Michael DeLand, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Sociology & Criminology

Michael DeLand is an ethnographer and sociologist specializing in the study of community, urban life, and situated encounters and interactions. His classes aim to sensitize students to the everyday ways people make sense together and, in doing so, build...

Read Full Biography
Michael DeLand, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Sociology & Criminology

Contact Information

  • Spring 2022
    Mondays & Wednesdays, 1-2 p.m.
    Fridays, 1-3 p.m.


  • (509) 313-5229

Education & Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D. in Sociology, University of California Los Angeles

MA in Sociology, University of California Los Angeles

BA in Sociology, University of California Los Angeles

Courses Taught

Sociology 101: Introduction to Sociology

Sociology 312: Contemporary Social Theory

Sociology 330: Society and the Individual

Sociology 350: Sociology of Deviant Behavior

Sociology 391: Advanced Seminar in Research and Theory

Sociology 397: Urban and Community Sociology

Honors 193: Spokane as Text

Michael DeLand is an ethnographer and sociologist specializing in the study of community, urban life, and situated encounters and interactions. His classes aim to sensitize students to the everyday ways people make sense together and, in doing so, build the social world that we take for granted. He loves helping students take a sociological microscope to their own lives and the world around them.

Dr. DeLand’s research explores the development and use of public spaces and parks. He has studied the historical and contemporary contingencies of flourishing communal life at public park basketball games in Los Angeles. His research has appeared in the Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, Law & Society Review, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, and Sociological Theory.