ECU Department of Sociology

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ECU Department of Sociology East Carolina University Department of Sociology is located in Brewster A-416.

10/15/2026

We asked Dr. Kirk Miller to share some of his favorite books that shaped him as a criminologist. So many! All iconic. Here are the cream of the crop: Here are several books (lucky 13):

Su***de (Durkheim)

Gender and Power (Connell)

Masculinities and Crime (Messerschmidt)

Discipline and Punish (Foucault) and The Panopticon Writings (Jeremy Bentham)

Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force (Jerome Skolnick and James Fyfe)

The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander)

Stigma (Erving Goffman)

Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method (Don Dillman)

Crime and Everyday Life (Marcus Felson)

American Apartheid (Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton)

And finally— icon of icons— Tea Room Trade (Laud Humphreys)
Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations (Hubert Blalock)

This week’s TuesData looks at school start times and teen sleep.The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study has fol...
10/13/2026

This week’s TuesData looks at school start times and teen sleep.

The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study has followed a cohort of children born in large U.S. cities for over 25 years. At age 15, a subset of teens in the study wore wrist actigraphs, devices that use movement to estimate sleep timing and duration. The figure uses the actigraph data to compare sleep timing on school days among 15-year-olds whose schools started before 8:30 AM with those whose schools started at 8:30 AM or later.

Bedtimes were similar across the two groups, but wake times differed much more. Teens with later school start times tended to wake up about an hour later, around 7 AM instead of 6 AM.

The pattern highlights how sleep is shaped not only by individual habits, but also by the schedules and institutions that organize daily life. How might differences in sleep timing shape adolescents’ health, school performance, routines, or overall well-being?

Visualization by ECU Sociology. Source: Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, Year 15.

Today, we are inspired by Dr. Melinda Kane’s must-read books. Have you read any of these? What are YOU reading! Here’s...
10/13/2026

Today, we are inspired by Dr. Melinda Kane’s must-read books. Have you read any of these? What are YOU reading! Here’s why she loves these books:

The Managed Heart by Arlie Hochshild

Hochshild’s concept of emotion work resonated deeply with me. She showed how employees are expected to use emotions & emotion displays as part of their work. Just visit Starbucks, as an employee verbally greets you in an upbeat voice and a smile; that is emotion work!

Families on the Fault Line: America’s Working Class Speaks about the Family, the Economy, Race, and Ethnicity by Lillian B Rubin

I loved teaching this book in Race, Gender, & Class! Using interviews with Asian, Black, Latino, & White working class families, Rubin shows their economic struggles, the tensions between wives and husbands over new gender expectations, and views on race and immigration. Older interviews, but the issues are still relevant today.

Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment by Muzafer Sherif et al.

This book blew my mind in graduate school. Twelve year old boys were brought to a summer camp where researchers manipulated the setting to document the formation of in-groups and out-groups. See how conflict and cooperation are generated!

Political Institutions and Le***an and Gay Rights in the United States and Canada by Miriam Smith

Great for politic geeks who want to get into the nuts and bolts of how the US and Canada political systems differ. Smith shows how the stable, political differences between the two countries can explain why Canada adopted LGBTQ+ rights before the U.S.

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy.

A book of fiction assigned in my undergraduate Philosophy of Women course. (The class would be Feminist Philosophy today.) It was the first time I considered what the world might look like without a gender binary. A book I’ve read over and over.

We asked Dr. Cindy Anderson what her must-read books are. She started with sociological theory books that have influence...
10/08/2026

We asked Dr. Cindy Anderson what her must-read books are. She started with sociological theory books that have influenced her over her career:

The Everyday world as problematic - Dorothy Smith.

Black Feminist Thought - Patricia Hill Collins

Division of Labor - Emile Durkheim. She said that this book offers a very clear explanation of what holds society together at different points in time.

And of course, Sociological Imagination - C. Wright Mills. She said this book “Made me want to carry around a notebook and right down connections between personal troubles and societal issues.”

Dr. Anderson included some more contemporary books, like the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. She said, “This is the most gripping book I’ve read in the last decade. Kingsolver does a beautiful job of linking individual experiences with structural constraints. There’s a direct connection to many sociological concepts - reproduction of inequality, stigma, labeling, alienation, environmental degradation, and economic disinvestment.”

The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World - Allison Pugh - sociological research on the labor people do for each other and how important that is for belonging.

