Sociology and Anthropology Department

The Sociology and Anthropology Department researches diverse human arrangements using incisive theory and rigorous social scientific methods to question insightfully, investigate carefully, and act purposefully. 

One way to understand people and groups is to focus on the stories they tell. Humans construct meanings, identities, and narratives to explain the world and to give accounts of themselves.

Another way to understand people and groups is to see them from a bird’s-eye view, watching what they do and looking at the patterns that emerge from their actions. Analyzing human behavior often reveals structures and outcomes that are neither intentional nor perceptible to actors on the ground. 

Anthropology and sociology are special because of the ways they combine these perspectives. We are attentive to stories and to the larger patterns that emerge in human behavior, and we approach them both humanistically and scientifically.

We use qualitative methods such as archival research, interviews, and participant observation to understand the worlds of meaning that people construct and inhabit. 

We use quantitative methods to document, explore, and test hypotheses about the larger patterns that emerge from people’s actions. 

These “mixed methods” inform each other as we learn about social arrangements, whether we are studying a historic village, a contemporary small-scale community, a social movement, a professional organization, or society-wide social and economic mobility.

Our methods complement incisive theories that allow us to pinpoint who the relevant actors are in any social setting and the mechanisms through which their actions combine to produce social structures, as well as how those structures shape people’s subsequent actions.

These theoretical and methodological tools are, we believe, essential for doing good social science, which, like all science, should serve the public interest by providing a reliable basis for policy decisions. They also facilitate our understanding of the aspirations, beliefs, and values that people perceive as motivating their decisions and actions. These skills are equally valuable in other vocational and life pursuits and are widely used in fields like consulting, nonprofit management, research, government, health care, law, and business.

SOAN at W&L is a community of faculty, students, and alumni who are committed to learning and practicing these skills. We work together to question insightfully and investigate carefully so that we can act purposefully as community members and in our personal and professional lives.