Community Sociology

COMMUNITY SOCIOLOGY

The sociology of community has been an intellectual area of teaching and research in Sociology since the department's founding. This area of study emphasizes understanding community as place, people, and social networks that are not place dependent. It also encourages the examination of community as a social context that influences behaviors central to other departmental areas of study such as family, the environment and deviance. Graduate study is supported by the participation of faculty from the Department of Community and Rural Sociology who in addition to formal instruction provide research and applied learning opportunities in association with their research projects and extension activities. In recent years sociological study in the area of community has emphasized joint instruction of courses, urban as well as rural issues, and broad coverage of theoretical as well as applied research. The faculty who support teaching and research in this area of study have a wide array of specific research interests that brings diversity and strength to the study of communities. These interests include demographic and population studies, community effects of technology and globalization, community development, social network analysis, power structure analysis and the study of community as space.