Sociology (SOC)

SOC 1101 - Introduction to Sociology (3 Credits)  
This course is a broad introduction to the field of sociology. Course materials are designed to illustrate the distinctive features of the sociological perspective and to start you thinking sociologically about yourself and the broader social world. To think sociologically is to recognize that being embedded in the world constrains behavior, and that individuals are both social actors and social products. To think sociologically is also to recognize that our contemporary world, with its enduring cultural, political, and economic institutions, is as much a social product as we are. We will begin by covering theoretical and methodological foundations of the sociological perspective. We will go on to explore the concept of social stratification and will survey primary axes of social difference. In the second half of the course we will look more closely at how individuals relate to each other, how social inequality is enacted and reinforced in everyday life, and at the way in which the organization of social life shapes individuals and groups, such as through social networks, residential neighborhoods, schooling, families, and on-line communication.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024  
SOC 1104 - Race and Ethnicity in the United States: Social Constructs, Real World Consequences (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 1104  
This course will examine race and ethnic relations between Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in the United States. The goal of this course is for students to understand how the history of race and ethnicity in the U.S. affects opportunity structures in, for example, education, employment, housing, and health. Through this course students will gain a better understanding of how race and ethnicity stratifies the lives of individuals in the U.S.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (SCD-AS, SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (AFAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2024, Summer 2023, Summer 2022, Summer 2021  
SOC 1110 - FWS: Writing Computers and Society (3 Credits)  
Computer technology is the 'zeitgeist' of our contemporary times. Learning how to study, think about, discuss, and write about computerization using a sociological vocabulary is a valuable skillset that can be continually drawn upon over the course of a lifetime. Students enrolling in this course will study the sociology of computerization, they will explore and discuss a variety of social issues embedded in computerization, they will write about computerization, and they will give and receive constructive writing feedback in small workshop groups. Writing assignments will include short essays on a variety of sociological themes including computing in organizational settings, access to computers amidst class-gender-race dynamics, pandemic themes related to computers and society, emergent political challenges related to our new online media ecosystem, online dating culture, and more.
Distribution Requirements: (WRT-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2010  
SOC 1120 - FWS: Educational Inequality and Reform Efforts in the U.S. (3 Credits)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2010  
SOC 1130 - FWS: Social Networks in a Global World (3 Credits)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2017, Fall 2011  
SOC 1190 - FWS: Call in Experts: How Social Science Research Influences Policy (3 Credits)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022  
SOC 1290 - American Society through Film (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 1290  
Introduces students to the sociological analysis of American society through the lens of film. Major themes involve race, class, and gender; upward and downward mobility; incorporation and exclusion; small town vs the big city; and cultural conflicts over individualism, achievement, and community. We match a range of movies like American Graffiti (Lucas), Ace in the Hole (Wilder), The Asphalt Jungle (Houston), Do the Right Thing (Lee), The Heiress (Wyler), High Noon (Zinnemann), Mean Streets (Scorsese), Nashville (Altman), The Philadelphia Story (Cukor), and A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan). Each film is paired with social scientific research that examines parallel topics, such as analyses of who goes to college, the production of news, deviant careers, urban riots, the gendered presentation of self, and the prisoner's dilemma.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2019  
SOC 2030 - Population and Public Policy (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 2030  
Population and Public Policy exposes students to the logic and skills of demographic research and policy analysis. The course emphasizes the nature, collection, and interpretation of demographic data, the application of demographic techniques, the major components (i.e., fertility, mortality, and migration) of national and global population change, and contemporary population problems (e.g., population aging, teen childbearing, the rise in non-marital childbearing, immigrant adaptation). The course also emphasizes public policies that can influence demographic change. The format primarily involves lectures and class discussion. Students are expected to attend each class and be prepared to discuss assigned materials.
Forbidden Overlaps: GDEV 2010, PUBPOL 2030, SOC 2030, SOC 2202  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SBA-HE)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Summer 2023, Spring 2023  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Gain a broader understanding of the demographic forces that shape our daily lives.
  • Apply basic tools of demographic analysis to population data.
  • Develop skills for assessing and synthesizing evidence in social demography.
  
SOC 2031 - Population and Public Policy Copenhagen Field Study (1 Credit)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 2031  
SOC 2070 - Social Problems in the United States (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 2250, AMST 2070  
Social Problems in the U.S. teaches students how to think like a social scientist when encountering claims about major contemporary issues. Through readings and assignments, students develop an analytical toolkit for evaluating the scope, causes, consequences, and proposed solutions to a wide range of complicated social problems, such as: childhood poverty, racial segregation and discrimination, job insecurity, family instability, discrimination by sexual identity, unequal pay for women's work, gender imbalances in family life, health disparities, food insecurity, drug abuse, and educational inequality. Rather than cover all of these (and other) social problems in depth, the course emphasizes a conceptual framework that can be applied broadly. The semester culminates with a written proposal examining a social problem and developing an approach to address it with public policy.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, D-AG, SBA-AG), (CA-HE, D-HE, SBA-HE), (OCE-IL), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (AFAREA, EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Develop a strategy for discussing controversial social issues with others who hold competing perspectives.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of core concepts from Sociology and Policy Analysis as they relate to topics in education, health, and social welfare.
  • Distinguish between normative, descriptive, and causal claims about social problems as they emerge in public debate.
  • Evaluate the validity of claims about social problems by drawing on evidence from empirical research.
  • Analyze trade-offs and unintended consequences implicated in the design and implementation of social policies.
  
SOC 2090 - Networks (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ECON 2040, CS 2850, INFO 2040  
This interdisciplinary course examines network structures and how they matter in everyday life. The course examines how each of the computing, economic, sociological and natural worlds are connected and how the structure of these connections affects each of these worlds. Tools of graph theory and game theory are taught and then used to analyze networks. Topics covered include the web, the small world phenomenon, markets, neural networks, contagion, search and the evolution of networks.
Distribution Requirements: (OCE-IL, QP-IL), (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Winter 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024  
SOC 2100 - What Is Science? An Introduction to the Social Studies of Science and Technology (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with STS 2011  
This course introduces some central ideas in the field of S&TS. It is aimed at students from any background who are challenged to think more critically about what counts as scientific knowledge and why, and how science and technology intervene in the wider world. It also serves as an introduction to majors in Biology and Society or in Science and Technology Studies. The course mixes lectures, discussions, writing, and other activities. The discussion sections are an integral part of the course and attendance is required. A series of take-home written assignments and quizzes throughout the semester comprise the majority of the grade.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SCT-IL), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 2150 - Introduction to Organizations (3 Credits)  
In modern society, we all spend much of our lives participating in or interacting with organizations. Most of us are born in organizations, educated in organizations, and work in organizations. The ubiquity and variability of organizations result in a myriad of organizational challenges we regularly face. The goal of this introductory course is to help students gain understandings of the origins, structure, and dynamics of organizations and their relationships to their environment. It is designed to provide an exposure to multiple theories of organizations and within the context of changing technological, social, and political/legal environments and the globalization of the world economy. We will also apply organizational theories to a variety of empirical cases.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Summer 2022  
SOC 2180 - Data Management and Programming for Policy and Society (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 2155  
This course is designed for students interested in learning the foundations of data management and programming in R. The goal is to teach students how to obtain and curate real world data, determine its reliability, manage large databases, create variables useful for analysis, and more. Much of the work will be done using R libraries, which can help facilitate the functionality of R without increasing the complexity.
Learning Outcomes:
  • Demonstrate an understanding of variable and data types and how to use packages in R.
  • Assemble data by importing it into R.
  • Appraise data quality and accuracy using common functions in R.
  • Use R code to manage and analyze databases.
  
SOC 2202 - Population and Social Change (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GDEV 2010  
Introduction to population studies. The primary focus is on the relationships between demographic processes (fertility, mortality, and immigration) and social and economic issues. Discussion covers special topics related to population growth and spatial distribution, including marriage and family formation, population aging, changing roles and statuses of women, labor force participation, immigrations, urban growth and urbanization, resource allocation, and the environment.
Forbidden Overlaps: GDEV 2010, PUBPOL 2030, SOC 2030, SOC 2202  
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG, SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (SAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Understand and examine the determinants and consequences of demographic change, and components therein in the US and internationally.
  • Examine the mutual interrelationships between population and society.
  • Understand alternative policy approaches associated with challenges and opportunities presented by changing population size and composition.
  • Utilize basic methodological approaches to population analysis.
  
