Graduate Sociology at SUNY Albany

Area of Specialization: Qualitative Sociologies

Critical. Historical. Interpretive. Structural. Qualitative sociology covers a broad range of approaches. However, they all involve a view that it is important to discover what the individuals we are studying think and feel about their own actions. To uncover individuals' understandings and behavior, qualitative sociologists examine historical documents, do interviews, analyze popular culture, and do ethnographies.

The graduate program is fortunate to have many faculty who teach or do research in some area of qualitative sociology. Our great strength as a department is the diversity of topics studied and perspectives used by the faculty. Among the topics studied are organizations, the origins of capitalism, states and imperialism, popular culture, social movements, sexuality, gender, science, and work. These topics are approached from perspectives that range from neomarxian to postmodern.

Faculty and graduate students have created a "Qualitative Studies Forum" that meets regularly to discuss work-in-progress and professional and social concerns. Presently, there are many graduate students pursuing work in some area of qualitative sociology--including studies of working class culture, gay youth, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and alternative families.

The strengths of the faculty in the Sociology Department are reinforced by affiliated faculty in other departments.

For graduate students wishing to pursue research in qualitative sociology, the department offers many possibilities and resources.

Relevant Courses in Sociology

• Soc 510 Sociological Theory I
• Soc 511 Sociological Theory II
• Soc 535 Qualitative Research Techniques
• Soc 554 Sociology of Knowledge
• Soc 560 Families
• Soc 575 Ethnicity and Race
• Soc 659 Social Movements
• Soc 661 Political Sociology
• Soc 666 Selected Topics
  • Lesbian and Gay Men: Identity & Politics
  • Origins of Modernity
  • Sociology of Culture
  • Industrialization and the Labor Process
  • Critical Theory
  • Postmodernism & Cultural Studies
• Soc 671 Occupations and Professions
• Soc 701 Comparative Sociology

Graduate Student Research

Many graduate students have completed dissertations under the guidance of faculty in qualitative sociologies. Others have writing masters theses or articles for journal review. Some recent examples include:

• an examination of voluntary association responses to key events of the 2000 presidential campaign
• a study of the relationship between military control and post-war violence within indigenous communities in the highlands of Guatemala
• an application of the emotion work perspective to understanding women’s abortion experience
• how synopticism converts unproductive transgressions during Mardi Gras into entertaining commodities
• research on lesbian friendship networks
• an historical analysis of changes in the meaning of sexuality through an examination of legal discourse concerning sexual offenses against children
• research on computer use in the Capital District
• a conversation analysis of children's linguistic skills
• a qualitative study of patients with coronary artery disease
• a study on the development of the real estate industry
• an examination of gay youth and education
• a critical historical analysis of the practice of childhood vaccination in the US
• research on women choosing home births
• a study of motives, outcomes, and commitment mechanisms in the cohousing movement in the US
• research on computers in an information-based society
• an investigation of working class culture
• a study on gender differences in “mental work” concerning transitions into parenthood
• an examination of the Cultural Revolution in China
  

Faculty in Qualitative Sociologies

Angie Chung
Ph.D. University of California at Los Angeles

Professor Chung’s work involves a range of methodological techniques with emphasis on ethnography, in-depth interviews and case study methods. Professor Chung’s research interests include urban sociology, international migration, race/ethnicity, Asian American studies, and qualitative sociology. Her most recent work examines how 1.5/2nd generation ethnic organizations in Koreatown are able to construct ethnic political solidarity within the context of community power structures. She is also working on an article explaining how qualitative methods may provide insight into the life experiences of "in-between" groups, such as Asian Americans and women of color

Richard Hall
Ph.D. Ohio State University

Professor Hall's research has focused primarily on the analysis of organizations, with a strong secondary interest in work and professions. Currently he is researching the role of non-rational factors, such as trust and habits, along with economic rationality, in explaining organizational decision-making.

Selected Publications:

"Run Silent, Run Deep: A Note on the Ever Pervasive Influence of Cultural Difference on Organizations in the Far East," Organization Studies, 1990 (with Weiman Xu).

