Leading Scholars Come to UTM to Discuss Today’s Social Challenges

The Department of Sociology is in full swing with its 2025-26 Speaker Series, featuring thought-provoking talks on everything from perceptions of class in Canada to the transition to adulthood, AI, social media, and hate speech. The series invites faculty, students, staff, and community members to campus to hear from leading sociologists on a variety of issues with broad appeal. 

With support from the Office of the Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs and legwork by former acting chair Josée Johnston, associate chair Jayne Baker, and the organizing committee, the series brings in scholars who are working on cutting-edge research. Its goal is to showcase what strong, theoretically motivated, and empirically grounded sociology looks like — especially for students learning these research methods.

This year’s guest lecturers are top experts from three different fields of sociology. They’re asking: 

Does class still matter in Canada?

What’s delaying marriage and unions across sub-Saharan Africa?

Do automated systems that screen online content protect people from hate speech?

“These are subjects that resonate,” says David Pettinicchio, Associate Professor and the Department’s Interim Chair. “Sociology provides a framework — both theoretical and empirical — to think about things that affect people’s everyday lives, to see the broader patterns beyond your own experiences.” 

“It helps you move beyond the anecdote to see the bigger picture.”

Bridging real-world challenges with sociological insights — and showing how scholars get there — is more important than ever.

Pettinicchio notes that audiences are especially interested in seeing sociological methods in practice. Though the talks are designed for the general public, they also showcase diverse approaches to conducting research — from big data and computational methods to surveys and qualitative and mixed-methods.

“There’s this impression that people won’t want to hear about methodology, that it’s boring,” he says. “But the audience really perks up when they hear what kinds of methodological tools sociologists use, what goes into collecting data, and why researchers go through such painstaking efforts to make sure the data is solid so that we can use it.”

In November, the series featured Dr. Michelle Maroto, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta and Co-Director of the Transforming Research for Social Impact Hub. Maroto’s dataset on class perceptions is the largest of its kind; she spoke on our understanding of social class and what it means today in diverse, post-industrial societies like Canada. 

On January 26, the series will welcome Dr. Luca Maria Pesando, Associate Professor of Social Research and Public Policy at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYU-AD). He’ll adopt a mixed-methods approach, presenting comparative trends and a case study from Senegal that explores what the transition from teenager to adult looks in sub-Saharan Africa.

Then on March 16, Dr. Thomas Davidson, Assistant Professor at Rutgers University will deliver his lecture, “Hate Speech in Context: A Sociological Approach to Online Content Moderation.” Davidson studies far-right activism, right-wing populism, and online hate speech using computational and statistical techniques.

“Today, we are such large consumers of data,” Pettinicchio points out. “We’re exposed to data. We are data. So, it’s more important than ever to develop an independent, critical eye for what makes data solid — and what makes it dubious — particularly for students who are beginning their careers and working on theoretically motivated and empirically-based research.”

Each lecture is followed by a graduate student masterclass, reinforcing the department’s commitment to fostering a vibrant research community.

“We want our graduate students to see themselves as a part of that community,” says Pettinicchio. “That’s a big motivation for this series.”