An enthusiastic professor, administrator and researcher with the College of Arts and Science, Harley Dickinson completed his Ph.D. in Sociology at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. Joining the University of Saskatchewan as an assistant professor of Sociology in 1983, Dickinson was granted tenure in 1985 and promoted to the rank of full professor in 1991.

With extensive teaching experience at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, Dickinson was appointed Associate Dean, Social Sciences, in 2008. He has also served for five years as Head of the Department of Sociology, as well as several years as Director of the Social Research Unit.

Dickinson believes the College of Arts and Science’s dynamic environment provides many opportunities to be engaged and creative, and he finds great satisfaction in helping build new opportunities for both faculty and students.

Courses SOC 891.3– Theory & Method of Social Analysis

                 SOC 420/820.3– Medical Sociology 

                 SOC 303.6– History of Sociological Theory                 

                 SOC 398.3– Mixed Methods Research for Social Sciences

Health Care Higher Education Knowledge Systems Reflexive Modernization Sociological Theory

Knowledge, particularly research knowledge, its production, communication and use in different professional and institutional contexts is the focus of my research.  More concretely, I have explore knowledge systems processes and their effects in the context of mental health care and psychiatry, health care systems and medicine, the family, and most recently higher education systems and institutions. 

I currently am developing and using a theory of reflexive modernization in my research and scholarship. This theory is based on a synthesis of theories by Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Jürgen Habermas, and other sociological theorists of contemporary modernization/anti-modernization processes and their effects.