’s-level qualitative and quantitative methodology courses in Sociology. It is also expected that students will have taken courses across the breadth of Sociology.

Admission Procedure

Graduate students are admitted into the program in the Fall semester only. The program is offered on a full-time basis only. Program offices should be consulted for admission deadlines. The on-line application and application information can be found at http://www.uoguelph.ca/graduatestudies/apply

University of Guelph
50 Stone Road East
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1
Canada
519-824-4120