Teaching Assistant Positions Available 2025-2026 Academic Year
The Department of Sociology has Teaching Assistantships available in the following courses for 2025-2026 academic year. TAships are filled according to Group Preferences set out in the Collective Agreement between Queen’s University and the Public Service Alliance of Canada
Applications are due no later than Friday July 18, 2025.
Responsibilities
The teaching assistant duties include but are not limited to grading assignments, attending lectures and tutorials in person, office hours with students, and answering emails. More specific expectations will be covered at the beginning of the term.
SOCY 100 Perspectives in Sociology |Fall Term
This course introduces students to foundational and contemporary perspectives in Sociology. Students will learn to develop and use their sociological imagination. Major classical sociological perspectives are explored and then questioned and challenged. We focus on critical analysis, anti-oppressive frameworks, and inclusive pedagogy, to develop a more comprehensive sociological understanding. Different perspectives are applied to culture, social structure, social institutions, social control, inequality, and resistance. Sociological methods, methodologies, and research tools are introduced.
SOCY 101 Major Themes in Sociology | Winter Term
This course uses sociological perspectives to examine major processes, practices, and institutions shaping the social world. Social stratification, inequalities, identities, and justice, and the social world as structured by class, gender, sexuality, race, disability and poverty, are explored. Institutions, dimensions, and practices shaping social life are explored, such as nationalism, social movements, the state; the family, education, the media; work and labour, health and illness, crime, sport, urbanization and environment. Students also consider forms of public sociology and engagement.
SOCY 200 Sociology of Health and Illness | Fall Term
This course explores the sociological dimensions affecting the meaning and experience of health and illness in contemporary society. Topics include policy, professionalization, medicalization, mental health, inequalities, bioethics, and globalization.
SOCY 201 Introduction to Criminology | Fall Term
Explores a range of issues in contemporary sociology. Topics may vary from year to year. See the departmental website for further details.
SOCY 205 Migration and Mobilities | Fall Term
This course critically examines migration as a complex, global phenomenon shaped by race, gender, class, dis/ability, and environmental factors. We study who moves, who cannot, and who is undesired to move, analyzing refugees, labor, and environmental migrants. Topics include biopolitics of mobility, settler colonialism, globalization, and digitalization. Through historical and contemporary perspectives, students will explore migration's ethical, political, and sociological dimensions, and how it's represented in popular culture and theory.
SOCY 210 Social Research Methods | Fall Term
Examination of relationship between sociological theory and methods of social research; topics include logic of research, hypothesis formulation, and variables and their operationalization.
SOCY 211 Introduction to Statistics | Winter Term
Introduces descriptive and inferential statistics and data analysis strategies. Topics include probability, correlation/regression, experimental design and analysis of variance. Online learning and weekly laboratories provide practice in computation, interpretation and communication of statistical findings, and large class review sessions and individual drop in assistance ensure mastery. Applications appropriate to different fields of study will be explored.
SOCY 225 Sociology of Globalization | Fall Term
An introduction to recent sociological debates on the emergence of a global economy and society, and its impact on different parts of the world.
SOCY 226 Central Concepts in Sociological Theory | Fall Term
A discussion of the central concepts in sociological theory, for example, agency and structure; rationality, reason, and abstraction; social continuity and social change; subjectivity and selfhood; language and interpretation are normally considered.
SOCY 227 Theorizing Contemporary Society| Winter Term
A discussion of theoretical frameworks for understanding contemporary societies. The course will normally cover capitalism and economy; globalization and post-colonialism; identity, politics, and social movements; science, technology, and environmentalism; consumerism and urban life.
SOCY 235 Race and Racialization | Winter Term
Concept and meaning of race, racism, and racialization; ethnicity; processes, policies, and practices of differentiation; the impact of racism and discrimination on various populations; intersections of race, ethnicity, class and gender.
SOCY 275 Theories of Deviance and Social Control | Winter Term
This course focuses on the theoretical foundation examining the process by which activities are defined as deviant: such activities as 'sexual deviance', 'mental illness', and 'political deviance'. The major etiological approaches to the study of deviants are also considered.
SOCY 284 Introduction to Digital Sociology | Fall Term
This course introduces students to the field of Digital Sociology. By critically engaging theoretical frameworks and empirical studies, students will learn how pervasive digitization in contemporary societies shapes longstanding sociological concerns like power, inequality, culture, work, communities, and more.
SOCY 301-001 Gender & Contemporary Society Winter Term
This course examines the central debates, concepts and questions that have preoccupied scholars in the subfield, sociology of sex and gender, over the past three decades. Broadly, sociologists have been concerned with asking, what is gender, where does it come from, what does it do (e.g., to identity and society), what are its consequences, and what can people do to navigate its impact. These overarching questions undergird several important debates in the subfield, which we will explore in depth within this course: the concern with gendered gaps (e.g., in wages, in orgasms, in penalties for parenthood), the preoccupation with better understanding agency (is compliance agentic? Are Muslim women agentic?); the challenge of embracing intersectionality as a framework (e.g., how do we mobilize this concept in empirical research?); the impact of privilege on social inequalities (e.g., hybrid masculinity; hegemonic femininity); mechanisms of inequality’s reproduction (e.g., gaslighting, stigma, the glass ceiling); and the challenges the subfield faces in the present moment (e.g., from fascism and genderism). Students will also have the opportunity to develop and pursue their own interests in relation with this broad interdisciplinary topic in sociology via group work and a term paper."
