16441 |
SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology |
Peter Klein |
T Th 3:10 pm-4:30 pm |
OLIN 203 |
SSCI DIFF |
Cross-listed: American Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies Sociology
is the systematic study of social life, social groups, and social relations.
The discipline views the individual in context of the larger society, and sheds
light on how social structures constrain and enable our choices and actions.
Sociologists study topics as varied as race, gender, class, religion, the birth
of capitalism, democracy, education, crime and prisons, the environment, and
inequality. At its most basic, the course will teach students how to read
social science texts and evaluate their arguments. Conceptually, students will
learn basic sociological themes and become familiar with how sociologists ask
and answer questions. Most importantly, students will come away from the course
with a new understanding of how to think sociologically about the world around
them, their position in society, and how their actions both affect and are
affected by the social structures in which we all live. Class
size: 22
16440 |
SOC 120 Inequality in |
Yuval Elmelech |
T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm |
OLIN 201 |
SSCI DIFF |
Cross-listed: American Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Human
Rights Why do some people have more wealth, more power, and
receive greater respect than others? What are the sources of this inequality?
Is social inequality inevitable? Is it undesirable? Through lectures,
documentary films and class discussions, this course examines the ways by which
socially-defined class, gender, race and ethnic categories are unevenly
rewarded for their social contributions. Sociological theories are used to
explain how and why social inequality is produced and maintained, and how it
affects the well-being of individuals and social groups. The course will focus
on two general themes. The first deals with the structure of inequality while
studying the unequal distribution of material and social resources (e.g.,
social status, wealth, power). The second examines the processes that determine
the allocation of people to positions in the stratification system (e.g.
educational attainment, social capital, parental wealth, institutional
discrimination). Class size: 22
16443 |
SOC 135 Sociology of Gender |
Allison McKim |
M
W 3:10 pm-4:30 pm |
OLIN 202 |
SSCI DIFF |
Cross-listed: American Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies The
primary goal of this course is to develop a sociological perspective on
gender. We will examine how gender becomes an organizing principle of
social life as well as consider how social structures and practices construct
gender identities. We will investigate how gender is built into social
structures, institutions, and cultures, and how different groups experience
this gendered order. The course is organized according to different
institutional and interactional contexts, including families, workplaces,
schools, the state & politics, sexuality, culture, and identity. Our
discussions will be guided by both theoretical approaches to gender and a
variety of empirical research. A second goal of this course is to become
familiar with various sociological theories of gender difference and
inequality. A third goal is to learn how gender inequality is intertwined with
other axes of power such as race/ethnicity, class, and sexuality and how to
conduct such “intersectional” analysis of social life. In addition, students
will learn to identify and evaluate various forms of sociological evidence and
arguments. Class size: 22
16439 |
SOC 205 Intro to Research Methods |
Yuval Elmelech |
T Th 4:40 pm-6:00 pm |
HDR 101A |
MATC |
Cross-listed: American Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Global &
International Studies; Human Rights The
aim of this course is to enable students to understand and use the various
research methods developed in the social sciences, with an emphasis on
quantitative methods. The course will be concerned with the theory and
rationale upon which social research is based, as well as the practical aspects
of research and the problems the researcher is likely to encounter. The course
is divided into two parts. In the first, we will learn how to formulate
research questions and hypotheses, how to choose the appropriate research
method for the problem, and how to maximize chances for valid and reliable
findings. In the second part, we will learn how to perform simple data analysis
and how to interpret and present findings in a written report. For a final
paper, students use data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS) to study
public attitudes toward issues such as abortion, immigration, inequality and
welfare, affirmative action, gender roles, religion, the media, and gun
laws. By the end of the semester,
students will have the necessary skills for designing and conducting
independent research for term papers and senior projects, as well as for
non-academic enterprises. Admission by permission of the instructor. Class
size: 17
16447 |
SOC 213 Sociological Theory |
Laura Ford |
M
W 3:10 pm-4:30 pm |
HEG 308 |
SSCI |
Cross-listed: Human Rights This class introduces students to classical and contemporary sociological theories.
It considers foundational theories that emerged from the social upheavals of
modernization in the 19th Century, including those of Marx, Weber, Durkheim,
Simmel, and DuBois. The course thus introduces many enduring themes of
sociology: alienation and anomie; social structure and disorganization; group
conflict and solidarity; secularization and individualism; bureaucracy and
institutions, the division of labor, capitalism, and the nature of authority.
We then follow these conversations into the contemporary era, examining
traditions such as functionalism, conflict theory, rational choice, symbolic
interactionism, feminist theory, and critical theory, including thinkers such
as G.H. Mead, Robert Merton, Pierre Bourdieu, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault.
