Can you work at a Community College in Canada or the US with an MA in Sociology?

[Plou]

I am curious about whether you can get a job as a professor with a MA in Sociology at colleges in Canada or the US? Or is it necessary to get a PhD to teach college level sociology?

[MsDarjeeling]

Community colleges in the United States do hire professors with just Master's degrees as their institutions are generally not research focused and the highest degree available is an Associate's.  Some private four year Universities also hire professors with just Master's degrees as well, it really depends on the needs/goals of the department.

[TakeruK]

Community colleges in the US are usually just called "colleges" in Canada (while "university" is the same as "university" or "college" in the US). These colleges sometimes only offer 2-year associate degrees (students interested in a Bachelors would transfer after 2 years to a university) but more and more of them are starting to offer 4-year BA/BSc degrees. I think by law, you have to offer a certain number of Bachelor degree programs before you can be a "university", so some of these colleges have now "upgraded" or "rebranded" themselves. However, the main difference between them and a "traditional" university is that they are much more teaching oriented than research oriented.

 

The minimum requirement for most of these colleges is a Masters degree. But, I think the general trend is that now the market is "saturated" with PhDs so from looking at some Sociology departments at colleges near my  hometown, I see that there are more and more PhDs being hired. I also get the sense that the younger faculty all have PhDs and it's mostly the ones hired a decade or more ago that have Masters only. I think this is a trend common across all fields in Canada actually, and it's something I'm interested in because it's a possible career path for me!

 

Here are faculty pages for two Sociology departments: http://www.kwantlen.ca/arts/sociology/faculty.html and http://www.langara.bc.ca/departments/sociology-anthropology/sociology/faculty.html You can see that not everyone has a PhD, but I think you would be much more competitive for a job if you had a PhD. Also, I don't think a PhD is a "shoe-in" for the job either -- I would say that it is important to develop your teaching portfolio and experience during grad school, especially if you are at a very research heavy school.

Edited August 4, 2013 by TakeruK

[gilbertrollins]

Two-time community college attender here -- yes, a solid portion of community college instructors are MAs in the U.S.