About

Mike Slone (PhD 2025, Case Western Reserve University) is a full-time lecturer at Case Western Reserve University. His teaching interests include: sociological theory; work and technology; labor/labor movements; qualitative research methods; and the history of sociology. During the transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mike was the honored recipient of the 2020-2021 Dean’s Instructional Excellence Award.

Dr. Slone’s research examines how precarious workers navigate economic and technological change. His recently-defended doctoral dissertation entitled Crowd Control: Platform Capitalism and the Labor Process was based on four years of ethnographic and participatory research  (2019-2023) as a ‘gig worker’ on four app-based labor platforms. Prior to CWRU, Mike earned his master’s degree in Economic Development (M.A. 2012, University of Massachusetts Lowell). His thesis Their Jobs Left Them: The Sociological Impacts of Plant Closings in a Changing Economy chronicled the labor market struggles of recently-‘downsized’ aging factory workers during the Great Recession. His research has been published in Critical Sociology and The Gerontologist.

Research interests: work and technology; labor/labor movements; social change; sociological theory

Typical courses: SOCI 101: Introduction to Sociology; SOCI 213: Critical Problems in Modern Society; SOCI 289: Sociology of Work: Past, Present, and Future; SOCI 300: Modern Sociological Thought