Richard Lachmann
Ph.D. Harvard University

Professor Lachmann's research is in the areas of comparative historical sociology and the sociology of culture. In the former case, he analyzes the ways in which elite and class conflicts shaped capitalism and state formation in Western Europe. He has written on popular culture such as subway graffiti in NYC. He currently is researching state fiscal crises and the private appropriation of public resources and is writing a comparative study of the decline of dominant economic powers in early modern Europe and the contemporary United States.

Selected Publications:

Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and European Transitions. Oxford University Press, 2000; winner of the 2003 American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award.

“Elite Self-Interest and Economic Decline in Early Modern Europe” American Sociological Review, June 2003.

Karyn Loscocco
Ph.D. Indiana University

A major emphasis of Professor Loscocco's research is the meanings that women and men assign to their work. She also analyzes the ways that work and family mesh or conflict. She emphasizes gender, race and class patterns in her work.

Selected Publications:

"Work-familyLlinkages Among Self-employed Wormen and Men," Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1997.

Maurice Richter
Ph.D. University of Chicago

Professor Richter is interested in the historical and comparative analysis of social institutions. In particular, he has written on the sociology of science and technology.

Selected Publications:

Technology and Social Complexity. SUNY Press, 1982.

"Evolution: Biological, Social and Cultural," Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2000.

Steven Seidman
Ph.D. University of Virginia

Professor Seidman's interests include social theory, cultural analysis, sexuality studies, and the sociology of democracy. Much of his work in social theory has involved rethinking classical and contemporary traditions in light of criticisms that have raised doubts about inherited notions of knowledge, modernity, and social progress. In essays and books, he has argued for empirical concretizing of theory debates while pressing for a more explicit interpretive and normative understanding of social analysis. In this regard, his current work attempts to explore the implications ofqueer theory for a critical empirical study of sexuality. Drawing from a wide range of empirical materials, Seidman is analyzing shifts in sexual identities and meanings and their relationship to “social logics” of normative heterosexuality.

Selected Publications:

Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in a Postmodern Era. 3rd Ed. Blackwell.

Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life, Routledge, 2002.

Glenna Spitze
Ph.D. University of Illinois, Urbana

Professor Spitze's research interests include gender and families, intergenerational relationships, paid and unpaid labor, and the role of personal networks in older adults’ health outcomes. She holds a joint appointment in the Women’s Studies Department.

Selected Publications:

“’The Bitter with the Sweet’: Older Adults’ Strategies for Handling Ambivalence in Relations with their Adult Children.” Research on Aging, 2004. (with Mary Gallant)

James Zetka
Ph.D. Northwestern University

Professor Zetka’s research interests concern industrial and occupational developments. His research links developments occurring in the workplace, the market arena, and the wider political economy. At the workplace level, his interests include wildcat strikes and other forms of militant protest, the implementation of new technology, the development of authority systems and their implications. At the market and political-economy level, his interests include the emergence of market structures regulating industry competition, as well as the role of state policy and state institutions in regulating industries, markets and factories.

Professor Zetka’s current project explores the impact of new technology on the skills, work organization, and work rellationships of physicians and surgeons.

Selected Publications:

Surgeons and the Scope. Cornell

Relevant Non-Sociology Faculty

Mitchel Abolafia (Public Administration and Policy): Economic Sociology and Sociology of Organization.

G.J. Barker-Benfield (History): American and British Social History.

Iris Berger (History & Africana Studies): South African History, Comparative Women's History.

Peter Breiner (Political Science): Social and Political Theory.

Rosemary Hennessy (English): Lesbian and Gay Studies, Postmodern, Marxist, Feminist Theory.

Gail Landsman (Anthropology): Native Americans, Gender.

Vivien Ng (Women's Studies): Lesbian and Gay Studies, Asian Studies, Asian-American Studies.

Gerald Zahavi (History): Labor History, US Working Class History.

-From 2004 brochure