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Sociology

Sociology Department Chair: Sheila Nelson

Sociology Faculty: Richard Albares, Janet Hope, Jeffrey Kamakahi, James Makepeace, Sheila Nelson, Cynthia Rudolph, Dennis Waskul

Sociology studies groups, the ways people behave in groups and how an individual's attitudes and actions are influenced by them. These include families, schools, religious associations, peer groups, political and work organizations. Thus, sociologists are called on to interpret group conflicts, the assimilation (or non-assimilation) of new persons into a social system and the patterned behavior of people in organizations, to give just a few examples.

The discipline of sociology encompasses many of the particular interests and methods of the other social sciences and of some humanistic fields as well. In doing this, sociology does not replace those disciplines; rather it complements them. The sociological goal is to chart the interconnections between the various realms of thought and conduct, to find the balance between social and individual components in personal identity and to locate the social origins of harmony and strife in every area of experience.

Sociologists work professionally as researchers, policy consultants, professors, technicians in private and governmental agencies and in personnel or industrial counseling. Individual courses in sociology help prepare students to become social workers, lawyers, teachers, nurses and doctors.