Students in Sociology and Criminology can expect to develop the insights of the sociological perspective as they become familiar with continuing research and theoretical analysis of the social world. They learn how to better understand the structures and patterns upon which everyday life rest, to understand the interplay between individual choices and social constraint, to interpret events from multiple perspectives, and to examine social arrangements critically. They learn how to make a difference in their lives and in the lives of others.
Work with Leading Faculty
We are a small, active faculty who publish award-winning monographs, articles in the top journals of our field. We are committed to the public good and our scholarship is used to inform national and local policy debate.
Get Personal Attention
Our classes are small. Faculty-student partnerships are keys to our successful program.
What's Happening
Inequality and the Politics of Youth Activism
Professor Hava Gordon, DU assistant professor of sociology and criminology, recently had her book, We Fight to Win, published by Rutgers University Press. The book deals with inequality and the politics of youth activism.
Overview of the book:
In an adult-dominated society, teenagers are often shut out of participation in politics. We Fight to Win offers a compelling account of young people's attempts to get involved in community politics, and documents the battles waged to form youth movements and create social change in schools and neighborhoods.
Dr. Gordon compares the struggles and successes of two very different youth movements: a mostly white, middle-class youth activist network in Portland, Oregon, and a working-class network of minority youth in Oakland, California. She examines how these young activists navigate schools, families, community organizations, and the mainstream media, and employ a variety of strategies to make their voices heard on some of today's most pressing issues--war, school funding, the environmental crisis, the prison industrial complex, standardized testing, corporate accountability, and educational reform. We Fight to Win is one of the first books to focus on adolescence and political action and deftly explore the ways that the politics of youth activism are structured by age inequality as well as race, class, and gender.
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Recent Speaking Engagements
Peter Adler, DU Professor of sociology and criminology, was the keynote speaker at the International Conference on Deviance, September 16-21, 2009. His talk was entitled, "Sin, Sick, and Selected: The Rhetoric of Stigma in Deviance." The event was sponsored by CLIMAS - American History, Sociology, Literature, and Arts, University of Bordeaux, France.
Thomas Drabek (sociology and criminology emeritus professor) was a featured speaker to the general assembly at the 57th annual conference of the International Association of Emergency Managers in Orlando, FL, November 4, 2009. His lecture topic was "What Every Emergency Manager Should Know about Social Science Research." Drabek's recently published book, The Human Side of Disaster (CRC Press, 2010), was featured at the conference, where he signed several dozen copies.
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