Welcome to Sociology at Nipissing

Have you ever stopped to think about the society in which you live—how it’s organized, how its institutions began, and how being part of a society affects your life? And what about all the different societies around the world?

If you choose to study Sociology—the study of human societies—you’ll be entering into a fascinatingly broad discipline. You’ll explore the sociological influences of many topics like the family, workplace, education, medicine, demographics, and the criminal justice system. For a taste of that diversity, consider this: some of our professors study areas ranging from mental health issues in older offenders in the criminal justice system, to contraception and family planning in Iran, to palliative care!?

Sociology at Nipissing University offers a range of methodological and theoretical approaches, but our areas of specialization focus on the following key areas:

• Health, Demography and Aging: fertility and family planning; social gerontology; illness & mental disorder; palliative care; social determinants of health; retirement and pensions; age discrimination; human sexuality
• Social Stratification, Work and Labour Markets: social origins and educational outcomes; hiring and retirement discrimination; gender inequality; school-to-work transitions; postsecondary access; employment outcomes; alternative forms of education
• Science, Technology and Society: knowledge exchange, mobilization and commercialization; water reuse technologies; sociology of the environment; sociology of risk; indigenous knowledges; mass media and culture
• Globalization, Development and Organizations: aboriginal communities and resource development; the global south; institutional analysis; sociology of organizations; sustainability and political processes

These substantive areas of interest are combined with expertise in contemporary and classical theories, program and policy evaluation, survey methods, quantitative research methods and statistics, and qualitative methods.