Dr. Robert Wallace
Professor of Sociology
Phone: (325) 793-3895
Email: rwallace @ mcm.edu
Listen to Dr. Wallace on the radio show “The Professors”

M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University, New York
M.G.S., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
B.S., Texas Tech University

Dr. Wallace will be on sabbatical during the Fall 2008 semester.

I came to McMurry in the fall of 1990. My initial scholarship began in the field of social gerontology and shifted when doing Ph.D. work to the sociology of knowledge and the history of sociology. These interests still attract my attention, but it was while teaching at McMurry that my research areas intersected with my  curricular responsibilities. The more I taught social stratification, the more I became intrigued with the theoretical and empirical questions it generated. In particular, I have been most concerned with the impact of social class on life chances. For the past few years, I have coordinated a paper session, “Class and Mobility,” at the annual Southwestern Social Science Association meetings.  I am currently examining the extent to which we can speak of distinct “class cultures.” For instance, are there different cultural orientations among the working, middle, and upper classes?  At this time, the answer to this question is Yes. The upper class cultural orientation is dominated by a norm of exclusivity.  The middle class culture is much more concerned with comparison, while the working strata operate more with a pragmatic disposition. So far, my research suggests that these differing class cultures are influential across a number of social factors like family strategies, occupational considerations, educational aspirations, and consumption patterns.