SOC 2208 - Social Inequality (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 2208  
This course reviews contemporary approaches to understanding social inequality and the processes by which it comes to be seen as legitimate, natural, or desirable. We address questions of the following kind: what are the major forms of stratification in human history? Are inequality and poverty inevitable? How many social classes are there in advanced industrialism societies? Is there a ruling class? Are lifestyles, attitudes, and personalities shaped fundamentally by class membership? Can individuals born into poverty readily escape their class origins and move upward in the class structure? Are social contacts and luck important forces in matching individuals to jobs and class positions? What types of social processes serve to maintain and alter racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination in labor markets? Is there an underclass? These and other questions are addressed in light of classical and contemporary theory and research.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (SCD-AS, SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (AFAREA, LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 2220 - Controversies About Inequality (4 Credits)  
In recent years, poverty and inequality have become increasingly common topics of public debate, as academics, journalists, and politicians attempt to come to terms with growing income inequality, with the increasing visibility of inter-country differences in wealth and income, and with the persistence of racial, ethnic, and gender stratification. This course introduces students to ongoing social scientific debates about the sources and consequences of inequality, as well as the types of public policy that might appropriately be pursued to reduce (or increase) inequality. These topics will be addressed in related units, some of which include guest lectures by faculty from other universities (funded by the Center for the Study of Inequality). Each unit culminates with a highly spirited class discussion and debate.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (ICE-IL), (SCD-AS, SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (AFAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 2250 - Schooling and Society (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 2256  
The primary goal of this course is to understand the relationship between education and society, with an emphasis on exploring educational inequality. To accomplish this, we will ask questions such as: What is the purpose and product of schools? How do schools reproduce social class, racial, and gender inequality? What is the relationship between education and future success? How are schools structured? What factors increase educational success? To answer these, and related questions, we will use classical and contemporary sociological theory and research. The course culminates in a research project of each student's own choosing.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2019, Spring 2018  
SOC 2270 - The Computerization of the American Social System (3 Credits)  
This course covers the social structural history of computer technology. While the course will focus on the American origins of information technology (IT) and the uses of IT in American institutional settings, global perspectives on the early history of mainframe computers, the globalization of computer equipment supply chains and the early history of the Internet are included in course readings. Modules of study across the semester will include: the sociological history of computer technology; the sociological process of innovation in IT in organizational settings; IT as a foundation for regional based economic revitalization; IT professions; and IT from the perspective of everyday life focusing on the sociological characteristics of gender, race, class, the family, education.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2022  
SOC 2280 - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ILRGL 2180  
This course examines the evolution of modern rational legal capitalism as the dominant economic order of the global economy. It explores the question of capitalism and socialism through the lens of the new institutionalism in economic sociology. Why and how has American capitalism shaped the emergence of dynamic capitalism in China? What enables and guides the emergence of a global high-technology knowledge economy in the 21st century? What is the relationship between capitalism as an economic order and democracy?
Distribution Requirements: (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
SOC 2310 - Sociology of Sexualities (3 Credits)  
This course introduces the field of sexuality studies to advanced undergraduates by examining the social, cultural, political, and historical dimensions of sexuality. We will read theoretical and empirical research with an emphasis on sociological perspectives and methods. We will develop an understanding of sexuality as a socially constructed system of stratification that is shaped by race, gender, class, and ability. Topics include sexual identity, behavior, and desire (such as heterosexuality and homosexuality), queer theory, the body, healthism, reproductive justice, and human rights.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025  
SOC 2350 - Social Life in Urban Spaces (3 Credits)  
The city is an ecological context that fundamentally shapes social life. In this course, we begin with a brief overview of sociological research that describes the growth of cities and the role of economic, political, and social forces in the development of contemporary urban context. Then we will focus on what is happening on the ground. How does living in a city affect individuals, their social relationships, and social networks? How do people experience urban environments in real-time, as they move about the city? How do features of the built environment and public spaces like sidewalks, plazas, and parks shape social interactions? What kinds of urban spaces provide opportunities for contact with diverse others that might promote inclusion and civility, and what kinds of spaces actually increase social isolation and exclusion? We will also consider neighborhoods as little social worlds that are nested within cities, segment the urban experience, and have implications for localized culture, community cohesion, crime and policing, and the persistence of socioeconomic and racial inequality.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
SOC 2370 - Race, Racism, and Public Policy (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 2370  
Public policy is a fundamental mechanism for addressing the most vexing and important social problems of our time. Racial inequality and structural racism are chief among such problems. Policy is thus widely understood and frequently touted as a means for redressing the harms of racism. Yet, public policy has also been identified as a channel through which racism flows. These seemingly paradoxical understandings of the relationships between racism and public policy raise critical questions about equality, democracy, the economy, and politics. This course examines such questions. questions. We begin by theoretically grounding key concepts such as race racism and public policy. We then consider the historical record, highlighting the fundamental role of racism in shaping politics and policy. Next, we build on these conceptual and historical foundations through thematic investigation of core policy elements (e.g., policy design, policy implementation, policy feedback), key policy institutions (e.g., legislatures, parties) and significant policy actors (e.g., social movement organizations, interest groups). Finally, the class wraps up with a series of policy deep dives involving close examination of specific policy domains (e.g., housing, health, the enviornment). This course provides students with the knowledge and analytical tools necessary to better understand the realities and complexities of race, racism, and public policy in the United States.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (D-HE, SBA-HE), (SCD-AS, SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Demonstrate significant knowledge about race, racism, and public policy.
  • Apply such knowledge to the analysis of pressing social problems.
  • Write about race and public policy with clarity and empirical grounding.
  • Discuss intellectually rigorous content about contentious issues.
  
SOC 2380 - Media and Society (3 Credits)  
This course will examine the intersections of media, culture, and society. The goal of this course is for students to apply a sociological perspective to the production, content, and reception of various forms of media such as the news, television, film, social media, etc. Through this course students will gain a broad understanding of the role of media in our lives and engage in topics such as the social and power dynamics of the media, issues of consumption and status, the production and social organization of media, and representation in the media.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2024, Summer 2023, Summer 2022  
SOC 2510 - Social Gerontology: Aging and the Life Course (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with HD 2510  
Analyzes the social aspects of aging in contemporary American society from a life course perspective. Topics include (1) an introduction to the field of gerontology, its history, theories, and research methods; (2) a brief overview of the physiological and psychological changes that accompany aging; (3) an analysis of the contexts (e.g., family, friends, social support, employment, volunteer work) in which individual aging occurs, including differences of gender, ethnicity, and social class; and (4) the influences of society on the aging individual.
Prerequisites: HD 1130 , SOC 1101, DSOC 1101, or PSYCH 1101.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SBA-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2018, Spring 2017  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Be able to relate public health and sociological research on health inequalities to differences in aging experiences across groups.
  
SOC 2560 - Sociology of Law (3 Credits)  
This course provides an introduction to the sociological perspective of law and legal institutions in modern society. A key question is the extent to which the law creates and maintains social order. And, what is its role in social change? We will review theoretical perspectives on the reciprocal relationship between law and society, and consider how this relationship is reflected in contemporary legal issues. Empirical research covered in this course will examine social interactions among actors within legal institutions (including the criminal courts, law school classrooms, and the jury room), and how individuals experience and utilize the law in everyday life.
Distribution Requirements: (OCE-IL), (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2019, Spring 2017, Fall 2014  
SOC 2580 - Six Pretty Good Books: Explorations in Social Science (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with HD 2580, ILRGL 2580, PSYCH 2580  
This course is modeled after Great Books literature courses in the humanities, but with two important differences: we read non-fiction books in the social sciences rather than the humanities, written by highly prominent contemporary social scientists. The course title refers to the fact that the books are new, hence their potential greatness has yet to be confirmed by the test of time. We choose living authors to give students a unique opportunity: to interact with each of the six authors in Q&A sessions via live or recorded video conferencing. Great Books courses are organized around books rather than the more traditional theme-based approach in most undergraduate classes, and each book is intended to stand on its own. Although the topics vary widely, each of the books addresses fundamental puzzles that motivate social science inquiry regarding human behavior and social interaction. These puzzles cut across disciplinary boundaries, hence the course is co-taught by psychologist Steve Ceci and sociologist/information scientist Michael Macy who provide continuity by calling attention to similarities and differences in theories, concepts, assumptions, and methods between sociologists (who focus on what happens between individuals) and psychologists (who focus on what happens within individuals). The authors vary from year to year but include famous social scientists such as Claude Steele, Daniel Kahneman, Nicholas Christakis, Beverly Tatum, Malcolm Gladwell, and Steven Pinker.
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL), (SBA-AG), (SBA-HE), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2021  
SOC 2710 - US Education System: Courts, Data, Law and Politics (3-4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GDEV 2710, AMST 2710, EDUC 2710  
This course aims to explore and answer a single question about America's promise-of success if you work hard and do well in school: Why do we have such substantial and long-standing inequality in the U.S.? In answering this central question, we will investigate the goals, roles, and outcomes of formal educational institutions in American society and the legal and policy environment in which they operate. Specifically, we will review historical state and federal policy, trace the $700 million spent, and interrogate the sociological functions of public and private K12 schools, including the successes, failures, and enigmas of school organization and policy at the local, state, and national level.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2021  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Students will recognize and assess the sociological function(s) of American Schools (e.g., socializer, sorter, trainer, and caretaker) as well as its role as a change agent, an equalizer, and reproducer of society's inequalities.
  • Students will critique education as a major public policy issue in American society.
  • Students will synthesize the legal framework and justification for local, state, and federal roles in public and private schooling.
  • Students will explore and interpret social and fiscal data to clarify policy assumptions and critiques.
  • Students will integrate and discuss their own schooling and what role they can play in the future of school improvement.
  
