Sociology

The hallmark of the Department of Sociology is teaching. Its four senior faculty members hold 31 major universitywide teaching awards, principally the prestigious George R. Brown Prizes for Excellence in Teaching and for Superior Teaching, and even the exceptional Brown Lifetime Award.

That has drawn some of Rice’s best students to major in sociology and to win in recent years the highly competitive Truman and Watson Fellowships and two of Rice’s three Rhodes Scholarships.

Without a graduate program and graduate students to help carry out research, faculty members rely heavily on undergraduates to participate in research projects, deepening the learning experience for sociology majors. Several areas of research are emphasized in the department, including social inequality, a study of the healthcare needs of Mexican immigrants, the relationship between health and religion and race, the impact of religion on public policy, and the sociology of women’s reading groups. Chandler Davidson’s civil rights studies were cited in at least eight U.S. Supreme Court opinions in the 1980s and 1990s.

One particularly well-known project is the annual Houston Area Survey conducted by Stephen Klineberg and his students. Ongoing since 1982, this is perhaps the most comprehensive examination ever taken of demographic and social changes in a major urban environment. According to Houston business leaders, Klineberg’s research has put Houston’s business community at least 10 years ahead of where it would otherwise be in its understanding of the challenges facing our city. Professor Klineberg also has conducted extensive research on Houston’s ethnic communities—since 1995, he has produced the Houston Area Asian Survey, which is the country’s only systematic survey of Asian residents—and he has directed the biennial Texas Environmental Survey since 1990.