Students will learn the key concepts of major theoretical approaches in
sociology, and will consider questions such as the relationship between theory
and research, and the relationship of social conditions to the production of
knowledge. Class size: 22
16444 |
SOC 224 Punishment, Prisons and
Policing |
Allison McKim |
M
W 11:50 am-1:10 pm |
OLIN 102 |
SSCI |
Cross-listed: American Studies; Human Rights This course introduces
students to the sociology of punishment and crime control. The amount and type
of punishment found in society is not a simple, direct result of crime
patterns. Rather, to understand how and why we punish, we must examine the ways
that historical processes, social structures, institutions, and culture shape
penal practices as well as how systems of punishment shape society. This course
draws on sociological and historical research to explore the social functions
of punishment, its cultural foundations and meanings, what drives changes in
how we punish, the relationship between penal practices and state power, and
the role of crime control in reproducing race, gender, and class inequality.
The class also delves deeply into the theoretical and empirical debates about
the punitive turn in American criminal justice over the last 4 decades. We
consider the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, the racial
disparities in the system, the drug war, changes in policing, the
politicization of crime, and the role of criminal justice in the welfare state.
Class size: 22
16376 |
SOC 231 FROM FOOD TO
FRACKING: The
Environment & Society |
Peter Klein |
T Th 11:50 am-1:10 pm |
HEG 204 |
SSCI |
Cross-listed: Environmental & Urban Studies; Human Rights; Science, Technology,
Society The world’s environmental
problems and their solutions are not merely technical. These are profoundly
social issues as well. This course uses examples such as food systems,
fracking, health disparities, and natural disasters to critically assess the
relationship between society and the environment at local and global scales. In
doing so, we cover four topics that are central to environmental sociology.
First, the course explores how people collectively understand and frame
environmental issues. Second, we examine how social structures, political and
economic institutions, and individual human actions shape and disrupt the
natural environment. Third, we analyze the social consequences of a changing
natural world, focusing on the unequal distribution of the benefits and burdens
of environmental change. Finally, students will critically examine the ways
that scholars, policymakers, and citizens are responding to the many
contemporary environmental challenges. Class size: 22
16448 |
SOC 238 Law and (Social) Order |
Laura Ford |
M
W 1:30 pm-2:50 pm |
OLIN 201 |
SSCI |
Cross-listed: American Studies; Human Rights; Science,
Technology, Society This class introduces students to the foundational roles
that law has played, and continues to play, in our political communities, our
social institutions, and our everyday lives.
We will begin by considering the historical development of Western legal
systems, and the ways those legal systems contributed to the political
communities of
16377 |
SOC 323 American Race & Ethnicity |
Joel Perlmann |
W 4:40 pm-7:00 pm |
OLIN 201 |
SSCI DIFF |
Cross-listed: Africana Studies; American Studies; Human Rights;
LAIS The
topic for this term is social class diversity and its implications within the
African-American and Mexican-American groups.
Taken together, these two groups today comprise between a fifth and a
quarter of all Americans. Although
they have had very different histories, it is common to think that both groups
are especially concentrated in the bottom rungs of socio-economic
wellbeing. And we will consider what
life at the bottom rungs means in each group. But we will spend more than half
the course exploring the experiences of those in each group who live above the
lowest socio-economic rungs. How large a fraction are these more fortunate
families in each group? How secure are
they in their distance from poverty? What can we say about where they live, how
they work, their education, lifestyles?
Of special interest will be the prevalence (high or low) of inter-racial
and inter-ethnic families; this can be a telling indicator of how separate a
group is from the rest of society.
Throughout, we will try to keep in mind three kinds of comparisons:
African-American to Mexican American, higher to lower class within each group,
and comparisons of each group to the Euro-American (‘white’) Americans. Students’ major writing assignment will be
write a term paper. Class
size: 15
16442 |
SOC 352 Gender and Deviance |
Allison McKim |
Th 1:30 pm-3:50 pm |
OLINLC 208\ |
SSCI DIFF |
Cross-listed: Gender and Sexuality Studies; Human Rights This seminar uses gender
as a lens to approach the sociological field of “deviance and social
control.” It will develop your
understanding of different theoretical approaches to deviance and to
gender. The course considers the
relationship between gender and definitions of what is normal, sick, and
criminal and investigates how norms about masculinity and femininity can
produce specifically gendered types of deviance. We will learn about the role of gender in why
and how people break rules, looking at both criminal and non-criminal
deviance. We will then explore how
social institutions construct and enact forms of regulation, punishment, or
treatment. The course asks how responses
to rule-breaking relate to the social organization of gender and
sexuality. To help answer these
questions, the course will continually ask how these processes intersect with
race and class inequality. The course
looks at both formal and informal responses to deviance, and considers their
role in gender, class, and race inequality more broadly. The last half of the course examines major
areas of gendered deviance, such as sex work, sexual violence, and the
medicalization of deviance. Throughout,
the course considers the ways that gendered social control both limits and
creates possibilities for action and how individuals use gender to make
rule-breaking meaningful. Class size: 12