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College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Faculty and students work on an archaeological dig

Research and Engagement

We study what it means to be human, to live in society, to create and recreate ourselves and our cultures.

Purposeful Research

Our faculty — and our students — dig up tiny sherds of pottery and bones. They put entire societies and cultures under their microscopes. They’re driven to examine and understand what we can learn from the past — and how we can guide the future.

We’ve made our mark in studies of family sociology, ecological change, work and labor markets, migration, nonprofit organizations, and crime, to name just a few.

Our research, which appears in the top journals of our fields, creates new knowledge that informs pressing issues in our communities. It helps solve problems.

Recent Projects

March 11, 2026

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology Celebrates 100 Years!

Over a century ago, sociology became part of the academic portfolio at North Carolina State University. In 1926, the first Ph.D. in sociology was awarded to Jesse Mowry for his research, “The Natural Resources and Their Conservation as a College Course of Study.” This milestone was significant not only for the department but for the…
four people in institutional orange jumpsuits work together to clean a city street

January 23, 2026

Many Drug-Use Treatment Providers in N.C. Demand Unpaid Labor, Limit Access to Evidence-Based Treatment

Many organizations that provide residential drug- and alcohol-use services in N.C. have mandated labor requirements and are less likely to provide evidence-based treatment for opioid-use disorders. Lead author and Associate Professor of Anthropology Jennifer Carroll explains the details.
a man in his early 20s looks frustrated as he works on his computer

January 14, 2026

Overly Involved Parents May Hold Their Kids Back Professionally

A study of more than 2,000 early-career adults found that young people whose parents were still very closely involved in their lives tended to have occupations with less prestige than young people whose parents were less involved. Co-author and Professor of Sociology Anna Manzoni explains.

In the Community

As part of our university’s land-grant mission, we serve North Carolina citizens through our research and engagement activities. Locally, we bring our expertise to projects like the Friends of Oberlin Cemetery, an initiative to preserve a culturally significant African American cemetery in Raleigh.

We also work with industries and governments to solve problems related to food insecurity, climate change, child abuse, poverty and inequality, among other issues.

Our faculty and students also embed themselves abroad to explore the effects that tourism, globalization, political change and other factors have on communities.

Resources for Researchers

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences research office can help faculty navigate projects, locate funding sources and make connections in the community.

Learn more

Publications

Our faculty have made significant contributions to the breadth and depth of scholarship in their fields. These publications are indicative of our scholarship and our research interests.

Sarah Bowen

Mia Brantley Wright

  • Brantley, M. (2023). Can’t Just Send Our Children Out: Intensive Motherwork and Experiences of Black Motherhood, Social Problems, spad047, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spad047
  • Brantley, M. (2023). Black feminist theory in maternal health research: A review of concepts and future directions. Sociology Compass, e13083. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13083
  • Wilson, B. L., Jackson, A., Brantley, M., & Tindall, J. (2025). “The Talk I Received From My Parents, I Gave to My Little Brother”: Black Emerging Adults’ Experiences of Intergenerational and Bidirectional Racial Socialization. Journal of Black Psychology, 0(0).

Taylor Braswell

  • Braswell, T. H. (2026). Urban-rural institutional conflict and the state scalar division of labour in suburban infrastructure provision. Territory, Politics, Governance, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2026.2624494
  • Braswell, T. H. (2022). Extended Spaces of Environmental Injustice: Hydrocarbon Pipelines in the Age of Planetary Urbanization. Social Forces, 100(3), 1025–1052, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soab040
  • Prener, C. G., Braswell, T. H., & Monti, D. J. (2020). St. Louis’s “urban prairie”: Vacant land and the potential for revitalization. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(3), 371–389. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.1474079

Jennifer Carroll

  • Jennifer J. Carroll, Alejandra Salemi, Bayla Ostrach, Taleed El-Sabawi, Brandon Morrissey, Sarah Dixon, Roxanne Saucier (2026). ’If you’re willing to work…we can work with you’: obligatory labor at residential substance use service providers in North Carolina. Substance Use and Misuse. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10826084.2025.261142
  • Jennifer J. Carroll, Nabarun Dasgupta, Bayla Ostrach, Taleed El-Sabawi, Sarah Dixon, Brandon Morrissey, Roxanne Saucier (2024). Evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder is widely unavailable and often discouraged by providers of residential substance use services in North Carolina. Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment, 107. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949875924001863
  • Brandon Morrissey, Taleed El-Sabawi, Jennifer J. Carroll (2024). Prosecuting Overdose: An Exploratory Study of Prosecutorial Motivations for Drug Induced Homicide Prosecutions in North Carolina. International Journal of Drug Policy, 125: 104344. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095539592400029X

Tony Chamoun

Martha Crowley

  • Crowley, Martha, Vincent J. Roscigno, and Jill Yavorsky. Forthcoming. Workplace Injustice and Inequality Beliefs. Social Problems.
  • Crowley, Martha, Julianne Payne and Earl Kennedy (2020). Manufacturing Discontent: The Labor Process, Job Insecurity and the Making of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Workers. Research in the Sociology of Work 34:221-247.
  • Crowley, Martha and Kevin Stainback (2019). Retail Sector Concentration, Local Economic Structure, and Community Well-being. Annual Review of Sociology 45:321-343..