SOC 2800 - Social Movements (3 Credits)  
Exploratory Studies: (EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2010  
SOC 3010 - Statistics for Sociological Research (4 Credits)  
This course will introduce students to the theory and mathematics of statistical analysis. Many decisions made by ourselves and others around us are based on statistics, yet few people have a solid grip on the strengths and limitations of these techniques. This course will provide a firm foundation for statistical reasoning and logical inference using probability. While there is math in this course, it is not a math class per se, as a considerable amount of attention is devoted to interpreting statistics as well as calculating them.
Forbidden Overlaps: AEM 2100, BTRY 3010, BTRY 6010, CRP 1200, ENGRD 2700, HADM 2010, HADM 2011, ILRST 2100, ILRST 6100, MATH 1710, PSYCH 2500, PUBPOL 2100, PUBPOL 2101, SOC 3010, STSCI 2100, STSCI 2150, STSCI 2200. In addition, no credit for MATH 1710 if taken after ECON 3130, ECON 3140, MATH 4720, or any other upper-level course focusing on the statistical sciences.  
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: students in the college of Arts and Sciences.  
Distribution Requirements: (MQL-AG, OPHLS-AG, SBA-AG), (SDS-AS, SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020  
SOC 3030 - Research Design and Methods of Social Research (3 Credits)  
This course introduces students to the principles of sociological research methods. We will first discuss the research process itself, then focus on issues such as the relationship between theory and empirical analysis, the logic of research design, causal inference, measurement of concepts, modes of data collection, and ethics. By the end of the course, students will be able to evaluate the methodological strength of social science research projects and design methodologically rigorous research proposals.
Forbidden Overlaps: PUBPOL 3120, SOC 3030  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023  
SOC 3060 - High Tech Regions in Comparative Perspective (3 Credits)  
This course focuses on the sociological histories of regional-based technology clusters. The construction and life course of the technology cluster is a prevalent form of contemporary economic development. Students enrolled in the course will regularly provide in-class presentations of select case studies of particular regions and industries. Case studies will include regional high-tech clusters in the following locations: Silicon Valley, Boston, Israel, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Great Britain, Austin, Seattle, Portland, Albany-New York, Rochester-NY, Buffalo-NY, North Carolina, Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City-Cornell Tech, and regions and industries selected by students enrolled in the course. The course will utilize classical sociological themes as a guiding conceptual framework including: structuration, community, culture, social networks, and inequalities (gender/race/class).
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2021  
SOC 3080 - Social Networks and Power (3 Credits)  
In this course, we will consider the role social networks play in the genesis and perpetuation of power, influence, and control in society. We will read and discuss some key sociological theories of power as it manifests in a variety of formal, informal, individual and organizational contexts. We will then explore network methods for analyzing power. The course culminates in individual or group projects that involve network analyses of power in society.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2019  
SOC 3130 - Social Studies of Medicine (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with STS 3111, GDEV 3111, BSOC 3111  
This course provides an introduction to the ways in which medical practice, the medical profession, and medical technology are embedded in society and culture. We will ask how medicine is connected to various sociocultural factors such as gender, social class, race, and administrative cultures. We will examine the rise of medical sociology as a discipline, the professionalization of medicine, and processes of medicalization and demedicalization. We will look at alternative medical practices and how they differ from and converge with the dominant medical paradigm. We will focus on the rise of medical technology in clinical practice with a special emphases on reproductive technologies. We will focus on the body as a site for medical knowledge, including the medicalization of sex differences, the effect of culture on nutrition, and eating disorders such as obesity and anorexia nervosa. We will also read various classic and contemporary texts that speak to the illness experience and the culture of surgeons, hospitals, and patients, and we will discuss various case studies in the social construction of physical and mental illness.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: seniors, juniors, and sophomores.  
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (SCT-IL), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
SOC 3160 - Gender Inequality (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with FGSS 3160  
The course will explore gender inequality from a social structural framework, connecting it with inequality in other intersecting areas of social life such as race, class, and sexuality. It fits with the departments strengths in the study of inequality and focuses on a key area of sociological study (gender) in relation with other intersecting structures such as race, class, and sexuality and intersecting domains such as work, family, and politics. It will also give students an opportunity to explore sociological thinking and sense of how social scientists thing about evidence, what the standards of evidence are in the social sciences, and the promises and shortcoming of various methodological tools for studying the social world.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG), (SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023  
SOC 3170 - Nationalism and Identity (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GOVT 3174  
This comparative course explores key approaches to understanding nationalism and how it interacts with questions of identity in contemporary societies. We will first consider different theoretical approaches to the historical emergence and contemporary relevance of nationalism and concepts used to analyze its different manifestations. In the second part of the course, we will focus on the Russian Federation and the US as case studies to explore the interplay of nationalism, identity and social change in ethnically and racially diverse contexts. In this part of the course, we will use a wide range of sources to consider the impact of nationalism on politics, media, culture and everyday life.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 3180 - Health Disparities (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 3180  
This course will examine how health disparities are defined and measured, sources of health disparities, and strategies to reduce health disparities. During the course students will learn of the complexities of factors that influence patterns of disease and health at multiple levels by analyzing studies of health outcomes, the social conditions that are related to the health of populations, and some of the mechanisms through which these patterns are produced.
Prerequisites: PUBPOL 2350.  
Enrollment Information: Recommended prerequisite: PUBPOL 2101 (or equivalent).  
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (D-HE, SBA-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2020  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Be able to describe the patterns of health disparities and to explain why these patterns persist over time.
  • Be able to compare and contrast mechanisms through which social determinants of health may affect individuals' health status and health care.
  • Be able to critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of strategies for reducing health disparities.
  • Synthesize research reports to write effective summaries of the causes and consequences of health disparities and develop recommendations for research and policy.
  
SOC 3190 - Contemporary Sociological Theory (3 Credits)  
Introduction to the main ideas and lines of research in contemporary sociology, from the emergence of the field in the American academy to the present. We read the work of seminal theorists and researchers such as Robert Merton, Erving Goffman, James Coleman, Harrison White, and Theda Skocpol. Topics include the development of distinctive lines of argument in areas like the study of the face-to-face group, the modern organization, social movements and social revolutions, inequality, and social mobility. The course considers the relationship between intellectual challenges, techniques of social inquiry, and the social context within which ideas are put forward and take hold.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2020, Spring 2020  
SOC 3240 - Environmental Sociology (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GDEV 3240, STS 3241  
Humans have fraught relationships with the animals, plants, land, water-even geological processes-around us. In this course, we will examine how people make and respond to environmental change and how groups of people form, express, struggle over, and work out environmental concerns. We will probe how environmental injustices, demographic change, economic activity, government action, social movements, and varied ways of thinking shape human-environmental relationships. Through our conversations, we will explore possibilities for durable ways of living together in our social and material world. Our goal in this course is to give you knowledge, analytical tools, and expressive skills that help you feel confident to address environmental concerns as a social scientist and a citizen.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Explain different perspectives about how people create and address environmental concerns.
  • Discuss key debates in the sociology of environmental change, communicating the theoretical claims and empirical evidence one can use to test those claims.
  • Use sociological concepts and tools to analyze the emergence, dynamics, and outcomes of environmental controversies.
  • Express your knowledge and reasoning in engaging written communication.
  
SOC 3250 - Neighborhoods, Housing, and Urban Policy (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 3250  
This course considers the dynamics of housing markets and neighborhoods in American metropolitan areas and the public policies designed to regulate them. In the first part of the course, we examine the social and economic forces at work in metropolitan neighborhoods, focusing on trends in spatial inequality, segregation, and neighborhood effects. In the second part of the course, we examine the historical evolution of federal and local policies related to subsidized housing, homeownership, and land regulation and analyze empirical debates surrounding the effectiveness of such policies.
Prerequisites: one of the following: ECON 1110, GOVT 1111, PUBPOL 2220, PUBPOL 2250, SOC 1101, SOC 2220, or SOC 2070.  
Forbidden Overlaps: CRP 3430, PUBPOL 3250, PUBPOL 5250, SOC 3250  
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: undergraduate students.  
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (D-HE, SBA-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Students will be able to describe the origins, evolution, and contemporary challenges of low-income housing policy in the US.
  • Students will be able to identify and analyze descriptive data related to neighborhoods and housing.
  • Students will be able to apply course concepts to the study of neighborhoods and housing in their local surroundings.
  
