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Welcome to Berkeley Sociology

Berkeley’s Sociology Department is known around the world for its excellence in research and teaching. Our faculty advance cutting edge research and teach in most sociological specialities. Our PhDs are leaders in universities and research centers across the US and in many other countries. And our BAs populate the ranks of innumerable professions, bringing with them the skills and special perspective of Berkeley sociology. 

We are proud to make these contributions from the world’s leading public university. At Berkeley, we combine intellectual rigor with a commitment to public service through our research, teaching, and service on campus and beyond. 

For the past six decades, Berkeley’s Sociology Department has consistently been ranked among the world’s top sociology departments. Our graduate program is ranked #1 in the latest U.S. News and World Report, and our undergrad degree is currently the best in the US according to College Factual and features on Grad Reports’ Best College List 2020.

Faculty Spotlight
Raka Ray
Professor and Dean, Social Sciences
Gender, postcolonial sociology, emerging middle classes, South Asia, inequality, qualitative research methods, social movements
Daniel Aldana Cohen
Assistant Professor of Sociology
climate emergency; political economy; eco-apartheid; inequalities of race and class; urban studies; political sociology
Heather A. Haveman
Professor
Organizational theory, economic sociology, historical sociology, entrepreneurship, organizational demography, gender, careers and social mobility
In Memoriam
Albert Einstein (1941)
Albert Einstein (1941)
EMERITUS PROFESSOR

Prof. Einstein served graduate students as a model of prudence in remaining unfashionably true to the grand…

Faculty Publishing
With the rise of the service sector, more middle class Americans are living their personal lives on a “market frontier.” More people hire—and take up jobs as—nannies, childcare center wor...

The Outsourced Self

With the rise of the service sector, more middle class Americans are living their personal lives on a “market frontier.” More people hire—and take up jobs as—nannies, childcare center workers, eldercare workers, eldercare managers, pet care workers, on-line dating services, life coaches, wedding planners, party animators, funeral service providers and even “rent-a-friends.” Through an on-line service called TaskRabbit, one woman hired a person to cheer for her at a marathon. What constellation of trends underlie this shift, the book asks, and what con...
[homepage] colloquium

Departmental Colloquium Series

Wai Kit Choi, "Empire, Psychological Warfare, and the Allure of Behavioral Modification"

Monday, September 25, 2023 - 2:00 pm - Monday, September 25, 2023 - 3:30 pm
Blumer Room - 402 Social Sciences Building & Via Zoom

In the Western, or more specifically, U.S.-dominated social sciences, people of color outside or within the West have historically been reduced to “research subjects,” and their role as knowledge producers has been marginalized. Precipitating such practices was the European and U.S. formal colonization of different parts of the world. In recent decades, there have been efforts to decolonize social science. Does greater “inclusion” of scholars of color within the existing knowledge production system achieve the decolonization goal? Or does the U.S. fundamentally reproduce the same hierarchical power relations within its informal empire through such “inclusion”? To address these questions, I will introduce the concept of “control by manipulation,” which is divided into “psychological warfare” and “behavioral modification,” and sketch a model of the way the U.S. has exercised manipulative control from the end of World War II to the present. From this model, I will develop an account of the relationship between the U.S. empire and knowledge production that will help address the question of “inclusion.”