SOCY 301-002 Environmental Sociology | Winter Term
This course introduces key debates in environmental sociology, examining how environmental issues are shaped by intersecting social, economic, and political systems. Through case studies on Canadian resource extraction and energy transition imaginaries, students will analyze how power and inequality influence environmental harm, and the responses proposed to address it"
SOCY 301-003 Disability and Society | Winter Term
This course is an intermediate introduction to the sociology of disability. Students will connect with the larger, interdisciplinary space of disability studies, exploring disability as a cultural and political object. Course themes include disability and social inequality, the politics of charity and rehabilitation, education and accessibility, identity and difference within the disability category, activism and public policy, and global perspectives on disability. Students will leave the course with an understanding of disability models and terminology, the major debates in social science disability research, and the ability to apply course concepts in writing."
SOCY 302 Selected Topics in Socio-legal Studies | Fall Term
This course will provide you with an overview of the institutions, strategies, and practices of policing in Canada and other parts of the world. Historical foundations, present realities, and future trajectories of policing will be discussed in relation to their broader social, political, and economic contexts from the perspectives of various key scholars, including critical reflections on strengths, shortcomings, and future directions of Canadian policing."
SOCY 305 Sociology of Professions | Winter Term
This course offers an introduction to theories and empirical studies of professions and occupations. Using case studies of lawyers, physicians, engineers, scientists, accountants, social workers, and other occupations, this course examines historical change, social structure, market competition, hiring, career advancement, workplace interaction and culture, job satisfaction, work-life balance, demographic diversity, social service, professional ethics, retirement and other aspects of professions from the late nineteenth century to the age of globalization and digitization.
SOCY 306 Consumer Culture | Fall Term
A comprehensive introduction to the major theories and empirical studies of consumer culture with emphasis upon the historical, socioeconomic, and cultural aspects of consumption in sociological context; substantive focus upon diverse topics such as food, tourism, the home, children, and marketing.
SOCY 315 Algorithmic Cultures and Digital Justice | Winter Term
This course examines how algorithms and digital technologies reshape social behaviors and cultural norms, focusing on how race, class, gender, and disability intersect with algorithmic decision-making. Students will analyze how algorithms impact daily life, reinforcing or challenging inequalities, and explore the ethical implications for marginalized communities. Through contemporary issues in surveillance, criminal justice, and digital justice, the course addresses the socio-cultural consequences of an algorithm-driven world.
SOCY 384 Women and Reproduction Technology | Fall Term
Critical study of historical development of scientific and medical establishments with specific focus upon women; legal, ethical, and economic issues related to new reproductive technologies examined.
SOCY 388 Sociology of Criminal Justice | Fall Term
Comparative examination of criminal justice system and its major institutions; Canadian research emphasized.
SOCY 389 Gender and Crime | Fall Term
This course examines gender differences in offending, victimization, and criminal justice processing. The course starts by critically examining the extent and distribution of crime. Next, we study the sociological explanations of gender differences in criminal behavior. We explore gang-related crime, domestic violence, homicide and femicide, criminal harassment, sexual assault, human trafficking, and prostitution. Finally, this course investigates gender in relation to courts and sentencing, incarceration, community corrections, and pathways out of crime.
Teaching Assistantships are filled according to Group Preferences set out in the Collective Agreement between Queen’s University and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC 901
First Preference – Group A
Is for qualified graduate students for whom the TAship has been granted as part of the funding commitment offered by the Employer registered as:
- students in a department or program or Faculty in which the TAship will be offered; or
- students in an interdisciplinary program with TA budget resources.
Second Preference – Group B
Is for qualified full-time graduate students for whom there is no funding commitment offered by the Employer and who are registered as:
- students in a department or program or Faculty in which the TAship will be offered; or
- students in an interdisciplinary program with TA budget resources.
Third Preference – Group C
Is for qualified graduate students for whom the TAship will not form part of the funding commitment offered by the Employer and who are registered as:
- students in a department or program or Faculty in which the TAship will be offered; or
- students in an interdisciplinary program with TA budget resources.
Fourth Preference – Group D
Is for qualified graduate students that have previously held a TAship or TFship for the Employer.
Fifth Preference – Group E
Is for qualified graduate students that have not met the criteria as set out in 12.04 A, B, C, or D.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Applications are being accepted immediately and are due no later than Friday July 18, 2025. Please ensure you indicate which applicant group you are in.
Group A, B, and C Applicants who are registered in a Sociology Graduate Program
Please complete and submit the indicating course preferences.
Group A, B, and C Applicants who are NOT registered in a Sociology Graduate Program
Please complete and submit the . In addition, submit a cover letter and curriculum vitae outlining academic accomplishments and relevant to Celina Caswell at socygrad@queensu.ca. Please note that incomplete applications will not be considered.
Groups D and E Applicants
Please complete and submit the . In addition, submit a cover letter and curriculum vitae outlining academic accomplishments and relevant to Celina Caswell at socygrad@queensu.ca. Please note that incomplete applications will not be considered.
POSITION POSTING PDF
Posted: July 7, 2025