Andrew Davis

  • Davis, A. P., & Vila-Henninger, L. (2021). Charismatic authority and fractured polities: A cross-national analysis. British Journal of Sociology.
  • Davis, A. P., Gibson-Light, M., Pfaffendorf, J., & Alberg, C. (2025). Incarceration, stigma, and labor power: The prison as labor governance institution in 36 OECD countries. Social Science Research.
  • Davis, A. P., & Johnstonbaugh, M. (2024). Safe at home? Examining the extension of criminal penalties for marital rape in cross-national context, 1979–2013. Law & Society Review

Stacy De Coster

Laura DeMarco

Michaela DeSoucey

  • Michaela DeSoucey (2016). Contested Tastes: Foie Gras and the Politics of Food. Princeton University Press..
  • Michaela DeSoucey and Miranda Waggoner (2022). Another Person’s Peril: Peanut Allergy, Risk Perceptions, and Responsible Sociality. American Sociological Review. 87(1): 50-79.
  • Michaela DeSoucey.(2010) “Gastronationalism: Food Traditions and Authenticity Politics in the European Union. American Sociological Review 75(3): 432-455

Christian Doll

Chelsey Dyer

  • Dyer, C. (2024). Latin American Solidarity in Changing Times. Anthropology News. https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/latin-american-solidarity-in-changing-times/
  • Dyer, C., (2022). COVID-19, Affect, and Activist Anthropology. Collaborative Anthropologies, 15(1), 102-126. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cla.2022.a936635.
  • Dyer, C., (2019). Colombia’s War of Neoliberal Economics. March 7 https://nacla.org/news/2019/03/07/colombia%E2%80%99s-war-neoliberal-economics

Kim Ebert

  • Kim Ebert, Ideological Legitimacy, Color-blindness, and Racially Conservative Organizations, Social Problems, Volume 68, Issue 1, February 2021, Pages 19–40, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz053.
  • Ebert, K., Liao, W., & Estrada, E. P. (2020). Apathy and Color-Blindness in Privatized Immigration Control. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 6(4), 533-547.
  • Brooks, E., Ebert, K., & Flockhart, T. (2017). Examining the Reach of Color Blindness: Ideological Flexibility, Frame Alignment, and Legitimacy among Racially Conservative and Extremist Organizations. The Sociological Quarterly, 58(2), 254–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2017.1296340

April Fernandes

  • Fernandes, A. D., Friedman, B., & Kirk-Werner, G. M. (2025) Civil Lawfare, Social Problems, Volume 73, Issue 2, May 2026, Pages 444–464, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaf005
  • Friedman, B., Fernandes, A.D., & Kirk-Werner, G. (2024) “Economies of Violence: Pay-to-Stay, Rent-Seeking, and the Value of Incarcerated Bodies.” Consuming Bodies: Body Commodification and Embodiment in Late Capitalist Societies. Edited by Jackie Hogan, Fae Chubin, and Sarah Whetstone. Routledge Press, New York
  • Friedman, B., Fernandes, A.D., & Kirk-Werner, G. (2024). ” Reforming the Shadow Carceral State.” Special Issue: Dismantling the Shadow Carceral State. Edited by Brittany Friedman, April D. Fernandes, & Gabriela Kirk-Werner. Theoretical Criminology, Vol.28(4), 437-458. DOI:10.1177/136248066241285425

Kathryn Grossman

Claudia Gastrow

Nora Haenn

  • Haenn, N. (2023) “Love, Money, and a Secret Divorce: Patriarchy and Senior Women’s Care-giving inMexican Migration”. Insights on Latin America and the Caribbean: An Ethnographic Reader. M.Medeiros and J. Guzman, eds. Toronto: U of Toronto Press.
  • Siegelman, B.,* N. Haenn and X. Basurto (2019) “‘Lies Build Trust’: Social Capital, Masculinity, and Natural Resource Management in a Mexican Fishing Cooperative.” World Development. Vol 123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.05.031
  • Schmook, B., N. Haenn, C. Radel, and S. Navarro-Olmedo (2018) “Empowering Women?: Conditional Cash Transfers and the Patriarchal State in Calakmul, Mexico.” Money from the government in Latin America: social cash transfer policies and rural lives. Edited by E. Balen and M. Fotta. Pp.97-113. New York: Routledge Press.

