Anders Holm joins Department of Sociology

June 29, 2016

Sociology Professor Anders HolmAnders Holm has joined the Department of Sociology, coming from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Holm’s area of specialty is quantitative methodology, and contributing to the methodological development of quantitative sociology.

He is also focused on social stratification, and inequality and health.

Part of Holm’s methodological work is devoted to the analysis of causal effects, which is a newer branch in sociology.

“The idea that association is not causation has been popular in economics for some time but is now coming into Sociology,” said Holm. “The discussion of causes and effects are quite universal. Causes are causes, irrespective of whether they are economic or social.”

Holm completed his PhD at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and was a professor with the same university for 15 years.

He is excited to move to Canada, and to join the faculty at Western. Part of his work at Western will be spearheading collaboration in various areas, and trying to working with colleagues to advance use of quantitative method in different areas. Although, he said, “the department is already quite strong in quantitative methods.”

“It seems like Western is really trying to improve the standards of sociology – and want the department to move ahead – which I appreciate. It’s good to be part of something making an improvement in the field,” said Holm. “It seems like Western is on the move in the right direction.”

Holm will be teaching two courses in the 2016/17 academic year: Current Issues in Stratification in Fall 2016, dealing with deals with modern theories on stratification and inter-generational mobility, and Introduction to Multivariate Statistics in Winter 2017, an introduction to statistical concepts and techniques used in social science research.

Holm’s latest articles include, “Socioeconomic inequality in health in the British Household Panel: Tests of the social causation and direct selection hypothesis using dynamic fixed effects panel models”, With Else Foverskov, published in Social Science & Medicine; and with Richard Breen, "Behavioral and Statistical Models of Educational Inequality" to be published in Rationality & Society.