Are postdoctoral positions another stage in the sociology pipeline?

Are sociology PhDs seeking postdoctoral positions to become more competitive on the job market?  What have been the effects on your career of different types of postdocs including sociology, interdisciplinary, research, teaching?  Do you think that a postdoc is a necessary step in a PhD career trajectory?

View ASA’s latest data brief: Postdoctorates: Another Stage in the Sociology Pipeline?

Read and comment about this here at our blog site and view our latest data brief: Postdoctorates: Another Stage in the Sociology Pipeline?

Graduate students: How have you learned or adopted content and methods for becoming teachers of sociology concepts?

Our latest data brief–The “Down-the-Hall” Phenomenon: Preparing the Next Generation of Faculty to Use Innovative Pedagogy–examines how pedagogical knowledge is disseminated to future sociology faculty members. Looking at membership activity data for all 2012 graduate student subscribers to ASA’s online, peer-reviewed, digital Teaching Resources and Innovative Library in Sociology (TRAILS), we find that graduate students are almost twice as likely to subscribe to TRAILS when at least one faculty member from their academic department subscribes—other factors being equal. (Other characteristics–such as having a subscription to the ASA journal Teaching Sociology–have a demonstrated association with subscription to the digital library as well.) Such a finding suggests that sociology faculty play a significant role in generating awareness of teaching and learning activities to students—a process of socialization that has been referred to as the “down-the-hall” phenomenon.

If you are a current or former graduate student in sociology or a closely related discipline, how have you adopted or learned content and methods for teaching sociology concepts? Do your experiences echo or diverge from our latest research findings? We invite you to discuss this through your comments.

Resources for Careers Beyond Academia

Graduate students and recent graduates: we share with you a list of resources especially relevant to those at the Master’s and Doctoral level, courtesy of the American Sociological Association’s Sociological Practice listserv. These resources are particularly useful for those seeking or interested in careers outside of academia:

U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s New Pathways Program

Executive Order for the New Pathways Program took effect July 10, 2012: http://www.pmf.gov/news-events/new-pathways-programs.aspx. This program streamlines pathways to federal internships and opportunities for careers in the Federal government for students and recent graduates): http://www.usajobs.gov/StudentsAndGrads. The three programs of this New Pathways Program are:

1.  Federal Internship Program: http://www.opm.gov/HiringReform/Pathways/program/interns/
2. Recent Graduates Program: http://www.opm.gov/HiringReform/Pathways/program/graduates/
3. Presidential Management Fellows Program: http://www.pmf.gov/

Students interested in the Presidential Management Fellows Program should sign-up for the PMF listserv to receive updates on the eligibility and 2013 application cycle. They can subscribe by sending an email to listserv@listserv.opm.gov with “Subscribe PMF” in the body of the email.

Job Market for New Sociology PhDs Is on the Upswing

Are you a recent doctoral degree recipient in the sociology profession? What has been your experience with seeking positions at the assistant or open rank level? Have you interviewed for academic sociology positions whose preferred expertise differs from your area(s) of study?  Do your experiences match our findings? Share your thoughts and stimulate a discussion with others in the field through our blog.

 

Findings

Results from ASA’s fourth job market survey suggest that the job market for recently-graduated sociology PhDs is improving, with the number of available jobs approaching pre-Great Recession years. In 2011, we saw a larger number of open specialties being advertised in the ASA Job Bank than in 2010, and almost 90 percent of advertised positions were for assistant or open rank professorships. The 2011-2012 Job Bank survey also quantified the top five most-frequent and least-frequent advertised areas of specialization in position advertisements, and enumerated the types of non-sociology academic departments that advertised for sociologists in 2011.

The findings from the 2011-2012 study are cause for cautious optimism among new sociology PhDs, though we note that the “overhang” of unplaced or under-placed sociology scholars resulting from the Great Recession (since 2008) is likely to create challenging conditions for recently-graduated PhDs in the field.

Sociology as a Career: Listen to a Special Podcast!

Recently, College Funding Resource conducted an interview with Roberta Spalter-Roth, PhD–Director of the ASA Department of Research and Development. Listen as Dr. Spalter-Roth discusses what becoming a sociologist entails, and why she places this career field among the top 100 of the decade.

“Apps” for Sociology Research

We in the ASA Research and Development Department call your attention to Wiley Publishing’s free iPhone and iPad app, Sociology Spotlight, which allows users to view information about various sociology professional conferences, peer-reviewed journal abstracts, a sample of freely-available journal articles, and other material of interest. We invite our readers to discuss how they have used apps for mobile devices in their studies or research, including, for example, e-books. Students: to what extent have you used e-books in your coursework? Instructors, professors, researchers, and practitioners: to what extent have you assigned e-books in your courses or have you used information-gathering  smartphone apps?

ASA’s Bookstore offers a number of e-books, including a research brief published by the Research Department. ASA e-books are available to ASA members at a member price.

Experiences of Sociology Graduate Students with the Academic Job Market?

As the Research Department prepares to launch its latest survey of academic departments’ outcomes with search and interview processes for assistant and open rank faculty positions advertised in 2011, we welcome graduate or recent graduate students seeking jobs in academia to discuss their own experiences with search processes. For those who have sought positions within the past year, have they been predominantly at the assistant or open-rank level? Has a position for which you applied or interviewed been cancelled or suspended? If your training is in sociology, have you applied or interviewed for positions in academic departments outside of sociology? How closely have your areas of expertise matched the areas of specialization sought by the departments to which you’ve applied?

Several past research briefs and projects by the Research Department have surveyed the landscape of the academic job market and experiences with hiring assistant or open-rank level faculty, including our 2010 Job Bank Study. For the results from the first part of our latest Job Bank study (an audit of all positions posted in ASA’s Job Bank in 2011), click here.

 

What Do You Want to Know About Sociology Departments or Programs?

This year, the ASA Research Department will be conducting a new survey of sociology departments and programs. We are asking departments for their input as we begin drafting the 2012 questionnaire. What would you like to see addressed in the new survey? What are the issues that your department or program are currently facing? What information does the Dean want to know?

Please post your comments.

PhDs in the Job Market: Comparing Sociology With Other Disciplines

We began the new year with our annual study of the sociology job market. In this two-part study, we will first be looking at the number and types of jobs advertised through the ASA in 2011. Findings will be reported this year. For the second part of the study, we will be surveying departments that advertised assistant rank positions to determine how many searches were conducted and jobs were filled in 2011. Survey results will be reported this summer. (Findings from last year’s study is available on our website).

In the meantime, early data from this study was reported in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education article on job market trends in select disciplines. **Please note that you will need an account to view the article.

Looking for Data on Sociology?

Want to know how many bachelors degrees were awarded in sociology in 1990? Or maybe how sociology faculty salaries compare to political science? You can find this, and other data on sociology and social science degrees and enrollment, employment, funding, and sociology programs, as well as ASA membership on our Trend Data page. Links to similar datasets can be found on our Data Resources page.