Marbella Hill

  • Cayce Hughes, Simon Fern, Marbella E. Hill, and Rachel Kimbro (2025). “Place, History, and Food Apartheid: Reframing How Low-Income Black Mothers Make Ends Meet” Forthcoming in The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
  • Hill, Marbella E., Simon Fern, Rachel Kimbro, and Cayce Hughes (2024). “Mothering Through Food: Low-Income Single Mothers and the Embodiment of Provisional Motherhood Identities” Journal of Marriage and Family Tuthill,
  • Zelma and Marbella E. Hill (2024). “Shouldering the Double-Burden of Homophobia and Racism Alone: Challenges to Seeking Social Support and Finding Community Among Sexual Minorities of Color” Sociological Focus

Kevin Kiley

  • Kiley, Kevin and Stephen Vaisey. 2020. “Measuring Stability and Change in Personal Culture Using Panel Data.” American Sociological Review 85(3). 477-506.
  • Shi, Yongren, Kevin Kiley, and Freda B. Lynn. 2025. “Beyond statistical variables: Examining the duality of persons and groups in structuring cultural space.” Poetics 108.
  • Keskintürk, Turgut, Kevin Kiley, and Stephen Vaisey. 2025. “What Are You Talking about? Discussion Frequency of Issues Captured in Common Survey Questions.” Sociological Science 12: 256-276.

Katherine Kinkopf

Andrea Leverentz

Anna Manzoni

  • Leppard, T. R., & Manzoni, A. (2025, December 31). Bonding ties that get ahead?: family social capital and early occupational attainment. Journal of Youth Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2025.2603380 https://ci.lib.ncsu.edu/citations/1434352
  • Bertogg, A., & Manzoni, A. (2025, December 8). Intergenerational Support and Later Life Health: Associations by Role, Type and Direction of Support. Journal of Marriage and the Family. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.70049 https://ci.lib.ncsu.edu/citations/1432680.
  • Jane Lee, B.-H., & Manzoni, A. (2024). Women’s Configurations of Family, Work, and Education: Mapping Diverse Pathways Throughout Adulthood. Social Currents, 11(1), 80-99. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294965231201373

Steve McDonald

  • McDonald, Steve, Damarin, Amanda K. and Membrez-Weiler, Nicholas. 2023. “Organizational Perspectives on Digital Labor Market Intermediaries.” Sociology Compass 17(4): e13061. DOI: 10.1111/soc4.13061.
  • McDonald, Steve, Damarin, Amanda K., McQueen, Hannah, and Grether, Scott. 2022. “The Hunt for Red Flags: Cybervetting as Morally Performative Practice.” Socio-Economic Review 20(3):915- 936.
  • Wilcox, Annika, McDonald, Steve, Benton, Richard, and Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald. 2022. “Gender Inequality in Relational Position-Taking: An Analysis of Intra-Organizational Job Mobility Networks” Social Science Research 101:102622. doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2021.102622..

Dru McGill

  • McGill, D. (2014). Insights from the Analysis of Angel Mounds Pottery Trowels. Southeastern Archaeology Winter 2014 33(2): 189-205.
  • McGill, D. (2014) .Ethics in Archaeology, in Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, edited by Claire Smith. Springer, New York.
  • McGill, D. (2014). Archaeological Stewardship, (with Julie Hollowell) in Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, edited by Claire Smith. Springer, New York.

John Millhauser

Melvin Thomas

Christian Doll

Jessica Pfaffendorf

  • Pfaffendorf, J and Hill, T. Forthcoming. From Compensation to Capitulation: Examining Masculinity Threat and Masculine Disinvestment in the United States. Social Problems.
  • Pfaffendorf, J. and Hill, T. (2025). Strategic Masculine Disinvestment: Understanding Contemporary Transformations of Masculinity and Their Psychosocial Implications. Sex Roles 91(1):5. •
  • Andrew P., Pfaffendorf, J. and Hill, T. (2025).. “es, You Can’t! A MultiMethod Examination of Publishing Null Findings in Sociological Research. Sociology Compass 19(8):70104.

Virginia Riel

  • Riel, Virginia (2022). Building Expectations and Keeping Customers Happy: How Personnel Recruit and Retain Families in Three Charter Schools. The Sociological Quarterly 63(2):296-315. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2020.1817811
  • Riel, V. and Ball, O. (2025). Serendipity or Strategy? The College Housing Search and Inequality. Sociological Forum 40(4):481-496. http://doi.org/10.1111/socf.13061
  • Riel, Virginia (2026). ‘You Only Get One Shot with Your Kid’s Education’: Examining Mothers’ Involvement in K-12 Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Sociological Focus 59(1):32-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2025.2589480

Thomas Shriver

  • “Barriers to Hurricane Recovery in Frontline Communities: Climate Injustice on Florida’s West Coast.” Isabel Yianilos, Alison E. Adams, and Thomas E. Shriver. Forthcoming in Environmental Justice. (2025)
  • “Framing Environmental Risk Around Chemical Weapons Disposal: The Case of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Demilitarization Program.” Landen Longest, Alison E. Adams, Thomas E. Shriver, Laura Bray, Brittany V. Gaustad Shantz. Society and Natural Resources 38(2): 132-149. (2026)
  • “The Impacts of Landscape Loss on Industrial Communities: Solastalgia in Historic Coal Regions.” Alison E. Adams and Thomas E. Shriver. Social Currents 11(5): 422-436.(2024).

Julie Wesp