Michael Kleiman
Associate Professor
Contact
Office: CPR 234
Phone: 813/974-2604
Email:
Links
Personal Bio
My interest in sociology began, and continues, with an interest in people and how they construct their worlds. Humans are intriguing because two people, looking at the same set of facts, can construct two completely different explanations. Each of the two then becomes convinced that his or her view is the correct one, and the other person is wrong. When I was an undergraduate, trying to pick my major, that fascinated me and I wanted to know more about how that could happen, and what the sociological processes are that shape it. I also knew that this would be an important area of study because it has lots of practical implications, since all human interaction, everything from marketing, to politics, to interpersonal relationships, depends on it.
As I continued my studies in graduate school, this interest led me to focus in several areas. I began to work with large public opinion polls because those allowed me to see what different groups of people think on important issues. Most of my published research over the years has used such data sets. Of course, to make sense of those polls, one needs skills in quantitative methods and statistics, which spurred an interest in those techniques. Knowledge of social psychology is also useful because that area of sociology helps us understand how the human mind works and processes information.
My doctoral dissertation opened yet another interest, namely medical sociology. The dissertation was a study of when, and why, people use health services. That topic intersected perfectly with my interests in social psychology and opinion formation, because there is a lot of psychology involved in how people interpret their own health. The medical sociology course I teach is one of my favorites because in that class, we look at how and why people go on diets, why they do or don't take care of their health, and how the media shape our understanding of medical issues.
In my teaching and research, I try to focus on things that students can use in their everyday lives. Abstract theories and complicated studies are fine for scholars, but I want to make them come alive for my students in ways they can actually use. In my quantitative methods course, for instance, I try to show people how knowing methods can help them see through marketing materials better, or understand findings they see reported in the news or in magazines. In the medical sociology course, I want people to learn how to sift through the mass of medical information and sort out the good from the bad, so that they can better protect their own health. In my social psychology course, I try to emphasize the information that will help people get along better with friends, colleagues at work, or family members. I strongly believe that I will have done my job as a sociologist if the students who take my courses, and the people who read my research, become more successful and happy in their daily lives because of the information I taught them.
Education
Ph.D.,Pennsylvania State University, 1979
Current Courses