The Radford University Department of Sociology provides students with a wide variety of courses designed to further understanding and perception of social problems, social processes, and differing cultures both within the U.S. and from a global/international perspective.  Sociology and Cultural Anthropology are sister behavioral sciences that together focus on understanding the social and cultural aspects of human behavior at the local, national, and global levels. We offer a major and minor in Sociology that provides opportunities to take classes in both Sociology and Cultural Anthropology.
  
RU's Department of Sociology has special strengths and emphases in:
 
A Focus in Applied Careers
    The department curriculum is designed to provide graduates with a solid foundation for studying and understanding social and cultural behavior in organizational, national, and global settings, and providing graduates with the professional "toolkit" of social science methods and skills that can  be "applied" in a wide range of career paths, including:  business and industry, social work and human services, law and criminal justice, medicine and health care fields, education, urban planning, public policy, community and international development, immigration and refugee services, and many other fields where recognizing patterns of social and cultural differences and similarities is crucial. With our focus on Applied Sociology and Cultural Anthropology, students learn to market their skills, explore opportunities, and prepare for entry into the workplace. See our Career Information page to learn more.

Multicultural and Global Issues
    Sociologists and Cultural Anthropologists are specialists in understanding socio-cultural behavior in the U.S., in all of our diverse multicultural settings, and on the wider global, international stage where a solid understanding of cross-cultural diversity can be applied profitably in any type of international career including international business, politics, health care, and others. The department curriculum focuses on our strength in providing classes that develop better understanding of the critical multicultural and global issues that affect us now and shape our future. Among these are courses in Social Problems, Global Inequalities, and Culture Change and Globalization.

Environmental Issues
    The Sociology Department places a strong emphasis on offering classes that focus on the relationship between human behavior and environmental issues. These are designed to help students better understand the delicate balance that exists between human societies and their environments. The department curriculum includes classes that study the way that humans around the world, past to present, have developed cultural survival strategies highly in tune with their environments, as well as classes that focus on the present and future environmental problems that face us now at the local, regional, and global levels. These include courses on Environmental Sociology, Economic and Environmental Anthropology, Rural Sociology, and Appalachian Cultures, to name just a few.

Hands-on Experiential Training
    Our emphasis is on providing students with classes in Social Research Methods, Survey Research Methods, Ethnography, and Organizational Research, as well as Internships and Practicum classes where students can learn research skills and methods while participating in research, service-learning, and other community-based projects of value to the public. This experiential training helps our graduates build substantial resumes they can use to aid them when seeking jobs and graduate-school entry. See more information on the introductory page for this website, and on the Internship page.

Why Sociology?  Why Cultural Anthropology?