Sociology Courses

Program | Faculty | Courses

All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise specified.

565 Sociology and Community Development

Study of local communities as settings for daily life; linking social life with environmental forces including the economy and demographic change, and impact of technological innovations on daily life. Growth and decline of urban and rural communities under deindustrialization, multina-tionalism, the rise of megacities, economic restructuring and deconcentration. Attempt to define underlying forces and responses to social and economic change.

582 Sexuality and Society

A range of topics in the field of sexuality studies, including theoretical perspectives on sexualities, from symbolic inter-actionism, social constructionism, feminism, queer theory, and postmodernism. Also, subjects ranging from identities and communities to sexual regulation and representation.

596 Independent Study

663 Techniques in Demographic Analysis

Includes workshop. Introduction to the methods and materials of demography. Census data, vital and immigration statistics, administrative records and population registers both as the subjects of lecture and search activity. Basic demographic processes and population structure. Introduction to stable population models used in population estimation and projection. Development of illustrative applications.

696 Independent Study

699 Master's Thesis

701 The Development of Sociological Theory

Selected European and American contributors and their systems of theory, in biographical, historical, and sociological perspective. Consent of instructor required.

702 Contemporary Sociological Theory

Modern sociological theory from 1920 to present. Prerequisites: SOCIOL 282 and 701, or consent of instructor.

704 Advanced Sociological Theory

Methodological analysis of contemporary sociological theory. Emphasis on theory construction, formalization and evaluation. Prerequisite: SOCIOL 701 and 702 or consent of instructor.

705 Social Theory and Social Problems

The oft-presumed two-way relationship between social theory on the one hand, and those issues which trouble men and women in particular historical settings on the other.

707 Sociology of Knowledge (Ideas) and Intellectuals

Combination of the major approaches to the sociology of knowledge with the study of intellectuals engaged in production, dissemination and criticism of "knowledge." Major theoretical premises shaping the sociology of knowledge: primarily the ideas of Marx, Freud, and Mannheim. The sociology of intellectuals; their commitment to social criticism or legitimation of ongoing social systems. Roles of intellectuals as outsiders, activists, moral agents, and functionaries at various times and places. Intellectuals and alienation.

710 Research Methods I

Logical analysis of sociological inquiry; survey of major research techniques and examination of principal methodological problems in sociology.

711 Intermediate Statistics

A second statistics course for the social sciences. Topics include multiple regression analysis, use of qualitative independent variables, interaction effects, nonlinear effects, other topics related to the general linear model. Introduction to logistic regression. Prerequisite: a prior statistics course. Undergraduate students accepted with consent of instructor.

712 Graduate Statistics for the Social Sciences II

An intensive introduction to general linear models (multiple regression, analysis of variance, violations of regression assumptions, alternative estimation methods, simultaneous equation models) and qualitative data analysis (logistic regression, log-linear models and event history analysis). Prerequisite: SOCIOL 711 or consent of instructor in spring semester in time for any assigned summer preparation.

714 Research Methods II

Research techniques in sociology, including: formulating research objectives; collecting, processing, and analyzing data for a project organized around the problems of measurement in sociology.

715 Survey Design and Analysis

Design and analysis of sample surveys. All pertinent topics in design and analysis of survey data, including sampling, measurement, questionnaire design, field operations, coding and data reduction, scale and item analysis, mail and telephone surveys, interviewing techniques, and data analysis issues.

717 Computer Methods in Sociology

Introduction to statistical analysis on the personal computer. Basic programming techniques, such as file creation, data input, use of logical and relational operators, branching, and matrix operations are presented for creating and editing data sets, transforming variables, and computing statistics. Students program and test a statistical or mathematical model. Prerequisite: SOCIOL 711 or equivalent multivariate statistics.

718 Evaluation Research

Overview of major issues and methodology of evaluation research, or the application of social science methods to planning, monitoring, and impact assessments of social programs and policies. Prerequisite: SOCIOL 711 or equivalent multivariate statistics.

720 Sociology of Education

Educational characteristics of an industrial population; comparative social structures and their school systems; educational selection and social stratification; educational development as effect and cause of social change; the culture of schools and universities. Prerequisites: one graduate course in sociological theory and one course in research methods.

