Ph.D. Degree in Sociology
A total of 42 credit hours is required beyond the master's degree: at least 30 hours of graded graduate course work (including at least three additional credit hours in advanced methods training beyond the Master's level core requirements) and up to 12 hours of thesis guidance. Unless taken during the master's program in the Department of Sociology at UB, PhD course work must also include the required Sociology core courses (or their equivalent): two courses in statistics, one course in methods, and two courses in theory. These 15 hours of core graduate course requirements (unless they are waived, see the Handbook for details) in addition to the 42 graduate credit hours required for the PhD. A minimum grade of B must be earned in required courses. In addition, a cumulative grade point average of 3.2 in all course work and a residency requirement of 24 credit hours must be met.
For completion of the PhD degree, students must pass a qualifying paper written under the guidance of two Department regular faculty. The qualifying paper, which should be completed by the end of the second year in the PhD program, is expected to demonstrate mastery through an overview, integration, and critical evaluation of theory, methods, and research in a substantive area of sociological inquiry.
All students must also conduct research, write up, and successfully defend a dissertation that demonstrates independent scholarship and which makes a contribution to the discipline. They are expected to defend a dissertation prospectus that outlines their planned research and to initiate work on a dissertation topic under the guidance of their dissertation director and committee, usually during the second or third year in the PhD program. Most students are able to complete the dissertation the following year.