And she included a book on her wish list: “I haven’t started, but I’m excited to read: End Time Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World - Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor.

What are YOU reading?

As lifelong students of sociology, we are lucky to have so many fascinating and impactful books that have been published...
10/07/2026

As lifelong students of sociology, we are lucky to have so many fascinating and impactful books that have been published over the decades. All of us have our favorite “must-read” books that we find ourselves recommending over and over— to students, friends, family, and even strangers in line at the coffee shop! What are YOU reading??

We asked Sociology’s Dr. Campbell which books he recommends. Here are his top 5: Ain’t No Makin’ It by Jay MacLeod- I read this as part of an intro to sociology course as a first-year undergrad. It was this book that first got me interested in sociology.

-Heatwave by Eric Klinenberg - I read this early in grad school, and its core argument, that
the consequences of a “natural” disaster are shaped by social vulnerability and community context, helped shape my interest in social support networks and social isolation.

-Someone to Talk to by Mario Small - A very accessible introduction to thinking about social networks, social support, and the ways people use social relationships when they need help.

-Evicted by Matthew Desmond - Combines a readable narrative on a tough topic with compelling findings about how housing insecurity can deepen poverty, strain social relationships and support networks, and the economic realities of low-income housing.

-The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan - not a sociology book, but one of my favorite non-fiction books. It touches on topics relevant to sociology and tells the story of the Dust Bowl in a way that brings together environmental change, economic hardship, migration, and public policy.

This week’s TuesData looks at living with parents in young adulthood.Living with parents has become increasingly common ...
09/29/2026

This week’s TuesData looks at living with parents in young adulthood.

Living with parents has become increasingly common among adults ages 25 – 34. In 2000, 12.9% of men and 8.3% of women in this age group lived with a parent or parents. By 2025, those shares had risen to 19.2% of men and 13.6% of women. Although the trends have fluctuated—particularly around the Covid pandemic—the longer-term shift is clear: adults in their late 20s and early 30s are more likely to live with parents today than they were 25 years ago.

Living arrangements are shaped by more than individual preferences. How might housing costs, wages, education, relationships, or changing expectations about adulthood help explain these patterns?

Did you know that ECU Sociology has an accelerated Masters Program!? ECU undergraduate sociology students with a 3.0 m...
09/23/2026

Did you know that ECU Sociology has an accelerated Masters Program!? ECU undergraduate sociology students with a 3.0 minimum cumulative GPA and a B or higher in SOCI 3213 may apply to the accelerated program during the semester in which they expect to complete a minimum of 75 eligible undergraduate semester hours. Interested students should meet with the graduate program director.

Mason Stone is one of our current outstanding students in the program. We asked him what he likes best about it, and he said, “One thing that I love about the accelerated MA program is being able to take graduate level courses that count for both my undergrad and graduate degrees. I am planning to pursue a PhD in sociology, so taking courses with advanced theories and material during undergrad gives me an advantage and helps me prepare for my future academic endeavors. The professors I have worked with have been nothing but encouraging and helpful in my research process. Being a student in the accelerated MA program is not only setting me up for success, but it makes me proud to be an ECU pirate.“ 💜💛💜💛

Mason, we are so glad to have you in the program!

This week’s TuesData looks at education and the timing of parenthood.Using pooled data from the General Social Survey, t...
09/22/2026

This week’s TuesData looks at education and the timing of parenthood.

Using pooled data from the General Social Survey, the figure shows the distribution of age at first child among parents age 40 and older across levels of educational attainment. The figure uses a violin plot: wider sections of each "violin" indicate ages at which first births are more common, while the single vertical line inside each violin marks the median age at first child.

First births tend to occur at later ages among people with higher levels of education. At the same time, there is substantial variation and overlap within every education group.

How might education, work and careers, economic resources, relationships, or expectations about family life shape when people become parents?

Visualization by ECU Sociology. Source: General Social Survey, pooled 2010–2024 survey years.

Proud colleague moment! We’re excited to celebrate Sociology’s Dr. Chaniqua Simpson’s work on the Campaign for Southern ...
09/21/2026

Proud colleague moment! We’re excited to celebrate Sociology’s Dr. Chaniqua Simpson’s work on the Campaign for Southern Equality! She is part of the new Data Justice Cohort, using her research expertise to help to shape the future of the research undertaken by the CSE. Read more about her role on the impressive data team.
Campaign for Southern Equality

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Greenville, NC
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