721 The Sociology of Religion

Social dimensions of religion and religious dimensions of the social for individuals, movements, institutions, and cultures. Special emphasis on changing relations between religion and politics in the U.S. and other countries around the globe.

722 The Family

Examines trends and changes in U.S. family life—marriage, divorce, childbearing, gender roles—from a variety of theoretical perspectives, using demographic, historical, and ethnographic research sources.

723 Race and Ethnicity in the Sociological Imagination

Seminar emphasizing the social and historical construction of race, persisting patterns of racial and ethnic inequality, and the nature of racial privilege in the U.S. context of the Post-Civil Rights Era.

724 Social Class Inequality

The growing inequality of income and the erosion of the welfare state in the contemporary U.S., with some European comparisons. The contribution of several phenomena to these changes examined, including the decline of marriage, the increase in immigration, the expansion of the prison population, the growth in the service sector, the globalization of markets, and the success of "centrist" politics.

725 Political Sociology

The construction, legitimation, and delegitimation of political power; the formation of states, their expansion, and rebellion and revolution. Focus upon major theoretical perspectives, including pluralist, statist, institutionalist, class, feminist, and race-centered theories.

726 Complex Organizations

Overview of theories of organization structure, motivation, change efforts; impact of "globalization" on leaner, flatter structures; the effects of stock prices and institutional investors on management decisions, regarding outsourcing, down-sizing, mergers.

727 Social Change

Analysis of political, economic, and social forces involved. Emphasis on economic development of underdeveloped regions and nations; special reference to political economy of the world system.

728 Social Movements

Analysis of the origins and structure of social movements, including studies of selected movements.

729 Sociology of Culture

Approaches culture at various levels and in diverse areas subject to student interest, spanning such topics as globalization, intercultural conflict, civil religion, cultural movements, the media, and both cultural production and consumption.

730 Industrial Sociology

Globalization of markets and the effects on employees and organization of work. Examination of the U.S. economy: industries, occupations, income, labor law, and unions. Cross-cultural look at the former U.S.S.R. (what went right, what went wrong) and Russian reform efforts, China and privatization, and Japan. Historical background information for each country.

731 Economic Sociology

Survey of sociological theories and research linking macro- and micro-level economic phenomena. Topics include globalization and the international economy, economic dilemmas faced by states, cities, and social groups, and micro-level phenomena, such as labor market competitions.

741 Criminology

Criminological theories, past and present; emphasis on present research trends as they relate to theoretical formulations. Consent of instructor required.

742 Sociology of Medicine

Selected topics in medical sociology; includes mental health and mental health services research. Emphasis on current issues, theory, and research. Students expected to initiate relevant research projects.

743 Mental Health

Topics include: mental illness as a social problem, psychiatric epidemiology, labeling theory, social stress, socioeconomic status, gender, family response, mental hospitals, community-based care, and help seeking and the use of mental health services.

746 Black People in America

Socio-historical analysis of interaction of African-American people and the American environment, from slavery to migration to urban areas and subsequent isolation in the Black ghetto.

761 Demography

Graduate-level introduction and review of major topics in the field. Topics include: population growth, age and sex composition, mortality, fertility, marriage and marital dissolution, migration and urbanization, labor force participation, and demography of poverty and international comparisons in all of the above. Emphasis on the relationship of social, economic, and environmental issues to demographic behavior.

765 Historical Demography

Seminar. Analysis of past demographic records from a contemporary demographic-sociological perspective. Develops familiarity with the variety of sources — parish registers and civil registrations, enumerations and censuses, genealogies and population registers, and organizational and institutional records — used in historical demographic research. A variety of analytical methods for historical application illustrated through discussions of the major substantive issues in population history.

794A Gender and Society

Concepts of gender including: influential historical processes; the contemporary creation of gendered identities and relations; the `multiplicity' of gender and resulting conflicts and alliances; relation to politics and power; inequalities of gendered labor; and movements for change. Also specific topics designed to meet class members' interests.

794B Families and Work

Work, families, and their changing relationship. Historical legacy of separation of work and families. Broad range of contemporary work and contemporary family structure. Movements for change implemented or resisted by the state and professionals, employers and unions. Also specific topics designed to meet class members' interests.

899 Doctoral Dissertation

Credit, 18.