Sociology > Programs > Graduate > PhD Requirements > International, Comparative, and Asian Societies
The International,
Comparative, and Asian Societies
(ICAS) program provides broad and in-depth training in rigorous comparative
studies of social institutions and social change with a heavy focus on
China, Taiwan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Japan, and other non-U.S. societies
in a global context. Faculty in this program conduct research on a variety
of historical and contemporary sociological issues such as rapid fertility
decline in Mongolia and the marriage market in China, the characteristics,
conditions, and consequences of Shanghai as a rising global city, the
rebuilding of a local Philippine communities after a disastrous earthquake,
the impact of recent immigrants on American institutions in Chicago, the
impact of social and economic change on family relationships and gender
stratification in urban China, and structural sources of ethnic, gender,
and socioeconomic inequality in the labor market and the status of immigrants
in the Israeli housing and labor markets. The program benefits from contact
with a growing number of international and Asian Studies faculty in Anthropology, Asian
American Studies, Latin American
and Latino Studies, Economics, History, and Political Science at UIC.