Department of Sociology

C. Margaret Hall was born and raised in Greater Manchester in the north of England. She studied sociology at universities in London, Paris, Brussels, New York, and Washington, D.C. She immigrated to the United States in 1962.

Dr. Hall is Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., where she has been a member of the full-time faculty since 1970. She chaired the department of sociology 1976 to 1980 and 1983 to 1989; and she directed Women’s Studies 1993 to 1996.

Dr. Hall specializes in theory construction in clinical sociology, with particular attention to social intelligence and social sources of personal and social identity. Her research interviews address primarily family, religion or belief systems, and gender. She has strong interests in the emotional bases of social intelligence and individual and social behavior, and she is currently integrating her micro-sociological and macro-sociological studies of behavior through data on social institutions, social class, culture, and history.

Dr. Hall uses observations, life histories, and content analyses as research methodologies in her work on theory construction. She is also developing narrative methodologies as techniques for clinical work and means to demonstrate social intelligence.

Dr. Hall is married, and she and her husband have three married daughters, four grandsons and three granddaughters. She tries to stay in meaningful contact with as many members of her English and American families as possible.