SOC 3290 - Economic Sociology (3 Credits)  
Economic sociology extends the sociological approach to the study of economic life. The aim of the seminar is to understand the relationship between social structure, organizational form and economic action. We explore social processes embedded in economic exchange and knowledge spillover and economy. Why do individuals cooperate with strangers? Why is trust important in economic life. Why is social exchange the foundation of sustainable economic action? At the macro-level, the course addresses the question of why and how institutions enable, motivate and guide economic action; the social dynamics of institutional change; and explore the role of norms and networks in the capitalism of the United States and China.
Distribution Requirements: (OCE-IL), (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (EAAREA, EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2021  
SOC 3310 - Western European Politics (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GOVT 3323  
This course provides an overview of contemporary Western European politics by focusing on challenges posed to European political systems by the Great Recession and Sovereign Debt Crisis. In the first half of the course, we place a special emphasis on the challenges faced by the Southern European countries that were hardest hit by the economic crisis. We focus specifically on the rise of non-mainstream political parties on both the right and the left. During the second module, we'll pivot from this ongoing challenge to studying Western European political institutions in general, with a focus on the ongoing disruption of long-stable party systems by populist challengers. Throughout the course, we'll take advantage of our location in Turin, Italy to learn more about Italian politics from local scholars, meetings with politicians, and excursions.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-ITL); (EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2019, Summer 2018, Summer 2017, Summer 2016  
SOC 3360 - Evolving Families: Challenges to Public Policy (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 3360  
Examines the social institution of the family, challenges to the institution's well-being and stability, and the role of public policy in these transformations. Topics include family structure and responsibilities; marriage as a traditional building block of the family and challenges to the institution of marriage, including divorce, nonmarital childbearing, cohabitation, and same-sex unions; children, and the impact of family change on their wellbeing, including the effects of child poverty, maternal employment, and paternal involvement. The role of public policy in managing and shaping these developments is discussed.
Prerequisites: PUBPOL 2250 or SOC 1101 or DSOC 1101.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2017  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Describe the demographic changes affecting family functioning, and the public policies designed to address these changes.
  • Compare how family demographics are similar to and different from those in other developed countries.
  • Analyze current public policies designed to address family change; assess targets of opportunity for policy change that might better address the demographic reality of particular groups; identify areas in need of additional policy focus.
  
SOC 3380 - Urban Inequality (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AMST 3380  
This is an interdisciplinary seminar on inequality in metropolitan American that draws on scholarship from sociology, history, political science, and public policy. The first part of the course is dedicated to understanding the political, historical, and social determinants of inequality in America's cities and their surrounding suburbs. Politically and socially, cities face unique challenges. Municipalities lack much formal authority to resolve issues that arise within their borders and their populations are often highly heterogeneous. In the second part of the course, we investigate several contemporary urban issues, such as schooling, gentrification, immigration, climate change, and downtown development.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, HA-AG, SBA-AG), (HST-AS, SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
SOC 3390 - Diffusion of Innovation (3 Credits)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2023  
SOC 3400 - Labor and Migration in Asian America (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with AAS 3400, AMST 3409, ILRGL 3400  
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021  
SOC 3430 - Transformation of Socialist Societies (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GOVT 3354  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019  
SOC 3490 - How do Social Structures Emerge? An Introduction to the Micro-Macro Problem (3 Credits)  
Where do social structures come from? Social structures emerge from interaction between individuals. But not all interactions create durable structures. In this course, we will explore several micro-mechanisms through which the intended and unintended consequences of interdependent action create macro-level structures that we care about. How can small initial difference blow-up into large macro-level inequality? Will interpersonal influence alleviate or aggravate inequality? Why do individual actors engage in collective action to create public goods, when everyone will enjoy the benefits of such goods regardless of one's participation? How large an in-group bias is needed to create segregated neighborhoods? These are examples of questions that we will explore in this seminar. Exploring these questions will lead us to topics in interpersonal influence, diffusion, collective action, and emergence of norms, hierarchies, and segregation patterns, among others.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023  
SOC 3550 - Sociology of War (3 Credits)  
Distribution Requirements: (SSC-AS)  
SOC 3580 - Big Data on the Social World (3 Credits)  
This course showcases frontier research that uses big data and graphical analysis to understand our social world. Topics include inequality and opportunity, success in higher education, the gender wage gap, taxing the rich, Chinese censorship, the spread of false news, online dating, and other issues relevant to contemporary society.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite: prior training in data science (e.g., CS 1380/ORIE 1380/STSCI 1380) or quantitative methods for the social sciences is highly recommended.  
Distribution Requirements: (OPHLS-AG, SBA-AG), (SDS-AS, SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2021  
SOC 3620 - Population Controversies in Europe (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 3620  
Population problems are central to societal change in numerous areas- inequality, immigration and diversity, race relations, family life, health and aging, and social welfare systems. This class explores the causes and consequences of population change, paying particular attention to how population processes interact with the social, economic, and political context in which they play out. Particular attention will be paid to contemporary debates unfolding in Europe, how population problems are defined, and the policies intended to solve them.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite: SOC 1101, and GDEV 2010 or PUBPOL 2030.  
Course Fee: Course Fee, $800. Fee amount approximate, $700 to $800 for lodging. Students responsible for own travel and food expenses.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-ITL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Summer 2024, Summer 2023, Summer 2022  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Develop cognitive skill: increase understanding of social scientific perspectives on the causes and consequences of population change. Evaluate models of explanations for population changing, including fertility and family building, migration and immigration, morbidity and mortality, and aging, comparing the United States with European countries, and drawing from approaches in demography, sociology, and economics.
  • Evaluate current social and political processes: critically assess existing policies on immigration and immigrant adaptation, family well-being, Poverty, aging, and work-family balance, and develop empirical and cost/benefit tools to evaluate their impacts.
  • Collect and analyze data: assignments require use and examination of census data from across different countries, and uses basic descriptive statistical tools.
  • Improve professional writing skills: assignments require writing oriented toward professional audiences, including demographic descriptions, a comparative paper, and a policy brief.
  • Develop interpersonal skills: group discussions; group-based presentation of supplemental reading increase oral communication and interpersonal relationship skills.
  
SOC 3650 - Sociology of Disasters (3 Credits)  
Disasters are usually sudden events that result in catastrophic loss of life and/or property. They are often described using terms like disorder, chaos, and panic - descriptions which belie the highly socially structured nature of disasters. This course takes a closer look at disaster situations using a sociological lens. We will examine the social elements of several disasters, including the sinking of Titanic, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and others. Through these cases, students will learn about (1) the social-psychological and collective dynamics that govern behavior in disaster situations, (2) the role social networks and organizations play in disaster occurrence, response and recovery, and especially (3) the role of social disadvantage in shaping vulnerability to and mortality risk in disasters.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2020, Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Spring 2016  
SOC 3660 - Sociology of Music (3 Credits)  
Sociology of music, or “Sociomusicology,” is a subdiscipline of sociology that examines the interplay between social structure and the production, performance, and consumption of music. This course introduces students to a variety of sociological perspectives on music, including classical and contemporary theories and methods of study. Students will learn about social-structural bases of musical developments, socio-cultural expressions and functions of music, among other topics. Students will hear, and introduce, different examples of music in class that illustrate key sociological tenets of music.
Distribution Requirements: (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
SOC 3710 - Comparative Social Inequalities (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GDEV 3700  
This course offers a sociological understanding of social inequality and the social construction of difference. Designed from the perspective of comparative historical analysis, we will examine the ways in which class, gender, race/ethnicity, religion, and sexuality differences work across place and time within a shared set of global dynamics. The course will pay special attention to how difference is constructed, institutionalized, and experienced. Thus, the course will not only address inequality based on economic and labor relations, but also emphasize complicated notions of difference and identity to offer an analysis that links inequality to power and forms of rule.
Prerequisites: introductory social science course.  
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (OCE-IL)  
Exploratory Studies: (AFAREA, LAAREA, SAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Spring 2022  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Explain systems of social inequality from different sociological perspectives.
  • Assess different assumptions about the determinants of inequality.
  • Apply an understanding of inequality and difference to everyday current events.
  
