Welcome:

I am currently a doctoral candidate with research and teaching interests in economic sociology, sociology of organizations, sociology of law, mixed methods research, social network analysis, and regulation & social control. My graduate training, research assistantships, and teaching fellowships were done at Brown University, Harvard University, MIT, and The University of Chicago. During the 2010-2011 academic year I will be at the University of Oxford.

In general, Sociology is the study of human societies and social activity. It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge on human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Sociology is the study of what it means to be a member of a particular society, and it involves the critical analysis of the different types of social connections and social structures that constitute a society. This includes questions about how and why different groups are formed and the various meanings attached to different modes of social interaction, such as between individuals or social networks; face to face versus on-line communications; local and global discourses, and so on. Sociology also encompasses the study of the social institutions that shape social action. A social institution is a complex, but distinctive, sub-system of society that regulates human conduct (Berger 1963: 87). For example, the media acts as a social institution that can influence the way in which ‘facts’ are represented and interpreted; the law and politics impact on the ways in which different cultural groups define what is deemed ‘right’ and ‘moral’; the institutions of economy and education affect social status (that is, wealth and inequality among individuals); and the institution of family shapes our ideas about partnership, work, gender, sex, childrearing, and our bodies.

Sociology can therefore be used to study all the social experiences that human beings are capable of imagining – from practices in the family, to the use of technology in modern life, to our attitudes and rituals regarding death – and everything else in between. People usually understand their problems in reference to their own personal life story and they are not always aware of the complex links between their own lives and the rest of the world’s history (Mills 1959: 5). The ‘sociological imagination’ helps us to make sense of the connections between history, biography and place (Mills 1959: 6).  Sociology allows us to study individual behavior in a broader context, to take into consideration how societal forces might impact upon individuals, as well as the ways in which individuals construct the world around them, and how they manage to resist existing power relationships in order to achieve social change. In this light, sociology represents ‘a transformation of consciousness’ (Berger 1963: 21). Sociology questions taken-for-granted assumptions about the world we live in (what we see as ‘familiar’ and ‘normal’ within the context of our everyday lives), and it provides a new and more critical perspective of the world, through the use of scientific theories, concepts and empirical evidence.

Sociology as an observational  study has been around since approximately 400 BCE during the time of the Greeks.  In fact the word sociology comes from the Latin word socius--meaning companion--and the Greek word logos--meaning knowledge.  It’s no coincidence that during this time, the height of Greek society, is when philosophers began recognizing the need for understanding how people work together as a whole so that we can try to build an ideal society.

Today sociological research plays an important role in our country and even the world’s development.  As societies begin, grow and merge sociologists are reading into every aspect and analyzing where there are problems and applying tested methods to ease those problems.  Sociologists work in every level of society--academia, government, community organizations, public administration , and businesses--to solve problems of our theoretical understandings of the society and our practical problems of social organizations.

Please take the time to view the following pages. If you have any questions or comments, send me an email and we can discuss it.

Best,
Todd Arthur Bridges