Courses
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Summer 2013 Course Schedule
Full Course Offerings
The department currently offers the following courses on a regular basis:
“D” indicates that the course fulfills a Divisional requirement.
“QR” courses fulfill the Quantitative Reasoning requirement.
“CD” means the course fulfills the Cultural Diversity requirement.
“POI” means Permission of Instructor is required for enrollment
151. Principles of Sociology. (3h) General introduction to the field; social organization and disorganization, socialization, culture, social change, and other aspects. Required for all sociology majors and minors. (D)
152. Social Problems. (3h) Survey of contemporary American social problems. (D)
153. Contemporary Families. (3h) Social basis of the family, emphasizing the problems growing out of modern conditions and social change. (D)
154. The Sociology of Deviant Behavior. (3h) Sociological analysis of the nature and causes of and societal reaction to deviant behavior patterns such as mental illness, suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, sexual deviation, and criminal behavior. (D)
155. Public Culture in America. (3h) Employs critical sociological theories to enable students to understand the social forces responsible for shaping our cultural/leisure life and the effects of our lifestyle on political democracy, social community, and health. (D)
270. Sociological Theory. (3h) Introduction to the classic works of social theory—“classic” not only as time-honored explanations of past events, but also because they provide the intellectual foundations for contemporary and historical research. Theorists covered include Smith, Wollstonecraft, de Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud, Simmel, DuBois, and Goffman. P—SOC 151, 152, 153, 154, 155 or POI.
271. Social Statistics. (4h) Computer-based survey of basic statistics utilized in sociological research. Lab—1 hour. P—SOC 151, 152, 153, 154, 155 or POI. (QR)
272. Research Methods in Sociology. (3h) Overview of both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Research projects required. P—SOC 151, 152, 153, 154, 155 or POI. (QR)
300. Sociolinguistics and Dialectology. (3h) Study of variation in language: effects of regional background, social class, ethnic group, gender, and setting; social attitudes toward language; outcomes of linguistic conflicts in the community; evolution of research methods for investigating language differences and the diffusion of change. Also listed as LIN 310. P—LIN 150 or POI.
301. Sociology of Religion. (3h) Introduces the sociological analysis of religion, including religious beliefs and experiences, the cultural context of religion, varieties of religious organization, religious change and social change. Also listed as REL 351.
302. Topics in Sociology of Religion. (3h) Advanced seminar with emphasis on current topics in the sociology of religion such as theoretical and methodological debates, religion and public life, religious pluralism, or spirituality and its organizational expression.
303. Business and Society. (3h) Historical development, organization, and current problems of business enterprises in American society.
305. Gender in Society. (3h) Significance of gender in society for individuals and institutions. Examines differential gender experiences based on race, class, and sexual orientation. Considers feminism as a social movement and the possibility for social change. (CD)
308. Sociology of Art. (3h) Art as an institution, its functions, organization, and relationship to social change and to the communication of meanings.
309. Sexuality and Society. (3h) Study of the societal forces that impinge on human sexual behavior, emphasizing the effects of social change, the implications of changing gender roles, cross-cultural and subcultural variations, and the influence of the mass media.
311. Women in Professions. (3h) Emphasizes the status of women in professional occupations (e.g., law, medicine, science, business, etc.) in socio-historical perspective.
316. Conflict Management in Organizations. (3h) Examines conflict management and social control in organizations, focusing on power structures, management styles, and processes of dispute resolution.
318. Social Stratification in the American South. (3h) Explores social stratification in the labor force, the school system, the justice system, and the family. Comprises an examination of theories of stratification, a 2-week field seminar in the South and a service learning project. Summer session only.
325. Self and Society: An Interactionist Perspective. (3h) Analyzes the effects of social relationships upon self-development, self-preservation, and the learning of social roles and norms, with special emphasis on language and symbolic interaction.
327. Sociology of Emotion. (3h) Exploration of the social side of emotion, including how emotions are socially learned, shaped, regulated, controlled, and distributed in the population as well as the consequences of emotion norms, emotion management, emotional labor, and emotional deviance for individuals, social groups, and society.
333. The Sociology of Cities. (3h) Examines the patterns of urbanization worldwide. Explores the dynamics of urban growth resulting from economic, social, political and ecological processes.
334. Sociology of Education. (3h) Evaluates the major theories and significant empirical literature, both historical and statistical, on the structure and effects of educational institutions.
335. Sociology of Health and Illness. (3h) Analyzes the social variables associated with health and illness.
336. Sociology of Health Care. (3h) Analyzes health care systems, including the social organization of medical practice, health care payment, the education of medical practitioners, and the division of the labor in health care.
337. Aging in Modern Society. (3h) Basic social problems and processes of aging. Social and psychological issues discussed. Requirements include field placement in a nursing home or similar institution. P—POI.