SOC 3740 - Analyzing Complex Data Structures: Network, Spatial, Multilevel, and Text Data (3 Credits)  
Not only the world but also data about the world is becoming increasingly complex. Examples of complex data structures include network data that represent connections among individuals (e.g., friends on social media platforms), spatial data that represents geolocations (e.g., smartphone location data), data collected at multiple levels (e.g., employees in organizations), and text data (e.g., online comments). This course provides students with a comprehensive understanding and set of tools to analyze network, spatial, multilevel, and text data.
Prerequisites: an introductory class on quantitative data analysis (e.g., elementary probability theory, hypothesis testing, linear regression) and some exposure to programming.  
Distribution Requirements: (OPHLS-AG, SBA-AG), (SDS-AS, SSC-AS)  
SOC 3750 - Classical Sociological Theory (3 Credits)  
This course introduces the classics in sociology - primarily works by Karl Marx, Max Weber, emile Durkheim, and Georg Simmel. Students will also study some works of Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois, Talcott Parsons, members of the Chicago School of Sociology, and others. Special emphasis is placed on the concepts, ideas, and analytical approaches that characterize the foundations of sociology, and how those elements have informed the broader scholarly dialogue in sociology since its inception.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 3800 - The Welfare State and Its Contradictions for Workers (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ILRGL 3815  
Is the welfare state a protector from capitalism or an accomplice to capitalism? Social safety nets and capitalist markets have a complicated relationship for workers. Healthcare, retirement pensions, unemployment insurance –these provisions protect workers from the risks of getting sick, old, and fired. These same provisions are also tremendous sources of capital, invested into the very employers and asset-managers who pose risks to workers. This contradiction is not an "American thing," but extends to social democracies like the Netherlands who steward one of the largest national capital-funded pensions. This course uncovers these complexities of the welfare state, with special theoretical and empirical attention to labor. Geographically it will focus on the United States, with frequent international comparisons to examine the commonalities and differences of welfare states. And lastly, it will be equal parts sociology and history, illuminating the origins, transformations, and inequalities of the welfare state in the United States.
Enrollment Information: Open to: undergraduate students.  
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024  
SOC 3810 - Mass Incarceration and Social Inequality in America (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 3810, AMST 3808  
In this course we will explore the origins and consequences of mass incarceration- extraordinarily high incarceration rates within particular demographic groups above and beyond historical levels in the United States. We will examine theories of social control and deviance to uncover how institutions and individuals use power to shape societies. This course also engages theories of state power to understand and to analyze how labeling is deployed to control groups of people, and, in doing so, we will conduct a genealogy of a contemporary driver of social inequality: the prison industrial complex. Current policy debates around the movement to reduce the number of men and women in American jails and prisons will also be covered. Contemporary social problems like homelessness and food insecurity will be discussed in detail, as well as how mass incarceration contributes to growing gaps in labor force participation, wealth accumulation, and familial instability.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, HA-AG, KCM-AG, SBA-AG), (D-HE, HA-HE, KCM-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Recall contemporary debates and recent scholarly advancements on the topic of mass incarceration.
  • Explain and apply core theories and findings that demonstrate your comprehension and application of course material.
  • Compare and contrast different explanations of mass incarceration and the observed consequences therein.
  • Synthesize and evaluate scholarly material that reflects your knowledge and understanding of core course concepts and research findings.
  
SOC 3820 - Migration: Histories, Controversies, and Perspectives (3 Credits)  
This introductory course introduces students to issues and debates related to international migration and will provide an interdisciplinary foundation to understanding the factors that shape migration flows and migrant experiences. We will start by reviewing theories of the state and historical examples of immigrant racialization and exclusion in the United States and beyond. We will critically examine the notions of borders, citizenship/non-citizenship, and the creation of diasporas. Students will also hear a range of perspectives by exposing them to Cornell guest faculty who do research and teach on migration across different disciplines and methodologies and in different world areas. Examples include demographic researchers concerned with immigrant inequality and family formation, geographic perspectives on the changing landscapes of immigrant metropolises, legal scholarship on the rights of immigrant workers, and the study of immigrant culture from a feminist studies lens. Offered each fall semester.
Enrollment Information: Open to: undergraduate students.  
Distribution Requirements: (AWI-IL, ICE-IL), (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 3890 - From Luddites to Silicon Valley: The Politics of Tech and Work (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ILRGL 3895  
This course is a survey of theories and politics of the labor process exploring how employers organize work, how workers respond to these efforts, and how this shapes industrial labor relations. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution scholars from Marx to Taylor considered how the design of the labor process impacted not only profit but workers' subjective experience of their work and their resistance. The last two decades have again seen significant changes and upheaval in the nature of work-gigification, digital surveillance, and the disruptive specter of generative AI-raising the importance of these questions yet again. Exploring the politics of how work is organized this course seeks to interrogate the historical context of these contemporary debates.
Distribution Requirements: (AWI-IL, ICE-IL), (SSC-AS)  
SOC 4010 - Diasporic and Indigenous Health (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ASRC 4002, AMST 4002  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020  
SOC 4110 - Religion and Social Life (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with RELST 4110  
Global conflicts, raising children, electing presidents, praying for a loved one: from the mundane to the extraordinary, religion plays a significant role in social life, regardless of whether or not one considers oneself religious. In this course we will investigate religion and its impacts in society from a sociological perspective. Questions we will ask include: How does religion fit into society? What are the contours of contemporary religion in the United States and around the world? How do religious identities interact with other aspects of social life, including gender, race and politics? In what ways have religions and religious life changed over time? As social scientists, how can we best study religion? The course will use examples from a variety of religious and secular traditions to help us understand religion's sociological significance in the contemporary world.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG), (SCD-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2019  
SOC 4120 - Health and Social Context (3 Credits)  
What is health? What does it mean to be healthy (or not) in today's world? How does health (or illness) shape an individual's identity and relationship to other people and institutions? This course grapples with the social underpinnings of health and has two main components: substantive and practice. First (substantive), we will explore core concepts and methods from the research areas of medical sociology and population health. We will read a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research on topics such as disease, reproductive health, sexuality, public health, medicalization, inequality, and activism. These readings spread across 3 thematic units: (1) what is health?, (2) health disparities, and (3) politics of health. Second (practice), we will focus on research design and writing. You will develop your own research question about the relationship between social context and health and will spend the semester collecting and analyzing data, drafting and revising your results, and polishing and presenting your social science research. This course is supported by Cornell's John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines as a Writing in the Majors (WIM) course. As such, our aim is to integrate learning about our topic and developing our skills as writers in advanced undergraduate courses across the College of Arts & Sciences.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, OPHLS-AG), (SCD-AS, SDS-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 4160 - The Ethnography of Poverty and Inequality (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 4160  
This course explores poverty and inequality in American society through the lens of ethnographic and other field-based research. We will read classic and contemporary texts which have shaped our understanding of how social inequality and exclusion constrain people's daily lives and how groups develop innovative responses to these constraints.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite: PUBPOL 2300, PUBPOL 2250, PUBPOL 2030, SOC 1101 or DSOC 1101 and SOC 2220.  
Distribution Requirements: (CA-HE, D-HE, KCM-HE, SBA-HE), (D-AG, SBA-AG)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Think critically about the experiences of poverty and inequality in the United States.
  • To gain a solid understanding of important classic and contemporary ethnographic texts and how they relate to each other.
  • To develop an understanding of the methodological and theoretical approaches used by each author.
  • To develop skills to write and present a research paper which incorporates ethnographic evidence.
  
