Thesis Requirement

We encourage students to begin thinking about their area of specialization as soon as they
enter the program and to begin to formulate a thesis project by their second semester in
the program. This allows students to choose courses that are relevant to their thesis work.
Over the summer between their first and second years in the program, students are urged
to either take a relevant course(s) or do independent work on developing a bibliography
for their topic. For many of our students, the following fall, their third semester, is their
last in the program. During this third semester, most students take the Thesis Seminar
(SOED-GE 2510). We encourage students to start the class with a thesis topic and
preliminary bibliography. The class is devoted to narrowing and developing the topic and
drafting or beginning to draft the thesis.

Each student must identify during the second semester, the summer, or early in the next
fall, a faculty member who will be the prime sponsor of their thesis work. Usually this is
a program-affiliated faculty member, but not always. Students can choose a non-program
faculty member who has the necessary expertise.

Our goal for the thesis requirement is for students to produce a document that establishes
their scholarly abilities and can be the foundation of work they may complete as
professional researchers or may pursue in further depth eventually as doctoral students.
Our expectation is that students become an expert on the sociological literature on
their topic, and this requires a careful delineation of the topic so that the parameters are
realistic. The thesis that students produce can take two forms. The model that most of
our students follow is a publishable-quality document of 30 to 75 pages in length that
is a secondary review or analysis of some area of the sociology of education literature.
Some students, however, choose a second model: a thesis based on original research. This
document, which reports findings from primary research and includes a review of the
relevant scholarly literature, may be somewhat longer: 40 to 100 pages in length. Some
students choose to use previously-gathered data sets and to do their own analysis of these
data. Some choose to gather their own qualitative data. For this, students must apply for
either exemption or approval from NYU’s IRB, the University Committee on Activities
Involving Human Subjects (UCAIHS). UCAIHS review can take a number of months,
so students must begin this process during their second semester in our program. Some
of the students who have chosen to conduct original research for their thesis stay in the
program for a fourth regular semester to finish their work.

All students do an oral presentation of their thesis work. We hold public sessions each
year during which students deliver a 10-15 minute oral summary of their thesis work and
faculty and students have the opportunity to engage in a brief discussion of the work.