338. Sociological Issues in Criminal Justice. (3h) Introduces the structure, organization and operation of the various components of the criminal justice system with emphasis on the police and correctional institutions.
339. Sociology of Violence. (3h) Surveys the societal factors associated with individual and collective violence. Discussion focuses on the contemporary and historical conditions that have contributed to various patterns of violence in American society.
341. Criminology. (3h) Crime, its nature, causes, consequences, methods of treatment, and prevention.
342. Juvenile Delinquency. (3h) Nature and extent of juvenile delinquency; an examination of prevention, control, and treatment problems.
343. Sociology of Law. (3h) Consideration is given to a variety of special issues: conditions under which laws develop and change, relationships between the legal and political system, and the impact of social class and stratification upon the legal order.
345. Advanced Topics Seminar in Criminology. (3h) Emphasizes current topics in the field of criminology and criminal justice such as measurement issues, ethical issues, history, crime and mass media, and theoretical debates. P—SOC 341 and POI.
347. Society, Culture, and Sport. (3h) Examines the interrelationship of sport and other social institutions. Emphasizes both the structure of sport and the functions of sport for society.
348. Sociology of the Family. (3h) The family as a field of sociological study. Assessment of significant historical and contemporary writings. Analyzes the structure, organization, and function of the family in America.
351. Management and Organizations. (3h) Study of macro-organizational processes and changes in contemporary industrial societies and their effects upon managerial systems, managerial ideologies, and managers in firms.
352. White-collar Crime. (3h) Study of criminal activity committed in the course of legitimate occupations including workplace crime, graft, and business crime. P—SOC 341.
353. Families in Later Life. (3h) Analyzes current issues affecting later-life families, including the unmarried, marital relations, divorce, widowhood, remarriage, kinship, family care-giving, and institutional care.
354. Women in Poverty in the U.S. (3h) Examines the structural causes of poverty and its consequences with specific emphasis on women’s overrepresentation in poverty and how gender intersects with race, family status, age, and place.
358. Population and Society. (3h) Techniques used in the study of population data. Reciprocal relationship of social and demographic variables.
359. Race and Ethnic Relations. (3h) Racial and ethnic group prejudice and discrimination and their effect on social relationships. Emphasizes psychological and sociological theories of prejudice. (CD)
360. Social Inequality. (3h) Study of structured social inequality with particular emphasis on economic class, social status, and political power. (CD)
361. Sociology of African-American Families. (3h) Examines the social and economic conditions of family life, the social history of the African-American family, patterns of marriage and childbearing, contemporary urban families, and intersections with schooling, work, U.S. justice system, sports, and prevailing social, economic, and political conditions. (CD)
362. Work, Conflict, and Change. (3h) Changing trends in the U.S. labor force. The individual’s view of work and the effect of large organizations on white- and blue-collar workers. Use of some cross-cultural data.
363. Global Capitalism. (3h) Analyzes industrial organization, including discussion of market relations and the behavior of firms, the structure of industrial development, and labor relations and the growth of trade unions. Also listed as INS 363.
364. Political Sociology. (3h) Examines the structure and organization of power in society with emphasis on political socialization, political ideology, and the growth of the welfare state.
365. Technology, Culture, and Change. (3h) Examines the interrelated forces that shape change in organizations and societies; from the emergence of capitalist markets to the systems, controls, and information revolution of the 21st century.
366. The Sociological Analysis of Film. (3h) Examines the intersection of economic, organizational, and cultural sociology using films and the film industry as focal examples.
367. The Sociology of Culture. (3h) Examines the most powerful explanatory schools in sociology on the fields of cultural production and consumption. Topics include: stylistic change and the consumption of visual and performance arts; musical tastes; the production and consumption of literature; museum attendance; education and culture; and architecture and design.
368. Death and Dying. (1.5h) Study of some of the basic issues and problems of modern men and women in accepting and facing death.
373. Honors Seminar. (3h) Seminar on selected problems in sociology. Intended for students in the departmental honors program. P—SOC 372 and POI.
375. Gender, Power, and Violence. (3h) Research-centered study of various issues related to violence, power, and gender in American society. Emphasizes sociological analysis of competing theoretical explanations of violence with respect to race, class, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. Also listed as WGS 310. (CD)
385, 386. Special Problems Seminar. (3h) Intensive investigation of current scientific research within the discipline which concentrates on problems of contemporary interest. P—POI.
397. Honors Individual Study (3h) Individual study toward the writing and defense of the honors thesis begun in SOC 373 (Honors Seminar), to be carried out under the supervision of a departmental faculty member. P-SOC 373 and POI.
398, 399. Individual Study. (1-3h, 1-3h) Reading, research, or internship courses designed to meet the needs and interests of selected students, to be carried out under the supervision of a departmental faculty member.