QS World University Rankings by Subject 2011/12 (S

[Messanger]

Hmm, interesting rankings. They always have Harvard on top for everything, but Yale at the top 10 sociology program? In what universe?! Better than the NRC rankings, though; that's for sure. What a mess that was!

www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011/subject-rankings/social-sciences/sociology

[why the brits]

What is it with their damn obsession with ranking these British universities so highly, when no one cares about them or their 3-year PhD programs?

Ugh, and I see you, Toronto, in the top 15!

P.S. I enjoy symbolic violence (and emoticons), in case you can't tell!

[Michigan and Wisconsin]

They are far too low on this list. I don't know much about the methodology used for these rankings, but I must say they are way off the mark on these two gems of sociology for sure.

[yep]

I think QS is making money the same way USN is making money. Rankings sell ads. Also, plenty of people in the UK pay for the PhD out of pocket if they aren't being funded on a faculty research grant, and would likely just take that to go into a better job in government or whatever. So you want to know if you're getting brand value for the money, I guess.

But the British love ranking things. It is a country with a lot of emphasis on measures and standards. University rankings matter a lot within the country because government research funding is allocated to the schools on the basis of research productivity, via their RAE. And let's remember that their basic government support is way more generous than ours, so it matters a lot. Way less faculty deadwood in the UK - either you produce on research or you get stuck with more teaching.

Another tidbit: One thing that happens in the UK research environment is that there is more flexibility between fields, partly due to the strongly established culture of postdocs/teaching fellows, which are seen as the real training. (It is a stretch, but you could think of the UK PhD to the MA you do in service of the PhD here; necessary but not quite sufficient for a job, with some exceptions.) So if you were a sociology PhD and did a postdoc in oh, African Studies, then you might apply to a lecturer (= new TT) position in African and Oriental studies. Seems the same as us, right? But you probably couldn't apply to human geography lecturer position without actually doing a postdoc/teaching fellowship in geography, even if your work was very much urban sociology, without having a ton of publications in traditional geography journals.

[Notworthdogpoo]

One indication that these "rankings" are worthless? MIT. MIT doesn't have a sociology department or even a soc program as such. It only recently constituted an Econ Soc PHD within the B-school.

Also with all due respect to the Canadians there is no way on this Earth that Toronto, McGuill, or UBC are better than the likes of Wisconsin, Penn, Duke, or Texas. Those are good departments don't get me wrong. But ask yourself this question: How many grads of the former are on the faculties of the later? How many grads of the later fill the faculties of the former? At toronto and UBC they have a fetish for the grads of top-10 American departments. That tells you all you need to know.

[ethnocentricity]

I can't help but feel that some of you are making rash/ethnocentric decisions about the quality of other international universities. The west is not always best--especially, when it comes to studying the majority of the non-Western world.

[glad]

^ Sadly, the majority of the top universities on this list are from the West, though. Maybe you meant "Amero-centricity" to mean the U.S., and not the Western hemisphere proper nor Europe, of course. I, for one, am glad that several Asian universities and my alma mater, UNAM, made the top 50 on this international ranking. Perhaps this broader and more inclusive trend is just what academics in non-Western countries need to elevate their research to the fore-front of academe.

[hegemony]

^ Amen! What I also find troubling is that nearly every university in the top 50 is an English-speaking university. The top 15 is exclusively English-speaking, as well. Apparently, the language one publishes in is more important than its quality and/or novel contribution to the academic literature.

[Toronto]

re: Toronto. Their program IS highly regarded. Many faculty in American programs compare Toronto with Indiana. So, within the American scheme of things, it would be ranked 11th or so. I mean look at some of Toronto's senior faculty! Look at their crim program. Toronto grads have been hired by Rutgers, MIT, Austin, Emory, Washington State, and on and on. They seem to do as well as other sub-5 graduates.

UK programs: many are super and require a lot more dedication from their doctoral students than do so-called "top" American programs. British sociology is also much more intellectual and theoretical than American sociology (meaning, Americans tend to be very anti-intellectual even when holding advanced degrees). Look at the state of American social theory...pretty bad stuff compared to European theory.

It's kinda funny that some folks on this forum have no clue about the quality of education outside of America.

[Toronto]

I should add that the ranking list (link posted) is obviously weird. Wisconsin (the source of my Ph.D. a number of years ago) is the undisputed champion and has been for some time. The top 5 programs have been top 5 (in some order) for many decades, and any list that does not recognize that "fact" is...stupid.

[Princeton]

Which top 5 departments are you actually referencing? Princeton has only recently "risen" to its current top 5 spot in US News (what that means in terms of quality is beside the point). The "true" top 5 that I hear from time and time again from friends and colleagues are (in no particular order): Berkeley, Michigan, Wisconsin, Harvard, and Chicago. Princeton, Stanford, and UNC Chapel Hill are far too much of late comers without an established based of prestige in the discipline.

[Classic]

It's Chicago and then the rest is bleh, bleh, whatever.

[not sure about that]

Chicago ain't what it used to be. Berkeley or bust now!

[nobears]

People like to rave about Berkeley, but I really don't think they're the best soc program. What they do have going for them is size (like Wisconsin and others). If even only a third of their grads get tenure track jobs then almost all of us will work alongside a Berkeley PhD.

[tanfurd sux]

All joking monikers aside, I do not agree with this assertion in the least bit. Berkeley is one of the few departments where theory and book publications are taken in the seriousness they merit. It's no secret why the most renowned Marxist and Bourdieu scholars both call Cal home. Go Bears!