SOC 4240 - Migration and the Peopling of America: A Perennial Debate (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with HIST 4252, AMST 4252  
This seminar offers a hands-on approach to US immigration history from the colonial era to the present. In addition to learning the contours of the surprising history of immigration to the United States from all corners of the world, including the impact of questions of legal status, gender, and race, students will strive to develop a sophisticated sense of the historical context of today's immigration debates and issues, with the opportunity to learn about these issues in Washington DC. In the late 19th century, for example, the native born often saw Southern Italian, Eastern European Jewish, and Chinese immigrants as threats to their jobs, their health, and their cultural values. Restrictionists in Congress sought to close the door through legislation or administrative regulation. Others, such as settlement house workers, sought to Americanize newcomers and assimilate them into the American population. Immigrants were often aware of the double message and sought to negotiate a place in American society that allowed them to succeed economically while retaining their identities. The debate continues today as millions of migrants from Latin America and Asia, documented and undocumented, arrive. After a discussion of indentured servitude and slavery (involuntary migration) this course seeks to examine the perennial debate over voluntary immigration through the eyes of both native-born Americans and through immigrants eyes to the present.
Distribution Requirements: (HA-AG), (HST-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2019, Fall 2013, Fall 2012  
SOC 4290 - Moving Pictures and a Changing Society (3 Credits)  
American society has evolved dramatically over the last century while retaining distinctive ideals and social tensions. Rural communities have given way to digital worlds, pork barrel politics to polarization, and fixed conceptions of sexuality to fluid ones. At the same time, the country is marked by a longstanding celebrity culture, frontier mindset, and enduring conflicts around class, race, and gender. The course seeks insight into complex patterns of social change through the lens of film. Each week we watch a movie made in a given historical period, and read from the sociological literature of that period. The course travels about a decade per week, covering films from the Silent Era up to the present, watching films such as Modern Times (1936), Double Indemnity (1944), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The President's Analyst (1967), Taxi Driver(1976), She's Gotta Have It (1986), American Beauty (1999), District 9 (2009), Her (2013).
Distribution Requirements: (HA-AG, SBA-AG), (HST-AS, SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Spring 2020  
SOC 4310 - Sociology of Sexualities (3 Credits)  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG)  
SOC 4320 - Culture Wars in the Age of Tribal Politics (3 Credits)  
Is there a culture war for the soul of Amerca? This seminar will explore the definition, types, causes, dynamics, diffusion, and consequences of partisan cultural alignment. Readings will include theoretical models and empirical studies of opinion cascades, identity politics, motivated reasoning, network homophily, echo chambers, filter bubbles, social contagion, conformity, and cultural cognition. What is polarization? Is it the disappearance of a consensual middle ground or the tendency for substantively unrelated opinions to become correlated? Did polarization emerge from the top down, beginning with political and cultural elites, or from the bottom up, through the self-reinforcing dynamics of network homophily and peer influence? Do social media and cable news contribute to polarization or merely reflect it? Can polarization be reversed, and if not, what are the implications for democratic institutions?
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG), (SDS-AS, SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2020  
SOC 4330 - Seminar in Economy and Society (4 Credits)  
Economic sociology extends the sociological perspective to the study economic life. The seminar examines the view that social networks, norms, beliefs and rules motivate and enable economic action in market and nonmarket settings. It integrates the study of ideas and theory in economic sociology with a practicum providing training in the craft of research. Designed for advanced undergraduates interesting in research and graduate students who seek training in economic sociology, the seminar offers a year-long workshop environment enabling and guiding independent and collaborative research.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Fall 2014  
SOC 4370 - Sociology of Sex and Gender (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with FGSS 4371  
This course provides an introduction to the theoretical and empirical literature on the sociology of sex and gender. The readings cover theory and methods, feminism, masculinity, intersectionality, international/comparative perspectives, gender roles, and recent sociological research in this area.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG), (SCD-AS, SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2019  
SOC 4380 - Neurodiversity and Society (3 Credits)  
Ever wonder why the same traits that get you sent to the principal’s office might land you a six-figure tech job - or leave you struggling to find any work at all? Why the intense focus that makes someone an exceptional researcher might make daily tasks feel impossible? Society is finally recognizing different ways of thinking and being - but this recognition comes with deep contradictions. While some workplaces now actively seek neurodivergent talent, others still demand rigid conformity. Mental health institutions once housed those seen as different; today, many face prison instead. Schools praise “neurodiversity” while still punishing students who can’t sit still. Through a sociological lens, we’ll examine how social background, cultural expectations, and institutional power shape who gets support versus surveillance, who gets accommodated versus excluded. From mental health and social movements to education and employment, from gender and sexuality to race and class, we’ll investigate how society is unevenly shifting from pathologizing differences to recognizing diverse ways of being human. We’ll examine who gets to define what counts as normal, who benefits from these definitions, and what happens to those who don’t fit. This course centers neurodivergent perspectives and welcomes students of all neurotypes.
Distribution Requirements: (SCD-AS, SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
SOC 4420 - Sociology of Diffusion (3 Credits)  
Diffusion means the spread of social practices across a group or society. Examples include new fashions in clothing, ways of interacting on the Web, global movements toward democracy and authoritarianism, adherence or opposition to vaccines, and much more. Fundamental questions include when something spreads, to whom, by what mechanisms, and why. This course reviews theory and method in classic and contemporary diffusion research in sociology. Students develop an understanding of common pathways in diffusion and apply it to a case of particular interest to themselves.
Distribution Requirements: (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (EUAREA)
SOC 4440 - Economic Sociology of Social Inequalities (3 Credits)  
This seminar explores the causes and consequences of social inequalities embedded in economic institutions and markets. From hierarchies to markets, stratification is embedded in networks and norms that enable and guide economic action. As such, the mechanisms of social inequalities involve processes that are hidden in everyday social interactions. The economic sociology of social inequalities encompasses systems of class power, ethnic and racial stratification, and gender inequalities. We will use a case study method to explore and dissect the economic sources of social inequalities in everyday life.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024  
SOC 4540 - Fascism, Nationalism and Populism (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GOVT 4543, SHUM 4540  
This seminar will look broadly at challenges to democratic institutions in the United States and Europe. To think about the present, we will delve into historical fascism as well as nationalism and populism. We will (1) respond to contemporary political events in the US and beyond; (2) explore the terms fascism and populism which in the last few years have come to dominate our political vocabulary in the media and the academy; (3) mobilize the instructor's area of academic expertise (fascism and populism) in the service of broad liberal arts concerns. The course focuses upon themes and readings. It is not chronological-rather it looks at different iterations of the same ideas, concepts, and fears as they emerge in different historical contexts. Seminar materials draw upon various sources: scholarly articles, films, and if possible, an occasional guest lecturer.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 4560 - Evaluation and Society (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with STS 4561, INFO 4561, SHUM 4561  
Evaluation is a pervasive feature of contemporary life. Professors, doctors, countries, hotels, pollution, books, intelligence: there is hardly anything that is not subject to some form of review, rating, or ranking these days. This senior seminar examines the practices, cultures, and technologies of evaluation and asks how value is established, maintained, compared, subverted, resisted, and institutionalized in a range of different settings. Topics include user reviews, institutional audit, ranking and commensuration, algorithmic evaluation, tasting, gossip, and awards. Drawing on case studies from science, technology, culture, accounting, art, environment, and everyday life, we shall explore how evaluation comes to order our lives - and why it is so difficult to resist.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment preference given to: seniors, STS/BSOC majors.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2019, Spring 2018  
SOC 4580 - The Science of Social Behavior (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with HD 4580, ILRGL 4580, PSYCH 4580  
This is a capstone seminar for seniors who are interested in graduate or professional study in scientific disciplines that focus on human behavior and social interaction. The intent is to provide seniors with an opportunity to summon, integrate, and apply insights that they have acquired over the course of their undergraduate education, and give prospective graduate students the opportunity to lead discussions in a large introductory lecture course, Six Pretty Good Books. Each seminar member is part of a two or three-person team that leads the discussion together, under the supervision of a graduate teaching assistant. Seminar meetings are devoted to building lesson plans for leading an effective discussion of each of the six books. The authors vary from year to year but include Malcolm Gladwell, Michelle Alexander, Nate Silver, and Nicholas Christakis. All authors have agreed to participate in a Q&A session with the students which seminar members are required to attend.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: seniors.  
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL), (SBA-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2021  
SOC 4780 - The Family and Society in Africa and the African Diaspora (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ASRC 4606  
Exploratory Studies: (AFAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013  
SOC 4850 - Business and Inequality (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 4858  
Through discussions, presentations, and research papers, we will examine increasing US inequality, and the interaction of business's role and impacts, alongside potential policy prescriptions (UBI, tax policy, job guarantees, etc.). Topics will also include potential sources of inequality. Areas explored include: Can public policy blunt inequality without unduly harming markets? What are the responsibilities of private sector companies to society, and what are their incentives? How does inequality affect business (through customers, workers - human capital), how does business exacerbate and exploit inequality? Does inequality reduce economic growth and productivity (due to rent-seeking activities, reduced opportunity)? Does corporate influence on the political system reinforce inequality? Is labor disadvantaged by social safety net structures, such as policies tying benefits to work requirements? Does inequality destabilize financial markets and fuel speculation ((e.g., 1920's margin investing, GameStop, etc.)? Additional readings and in-depth research paper required of Master's students.
Prerequisites: Intermediate Microeconomics (PUBPOL 5210, ECON 3030 or equivalent). Recommended prerequisite: introductory coursework in statistics and finance.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SBA-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Students will investigate inequality's potential sources, magnitude, and changes over time.
  • Students will articulate business's role within society as it pertains to inequality.
  • Students will explain how short-term and/or individual financial incentives can erode long-term economic/societal outcomes.
  • Students will describe when business interests are mutually aligned with inequality reductions and when they deviate.
  
SOC 4910 - Independent Study (1-4 Credits)  
This is for undergraduates who wish to obtain research experience or to do extensive reading on a special topic.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-UG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
SOC 4950 - Honors Research (4 Credits)  
Students choose a sociology faculty member to work with on research to write an honors thesis. Candidates for honors must maintain a cumulative GPA at least an A- in all sociology classes.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Sociology seniors.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-UG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
SOC 4960 - Honors Thesis: Senior Year (4 Credits)  
Continuation of SOC 4950. Continue to work with honors supervisor and work on and write an honors thesis.
Prerequisites: SOC 4950.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-UG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
SOC 4980 - Engaged Learning Capstone (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 4950  
This engaged learning course offers students the opportunity to integrate and apply knowledge and skills by addressing a real-world question presented by a community partner. Students will work collaboratively on an applied research project, produce a professional report, and brief community members on the outcomes and recommendations of their research.
Prerequisites: PUBPOL 2100 or equivalent statistics course.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG)  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Frame a problem identified by a client that can be answered through social science research methods
  • Review the social science literature on an applied program or policy issue that is relevant for the client
  • Use appropriate methods to collect and analyze data in response to client needs
  • Make recommendations for strengthening the program data and evaluation
  • Effectively communicate research results and recommendations through presentations and a written report to clients
  
