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A master's degree in sociology gives you more without the commitment of a Ph.D. You'll gain more research skills and apply them in a rigorous academic setting. You'll be part of an advanced scholastic community. You'll work closely with world-class experts. And you'll earn a level of applicable skills that open up rewarding career paths.

An advantage of graduate school at SIU is collegiality. This is an important part of advanced study. We have the resources you need to excel—including an in-house, major-specific library and access to national databases. And we are a small enough program that one-on-one mentorships with professors and close collaboration with other graduate students is our standard. You may be a published scholar by participating in ongoing research even before you graduate.

Areas of Emphasis

Master's students take courses in all our areas of emphasis and conduct research in one or two integrated areas. All areas include a wide range of substantive, methodological, and theoretical approaches. Available seminars vary every semester and are designed to produce well-rounded sociologists.

• Gender and Sexuality
  • Coursework and research in these two areas focus on the many ways that gender and sexuality impact us as individuals, our interactions, and our opportunities in life. We examine how gender and sexuality are social constructions, and how cultural meanings and values shape our identities and interactions. Gender and sexuality are also viewed as systems of stratification and as organizing social systems. We explore patterns of gendered behaviors, gendered institutions, gendered expectations, and gender inequality.
• Political Sociology, Religion, and Social Change
  • This area focuses on the complex relationships between society, politics, and religion and explores the ways that contemporary religious expressions shape – and are shaped by – cultural, social and political trends.
• Inequalities and Stratification
  • Scholars in this area are primarily interested in understanding the individual and society in terms of systems of social stratification including those based on social class, race and ethnic relations, and gender & sexuality.
• Criminology
  • Sociological criminology explores the causes of patterns of deviant and criminal behavior, variation in crime rates across places and time, and societal reactions to crime including the social control of crime.
• Family
  • The sociology of family is a subfield within sociology that examines the structures, dynamics, functions, meanings, and changes within families and intimate relationships. It explores how families are formed, maintained, and dissolved, the roles, interactions, and power dynamics among family members, and links between families and other social institutions. Key topics within the sociology of family include family definitions and diversity, family change and history, class, race, and ethnic variation, gender and the division of labor, work and family issues, sexuality, dating, and mate selection, cohabitation and marriage, LGBTQ families, children and parenting, older people and their families, domestic violence, divorce, re-partnering, and stepfamilies.
• Medical Sociology
  • Does your zip code influence your health as much as your genetic code? Medical sociology focuses on the social construction of health and illness, the social determinates of health, and the social structures and forces that enable and constrain access to medical care. Our faculty explore topics such as mental health, family relationships and health, medicalization, and access to medical care among historically marginalized populations.