Sociology

Romance and race

Sociology Ph.D. candidate Olivia Hu is studying how people choose romantic partners across race lines, and how those relationships affect their understandings of social difference.

Susan Ahlborn

The advent of e-commerce

In a Q&A, sociologist Steve Viscelli of the School of Arts & Sciences talks transport, last-mile delivery, and the “incredible amounts of physical effort” required to get the holiday packages to America’s front doors.

Kristina García

Exploring anxiety and social change

Sociology professor Jason Schnittker teaches the course Anxious Times: Social Change and Fear, based on a book he wrote. Through a data-sensitive approach, students study anxiety and mental health.

Erica Moser

Locust walks: Making connections and bridging differences

Harun Küçük, faculty director of the Middle East Center, and Joshua Teplitsky, director of the Jewish Studies Program, started walking and talking as an act of campus diplomacy in the wake of the violence in Israel and Gaza.

Kristen de Groot



In the News


Philadelphia Tribune

Engaging discussion at Center in the Park on conservative agenda Project 2025

At a Philadelphia panel on Project 2025, PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts said that Black women would have even greater numbers of unwanted pregnancies without access to legal contraceptives.

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The New York Times

MacArthur Foundation announces 2024 ‘genius’ grant winners

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts has been named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on racial inequities in health and social-service systems.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Penn law professor Dorothy E. Roberts named a MacArthur Fellow

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts has received the “genius grant” for her efforts to expose racism embedded in social-support programs, such as the child welfare system.

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New Republic

The bad politics of bad posture

In her book “Slouch,” Beth Linker of the School of Arts & Sciences outlines how societal pressures have driven huge swaths of people to embrace falsehoods about posture.

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USA Today

The ACT’s new ties to a private equity firm are raising eyebrows

Benjamin Shestakofsky of the School of Arts & Sciences says it is not surprising that private equity firms are setting their sights on the standardized testing market.

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Stat

HHS considering changes to sterilization consent process

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts says there’s widespread devaluing of certain people’s childbearing from negative stereotypes to laws that deny someone extra benefits if they get pregnant while on welfare.

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