SOC 5010 - Basic Problems in Sociology I (3 Credits)  
Analysis of theory shaping current sociological research. Examination of several central problems in sociological inquiry provides an occasion for understanding tensions and continuities between classical and contemporary approaches, for indicating the prospects for unifying microsociological and macrosociological orientations, and for developing a critical appreciation of efforts to integrate theory and research.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 5020 - Basic Problems in Sociology II (3 Credits)  
Continuation of SOC 5010. Emphasis is on the logical analysis of theoretical perspectives, theories, and theoretical research programs shaping current sociological research. The course includes an introduction to basic concepts used in the logical analysis of theories and examines their application to specific theories and theoretical research programs. Theoretical perspectives include functionalism, social exchange, and interactionism.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 5180 - Social Inequality: Contemporary Theories, Debates, and Models (3 Credits)  
This course serves as an introduction to contemporary theories, debates, and models regarding the structure of social classes, the determinants of social mobility, the sources and cases of racial, ethnic, and gender-based inequality, and the putative rise of postmodern forms of stratification. The twofold objective is to both review contemporary theorizing and to identify areas in which new theories, hypotheses, and research agendas might be fruitfully developed.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2019, Fall 2017, Fall 2015  
SOC 5190 - Workshop on Social Inequality (1 Credit)  
This course provides a forum in which students and others can present, discuss, and receive instant feedback on their inequality-related research. Its primary goals is to help students advance their own research; its secondary goal is to introduce selected debates in the contemporary inequality literature in a more comprehensive fashion that is possible in the introductory graduate-level seminar on inequality.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Sociology Ph.D. students or permission of instructor.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (AFAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
SOC 5400 - Organizational Research (3 Credits)  
This course focuses on contemporary sociological research on organizations. It centers theoretically on the interplay of institutional, ecological, and choice-theoretic accounts of organizational structure and action. Subjects include organizational founding and mortality, change in organizational practices over time, the relationship between organizations and their legal, social, and cultural environment, and stratification and mobility within organizations.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2014, Spring 2011  
SOC 5710 - US Education System: Courts, Data, Law and Politics (3-4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GDEV 5710, AMST 5710, EDUC 5710  
This course aims to explore and answer a single question about America's promise-of success if you work hard and do well in school: Why do we have such substantial and long-standing inequality in the U.S.? In answering this central question, we will investigate the goals, roles, and outcomes of formal educational institutions in American society and the legal and policy environment in which they operate. Specifically, we will review historical state and federal policy, trace the $700 million spent, and interrogate the sociological functions of public and private K12 schools, including the successes, failures, and enigmas of school organization and policy at the local, state, and national level.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Cornell Teacher Education Program or permission of instructor.  
Exploratory Studies: (AFAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2021  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Students will recognize and assess the sociological function(s) of American Schools (e.g., socializer, sorter, trainer, and caretaker) as well as its role as a change agent, an equalizer, and reproducer of society's inequalities.
  • Students will critique education as a major public policy issue in American society.
  • Students will synthesize the legal framework and justification for local, state, and federal roles in public and private schooling.
  • Students will explore and interpret social and fiscal data to clarify policy assumptions and critiques.
  • Students will integrate and discuss their own schooling and what role they can play in the future of school improvement.
  
SOC 5850 - Business and Inequality (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 5858  
Through discussions, presentations, and research papers, we will examine increasing US inequality, and the interaction of business's role and impacts, alongside potential policy prescriptions (UBI, tax policy, job guarantees, etc.). Topics will also include potential sources of inequality. Areas explored include: Can public policy blunt inequality without unduly harming markets? What are the responsibilities of private sector companies to society, and what are their incentives? How does inequality affect business (through customers, workers - human capital), how does business exacerbate and exploit inequality? Does inequality reduce economic growth and productivity (due to rent-seeking activities, reduced opportunity)? Does corporate influence on the political system reinforce inequality? Is labor disadvantaged by social safety net structures, such as policies tying benefits to work requirements? Does inequality destabilize financial markets and fuel speculation (e.g., 1920's margin investing, GameStop, etc.)? Additional readings and in-depth research paper required of Master's students.
Prerequisites: Intermediate Microeconomics (PUBPOL 5210, ECON 3030 or equivalent). Recommended prerequisite: introductory coursework in statistics and finance.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Students will investigate inequality's potential sources, magnitude, and changes over time.
  • Students will articulate business's role within society as it pertains to inequality.
  • Students will explain how short-term and/or individual financial incentives can erode long-term economic/societal outcomes.
  • Students will describe when business interests are mutually aligned with inequality reductions and when they deviate.
  
SOC 6000 - Doing Research With Marginalized Populations (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ASRC 6003, AMST 6003  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021  
SOC 6010 - Statistics for Sociological Research (4 Credits)  
This course provides an introduction to analytical approaches in quantitative sociological research. The class will cover data description and graphical approaches, elementary probability theory, hypothesis testing, bivariate and multivariate linear regression, and data analysis and interpretation. Although the course will be taught using basic mathematics and statistics, I will develop the topics intuitively throughout the course. The class is geared towards sociological thinking--all homework and class examples will use real data and focus on questions from the social world. The course covers the basic building blocks of quantitative data analysis with the goal of training students to be informed consumers of quantitative social science research. This class is also the starting point for students interested in using quantitative methods in their own research.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 6020 - Intermediate Statistics for Sociological Research (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 6020  
This course provides the second part of a two-semester introduction to quantitative methods in sociological research. It is designed for first-year graduate students in sociology. The course covers intermediate topics in linear regression, and provides an introduction to models for categorical and count data, the analysis of time data, and longitudinal data. We'll also discuss data-related issues such as missing data and weighting, and data that are complicated by issues of non-random design. While statistical modeling is the focus of the course, we proceed with the assumption that models are only as good as the theoretical and substantive knowledge behind them. Thus, in covering the technical material, we will spend considerable time discussing the link between substantive knowledge and statistical practice.
Prerequisites: SOC 6010.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 6030 - Graduate Research Practicum (3 Credits)  
This course is designed to assist the student's professional development on a learning by doing and feedback basis. The course is organized around presentation and discussion of ongoing research projects. As a general rule the course welcomes auditors and all members of the sociology community interested in the variety of research being pursued at Cornell, though participation is with the permission of the instructor(s).
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2021  
SOC 6035 - Social Structure & Epidemics (3 Credits)  
Epidemics and pandemics throughout history have revealed strong associations between core aspects of social structure – including factors at both the individual level (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, and SES) and population level (e.g., community features like density, poverty, walkability, occupational composition, and government). This course will discuss and explore the role these factors play in shaping the spread of infectious disease throughout populations, especially with respect to rapid, widespread, and deadly events like epidemics and pandemics. Students will learn about research on these topics through frameworks such as network epidemiology, diffusion, social stratification, sociology of disasters, and political sociology. Students will plan and engage in fieldwork in and around Ithaca in an effort to identify key risk factors that may affect our preparedness for and vulnerability to future epidemics.
SOC 6040 - Advanced Statistics for Sociological Research (3 Credits)  
This course extends the study of quantitative methods beyond the required, two-semester graduate methods sequence. We will begin with an in-depth focus on graphical analysis, model uncertainty, techniques for analyzing big data and treating missing data, and issues of causal identification. We will then turn to discussions of specific models selected to complement those covered in existing graduate methods courses for social scientists. The core learning goal is crystal-clear intuitive understanding of these research methods and how they can be put into the service of learning about the social world.
Prerequisites: SOC 6010 and SOC 6020.  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Fall 2020, Spring 2019  
SOC 6050 - Social Demography (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 6050, GDEV 6070  
The objective of this course is to provide a conceptual overview and technical tool-kit for studying population issues and public policies. What is a demographic perspective? And how can it be applied usefully to important domestic and international policy issues of the day (e.g., housing segregation, health and retirement, labor mobility and immigration, and above- and below-replacement fertility, school projections, etc.). The course will introduce students to various demographic data sources (e.g., decennial census and periodic fertility surveys), conventional measures (e.g., fertility rates and measures of poverty/inequality), and conventional demographic techniques (e.g., life tables, rate standardization, and population forecasting) used in social demography. For the most part, the course places the emphasis on the appropriate application of demographic tools and on scientifically-sound interpretations.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Appreciate the many different ways that demographers approach significant substantive and empirical policy problems.
  • Apply a demographic perspective and methods broadly across many different substantive areas in the social sciences (e.g., family social sciences, health, criminology, and education.
  • Pursue more advanced technical courses in demographic methods or in substantively-oriented demography courses.
  
