| Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
and Immigration in Urban Society
The University of Pennsylvania offers excellent resources for the
study of global migration in modern times; sociology and demography
of regional and global immigration, race and ethnicity in the United
States, and historical and urban ethnography of American race/ethnic
communities. A strong concentration of faculty in the Department
of Sociology specializing in these areas of research and teaching
is complemented by several other university programs with similar
interests: the African Studies Center, the Africana Studies
Program, the Latin American Cultures program, and the Urban Studies
Program. In addition, the History and Anthropology Departments offer
a number of relevant courses.
The sociology of migration/immigration, race, and ethnicity as
taught and practiced at the University of Pennsylvania has two major
foci. One of them is the study of the macro-structural: economic,
sociodemographic, and political "push" and "pull"
forces that set off great population flows across the globe, as
well as of the micro-contexts of these migrations, such as local
support networks in the sending and the receiving societies, reference
frameworks used by migrants in the pursuits of their purposes, and
forms and consequences of contact between the migrants and those
who remain at home. The program focuses, in particular, on past
and present migrations to and from North and South America, East
and West Europe, and Africa.
The other area of the program's strength and concentration is urban
sociology and ethnography, historical and contemporary, of racial
and immigrant/ethnic groups in the United States, which deals with
problems such as urban poverty and the underclass, socioeconomic
mobility, residential segregation, social organization of neighborhoods,
the contexts and mechanisms of changing racial/ethnic identities,
and race and ethnic relations.
Most faculty members in the department are interested in race,
ethnic and urban issues. Those principally engaged in research on
these topics include:
Camille Charles, Frank Furstenberg, Grace Kao,
Janice Madden, Sam Preston, Tukufu Zuberi.
The department offers an undergraduate degree in sociology with
a concentration in immigration and/or urban race/ethnic studies,
and a doctoral program with special training in these areas.
The program adds to the Sociology Department's strengths in the
fields of population and demography, urban sociology, historical
sociology, and the sociology of culture.
Last Modified:
18-Sep-2007
For updates, comments please contact:
saunderc@ssc.upenn.edu
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