Urban Sociology - Universiteit van Amsterdam

Cities are known from time immemorial as centres of social and cultural innovation. Because of their high population density and social and cultural heterogeneity, cities form a fascinating field for sociological research. Cities can be viewed as unique social laboratoria, where an enormous variety of human groups and life styles can be observed. Within cities, internationally oriented cosmopolitan centres are located near inward-looking ‘urban villages’, and members of diverse subcultures are continuously confronted with each other. Against this background, Urban Sociology students study the tensions between the public space and the private domain, and the ways local governments try to control these tensions. Urban Sociology deals with the history of cities, particularly the way in which the built environment, but also the social, political and economic environments, formed its specific structures over the course of time and how this impacted on city dwellers’ everyday lives, and—vice versa—how city dwellers leave their mark on these structures.

Urban Sociology provides students with thorough knowledge of urban processes and forms, by studying key work studies and theories in urban sociology and related disciplines. Students will learn to identify the unique set of processes found in world cities that result in new patterns of inequality and how governments in Europe and North America have devised new strategies and techniques to regulate these inequalities.

For students interested in this field of study, we also offer a two-year Research Master’s.