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Sociology

This category covers:

  • Anthropology and Sociology of Southeast Asia
  • Chinese Societies
  • Civil Society and Social Movements
  • Development and Social Change
  • Economic Sociology
  • Gender
  • Globalisation
  • Language
  • Migration
  • Nationalism and Transnationalism
 
  • Organisations
  • Political Sociology
  • Religion
  • Science, Technology and Society
  • Singapore Studies
  • Social Inequality
  • Social Memory
  • Societal Issue in Commercial Communications
  • Sociology of Culture
  • The Family

Sociology is unquestionably the broadest of all social science disciplines: all spheres of social life (culture, economy, and politics) are open to inquiry. So are specific social phenomena such as power relations, organisational changes, and the creation, use, and consequences of scientific and technical knowledge. Doing sociology is a rigorous process that involves careful and reasoned collection and analysis of empirical data in order to test, critique, and refine existing understandings of historical and contemporary social processes.

In analysing the determinants and consequences of social change within and across societies, we confront questions about human costs and choices relating to issues such as social inequality and the quality of life. Thus sociology involves critical judgment and creative reasoning in the analysis of personal choices, organisational decisions, and public policies – without resorting to uncritical acceptance of conventional wisdom or avoidance of inconvenient data. Sociology is a practical craft that prepares students for a variety of career pursuits.

Related Link:
American Sociological Association

NameResearch Interests
Assoc Prof Arul Indrasen ChibDr. Arul Chib pursues action-oriented research in varied cross-cultural contexts. His research agenda focuses on the impact and role of mobile phone in (a) healthcare systems in resource-constrained environments of developing countries, and (b) transnational migration to developed countries. He investigates the key factors influencing the adoption of technology for positive health outcomes, and has engaged in the design and development of healthcare technology systems spanning online and mobile platforms. He increasingly interested in issues of power, with one research trajectory focusing on the intersection of gender with technology, and the role of agency and appropriation in the achievement of goals ranging from socio-economic development, human well-being and empowerment, and societal change. He has published over 60 research articles. Global collaborations with IDRC, Red Cross Red Crescent, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Vision have led to research grants of S$ 5Mn. At the Singapore Internet Research Center, Dr. Chib has led the SIRCA programme (established 2008), mentoring 30 emerging country researchers in Asia, Africa and Latin America, with mentoring events in Atlanta, Bangkok, Cape Town, Jamaica, Mauritius and Singapore. The SIRCA III programme is currently focused on theory-building in the area of Open Development, and runs till 2017. Dr. Chib's contributions have led to a number of research awards, including the 2011 Prosper.NET-Scopus Award for the use of ICTs for sustainable development. This award was accompanied by a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, one of the highest honours within the European scholarly tradition. He has been awarded fellowships at Ludwig Maxmilians University and University of Southern California, and the Best Graduate Student Award of S. I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. He serves on the editorial boards of Human Communication Research, Communication Yearbook, and Mobile Media and Communication, and is Senior Editor of The Electronic journal for Information Systems in Developing Countries. Dr. Chib’s research in as many as a dozen countries has been profiled in the media ranging from the United Nations Chronicle to the Singaporean press. He has lectured at numerous global events and presented the keynote speech at the Media Health Communication Conference 2012 in Munich Germany. He is the General Conference Chair for ICTD2015, and a member of the organizing committees of the IFIP 8.6 2013 and ICTD 2012. He has been an expert speaker at events organized by UNESCO, UN-APCICT. Dr. Chib has worked at the local level with non-governmental agencies such as INPPARES, Nyaya Health, Text to Change, Udaan, UNICEF and World Vision, securing external grants worth over S$ 5 million. Arul has lived and worked extensively in India, Indonesia, China, Peru, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States of America. Most recently, Associate Prof Arul Chib has released the SIRCA II co-edited volume ‘Impact of Information Society Research in the Global South’ (New York: Springer; ISBN 978-981-287-380-4). The international scholarly community has taken a variety of approaches to question the impact of information society research on populations in the Global South. This book addresses two aspects-Impact of research: How is the research on ICTs in the Global South playing a role in creating an Information Society? (for example, policy formulation, implementation in practice, and shaping of public opinion), Secondly, what does the Research on Impact reveal: What is the evidence for the impact of ICTs on society? The volume brings together a multiplicity of voices from developing countries and approaches within the social scientific community to address these vital questions.
Prof Chew Soon BengWages, wage systems and wage determination in Singapore Industrial relations in Singapore and other countries
Asst Prof Chou Meng-HsuanRegionalism and regional integration (European Union, ASEAN) Institutional and organisational theory Migration and asylum policy Research and higher education policy (knowledge policies)
Dr Denise Edith De SouzaLanguage in Science and Technology, Academic and Multimodal Communication, Language Teaching and Learning, Technology in Language Teaching and Learning, Programme Evaluation (in Education), Application of Critical Realism and Realist Social Theory in research practice.
Asst Prof Duffy Andrew MichaelJournalism in Singapore Cross-cultural journalism education Online journalism education
Asst Prof Edson C Tandoc Jr.media gatekeeping, journalism studies, web analytics, social media, environmental journalism
Asst Prof Fang XiaopingHistory of medicine, health and disease in twentieth-century China Medical anthropology and sociology in contemporary China
Asst Prof Felicity ChanMy core research interest lies at the intersections of the formation of social life in cities, global immigration and the planning/design of the urban built environment. I particularly enjoy including mapping as a method of inquiry. Thus, I am intrigued by research (visual and textual) that concurrently explores the joint dimension of society and space and how it interfaces with urban policies and institutions. My current research is about the urban spatial imprints of immigrants in Singapore and the relationship between policies of social integration, urban planning and development.
Assoc Prof Hallam StevensMy research focuses on the intersection between information technology and biotechnology. My first book is an historical and ethnographic account of the changes wrought to biological practice and biological knowledge by the introduction of the computer. Especially in highly computerized fields such as genomics, the computer has changed how biologists work, how biologists collaborate, and how biologists make knowledge. I am currently pursuing two ongoing research projects. The first is an attempt to develop new methods of studying scientific practice by deploying tools from performance studies. In collaboration with a performance studies scholar, I am examining spaces of biomedical work in East Asia in an effort to deepen our understanding of how such spaces fit into the economic, social, and political context of the cities in which they sit. Sites under examination include Biopolis in Singapore and BGI in Shenzhen. The second project examines the emergence of "big data." This apparently new field is quite suddenly having an immense impact on politics, the economy, and many aspects of our social world. What is really new about big data? What kinds of changes may it bring? Who will benefit? Historians of technology, in particular, are well equipped to ask and answer such important questions about this emerging phenomenon. In addition to these projects, I have just completed a general audience book that examines that provides a broad overview of the social, political, and economic effects of biotechnology. The book will be published under the title "Biotechnology & Society" in 2016 (University of Chicago Press). I am interested in supervising PhD students on topics related to the history of the life sciences, the history of information technology, and science and technology studies.
Asst Prof Han Sam(1) The dynamic of religion and digital technology in contemporary American Christianity (2) Digital-diasporic religious practices in Asia (3) Death and mourning in the digital age (4) The religious discourse of technology as sinful (5) General social and cultural theory (e.g., affect theory, post-structuralism, post-modernism, psychoanalysis, network theory) (6) Parochialism in popular representations of “genius” in media depictions of US ethnic minorities