Sociology

Overview

As a Sociology PhD student at the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Social Science Research, you will be part of a vibrant community that values your growth and development.

We offer coaching, training, and a strong PhD Community to support you throughout your doctoral journey. We encourage our students to publish their research early in their careers, enhancing their academic profiles and fostering their future career prospects.

Research groups

Cultural Sociology

• Communication with others, categorizing and identifying people and objects, establishing symbolic and moral boundaries, is strongly influenced by culture. Moreover, culture is the way we try to understand and interact with the world around us.
• At Cultural Sociology, the way social meanings and expressions associate culture will be questioned. How do people create status differences and maintain boundaries between groups? How are international beauty standards (re)produced?

Institutions, Inequalities and Life courses

• The Institutions, Inequalities, and Life courses programme (IIL) examines institutions in a broad way as the formal and informal rules and arrangements in society that govern individual behavior and social relationships.
• Examples of institutions are welfare states, labor market arrangements, educational systems, occupational groups, norms and rules in organizations, and gender role norms.

Political Sociology

• The programme group Political Sociology researches evolving relations of conflict and cohesion in various national and international settings. Our research on citizenship, politics, policies, social movements and the state extends beyond actor-centred approaches through relational analyses and a keen eye for power differentials.