Economic Sociology Program (ESP)
MIT Sloan's Economic Sociology (ESP) is a new PhD concentration aimed at training scholars who conduct leading-edge research that applies sociological tools and concepts to gain a deeper understanding of organizations and the economy. The program reflects the confluence of two trends that have gained increasing salience over the past twenty years:
- the increasing demand in business schools for faculty with sociological training; and
- the rapid growth of economic sociology as a sub discipline of sociology.
Each of these trends represents the growing recognition that the sociological conception of the economy sheds unique light on economic processes. And yet the increasing demand for economic sociology has not been met with a corresponding increase in supply. ESP is designed to help fill this gap.
Note to potential applicants: An excellent way of deciding whether to apply to the ESP is by reading articles in top sociology journals (e.g., American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology) and secondarily at top journals in organizations and management (e.g., Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science), especially those authored by ESP faculty, and deciding whether you want to write articles like these.
Visit the Economic Sociology homepage.
History, Anthropology, Science, Technology & Society Program (HASTS)
MITs Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS) trains scholars to study science and technology as activities situated in social and cultural contexts. HASTS faculty examine expert as well as popular engagement with the processes and products of technological and scientific work, and conduct research across a spectrum of geographical areas and historical periods.
HASTS faculty and students employ historical, ethnographic, and sociological methods and theories to investigate a wide range of topics, including:
- cultures of engineering
- the making of scientific tools and theories
- conventions of laboratory practice
- science and technology in military enterprise
- the relation of technology to economic institutions
- the relation of science and law
- the politics of race and science
- knowledge-production in biomedicine and life sciences
- agricultural and environmental history
- science education