SOC 6080 - Proseminar in Sociology (1 Credit)  
Discussion of the current state of sociology and of the research interests of members of the graduate field; taught by all members of the field.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: first semester Sociology graduate students.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
SOC 6110 - Social Network: Theory and Applications (3 Credits)  
Social Network Analysis (SNA), or the mathematical analysis of webs of relationships, is a thriving part of sociology and an active research area for numerous other disciplines. This course is intended to introduce students to the basics of SNA and help them apply it to a variety of research questions. We will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the area, basic concepts used in SNA analyses, and finally methods for describing and interpreting network data. At the completion of this course students should have a basic understanding of social networks and be able to carry out a variety analyses on their own.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2021  
SOC 6130 - Logics and Methods of Sociological Research (3 Credits)  
This course will expose students to ethnography, experiments, small-N comparison, content analysis, archival research, internet data scraping, data visualization, network and sequence approaches, and more. We will begin to answer the following core questions: What are the strengths of different methods? What are their weaknesses? What assumptions about research design issues are built into each method? What assumptions about the scientific status of sociology are built into each method? How can different methods be combined so that their strengths and weaknesses balance one another?
Enrollment Information: Open to: new graduate students in sociology.  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023  
SOC 6150 - Qualitative, Survey, and Mixed Method Approaches to Policy Research (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 6040  
Introduces students to theories and methods of data collection techniques such as in-depth interviews, ethnography, focus groups, and surveys as well as mixed-method approaches used in policy and evaluation research. Addresses the strengths and weaknesses of various methods and the design of qualitative and mixed-method studies. Covers epistemology, ethics, induction and deduction, measurement, validity, and triangulation. Also discusses more concrete issues such as gaining access to a field site, developing a qualitative interview guide and survey questionnaire, conducting a qualitative interview, managing data, and assessing data quality.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) students. Master of Public Administration (MPA) students may enroll with instructor approval. Recommended prerequisite: previous course in social science research methods.  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020  
SOC 6250 - Gender, Sexuality and Religion (3 Credits)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021  
SOC 6270 - Sociology of Religion (3 Credits)  
This seminar focuses on the social causes and consequences of religion, using the frameworks and methods of social science to understand religion and non-religion and their implications for social life. It will introduce basic ideas in the sociology of religion and survey the social landscape of religion in the United States and around the world. This seminar, while covering a number of key texts and core topics, will put particular attention on the ways religion intersects with inequality and politics. We will be less concerned with religion for its own sake than for its substantial social implications. Religion has been one of the most powerful and pervasive forces throughout history and remains so today. Without an understanding of religion, a central part of the lives of millions of Americans and billions of people around the world, you cannot fully understand American society or world politics.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2022  
SOC 6280 - Family Demography (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 6280  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2020, Fall 2016, Fall 2013  
SOC 6300 - Interdisciplinary and Global Approaches to Culture (3 Credits)  
Culture is now constitutive of social science analysis across a range of disciplines: sociology, economics, political science and anthropology. Culture is a staple of comparative analysis either historical or present day. Methodological variety as well as rigor characterizes cultural research and analysis. This graduate seminar will introduce topics, have where appropriate guest speakers and ask students to design potential research projects.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2010  
SOC 6310 - Qualitative Research Methods for Studying Science, Technology, and Medicine (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with STS 6311  
In this Graduate seminar we will discuss the nature, politics and basic assumptions underlying qualitative research. We will examine a selection of qualitative methods ranging from interviewing, oral history, ethnography, participant observation, archival research and visual methods. We will also discuss the relationship between theory and method. All stages of a research project will be discussed - choice of research topic and appropriate methods; human subject concerns and permissions; issues regarding doing research; as well as the process of writing up and publishing research findings.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 6320 - Inside Technology (4 Credits)  
Crosslisted with STS 6321  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Spring 2017  
SOC 6330 - Seminar in Economy and Society (3 Credits)  
Economic sociology extends the sociological perspective to the study economic life. The seminar examines the view that social networks, norms, beliefs and rules motivate and enable economic action in market and nonmarket settings. It integrates the study of ideas and theory in economic sociology with a practicum providing training in the craft of research. Designed for advanced undergraduates interesting in research and graduate students who seek training in economic sociology, the seminar offers a year-long workshop environment enabling and guiding independent and collaborative research.
Prerequisites: for undergraduates two courses in economic sociology and economics, or permission of instructor.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2014, Fall 2013  
SOC 6340 - Sociology of Education (3 Credits)  
This course serves as a graduate-level introduction to sociological theories and research on schooling, education systems, and the interaction between schools and other dominant social institutions, such as the family. In this course, we will explore variation in the context of schooling, the social organization of schools, and a range of topics linking schooling to social stratification. Although this course will primarily focus on elementary and secondary education in the United States, we will also cover topics in higher education and from an international comparative perspective.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Spring 2020  
SOC 6350 - Social Change in Theory and Practice (1 Credit)  
Sociology as a discipline formed in the effort to comprehend the emergence of modern society via industrialization, urbanization, and marketization, with concurrent transformation in social beliefs, typical life courses, and social networks. Much of today's sociology is implicitly oriented to a related concern with theorizing quantitative and qualitative change, as can be seen in investigation of online interaction, gender roles and identity, political polarization, modification in organizational forms, and the like. This course examines conceptions of substantive social change by leading sociologists like Daniel Bell, James Coleman, Randall Collins, Alvin Gouldner, John Meyer, Theda Skocpol, Duncan Watts, and Harrison White, and considers how they inform and are enriched by empirical inquiry.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025  
SOC 6370 - Sociology of Sex and Gender (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with FGSS 6371  
SOC 6420 - Sociology of Diffusion (2 Credits)  
Diffusion - the spread of social practices - is of central interest for the way it combines attention to social structure and social change. The course reviews theory and method in both classic and contemporary diffusion studies. Theoretical perspectives include choice-theoretic ideas about the gains to mimicry under uncertainty, network analysis of the relational structures that facilitate diffusion, and institutional accounts of the way actors interpret and normalize social practices. Methodological approaches include analysis of the distribution of adoption times, event history models of individual adoption, spatial correlation, simulation, and process tracing. Discussion of statistical methods is introduced with a focus on concepts, and is designed to be accessible to doctoral students regardless of prior coursework in multivariate data analysis.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Spring 2020, Fall 2014  
SOC 6440 - Urban Structure and Process (3 Credits)  
This seminar will provide a graduate-level examination of the social organization of urban communities. We will begin with the classic urban sociological theories of the Chicago School and recent extensions and revisions of this perspective. Then, we will consider both qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of topics including urban social networks, neighborhood social context, urban inequality and social problems, and processes of urban change.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Sociology graduate students.  
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2020, Spring 2017, Spring 2015  
SOC 6460 - Seminar in Economic Sociology (3 Credits)  
The seminar in economic sociology explores questions addressed by social scientists studying the social mechanisms that enable economic life. The aim is to introduce the most important and influential texts that have shaped the field of economic sociology. Core problems addressed by seminal texts include: How do social networks and norms enable, motivate and guide economic decisions, behavior, and outcomes? What is the role of trust, reputation and reciprocity in economic action? How do norms and networks influence entrepreneurship, innovation and socio-economic mobility? Why and how do institutions enable economic outcome and behavior? We explore work in the new institutionalism in economic and organizational sociology that have informed the sociological study of markets, organizations, and economic exchange.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY); (EAAREA, EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2020, Spring 2020  
SOC 6520 - Culture Wars in the Age of Tribal Politics (3 Credits)  
Political and cultural polarization have steadily increased in the three decades since Patrick Buchanan declared a cultural war for the soul of America. Concerns include echo chambers, filter bubbles, and increasingly vitriolic discourse, with the cumulative potential to erode democratic institutions. The first half of the semester explores the definition, types, measures, dynamics, and consequences of partisan cultural alignment. The second half addresses the causes, diffusion, and consequences of polarization. Readings will include theoretical models and empirical studies of opinion cascades, identity politics, motivated reasoning, network homophily, echo chambers, filter bubbles, social contagion, conformity, and cultural cognition. Weekly discussions will grapple with a range of questions, including: What is polarization? Is it the tendency for opinions to be extreme, with the disappearance of a consensual middle ground, or is it the tendency for substantively unrelated opinions to become correlated? Did polarization emerge from the top down, beginning with political and cultural elites, or from the bottom up, through the self-reinforcing dynamics of network homophily and peer influence? Do social media and cable news contribute to polarization or merely reflect it? Can polarization be reversed, and if not, what are the implications for democratic institutions?
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2021, Fall 2020  
SOC 6540 - Fascism, Nationalism and Populism (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with GOVT 6543, SHUM 6540  
This seminar will look broadly at challenges to democratic institutions in the United States and Europe. To think about the present, we will delve into historical fascism as well as nationalism and populism. We will (1) respond to contemporary political events in the US and beyond; (2) explore the terms fascism and populism which in the last few years have come to dominate our political vocabulary in the media and the academy; (3) mobilize the instructor's area of academic expertise (fascism and populism) in the service of broad liberal arts concerns. The course focuses upon themes and readings. It is not chronological-rather it looks at different iterations of the same ideas, concepts, and fears as they emerge in different historical contexts. Seminar materials draw upon various sources: scholarly articles, films, and if possible, an occasional guest lecturer.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024  
SOC 6610 - Text and Networks in Social Science Research (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with HD 6610, GOVT 6619, INFO 6610  
This is a course on networks and text in quantitative social science. The course will cover published research using text and social network data, focusing on health, politics, and everyday life, and it will introduce methods and approaches for incorporating high-dimensional data into familiar research designs. Students will evaluate past studies and propose original research.
Prerequisites: HD 5760 or GOVT 6029 or SOC 6020 or equivalent.Recommended prerequisite: some R or similar (e.g., python) programming experience.  
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-HE)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2021  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Learn to critically evaluate empirical research that uses text as data or social network analysis.
  • Connect fundamentals of research design to high-dimensional data analysis.
  • Develop verbal and written skills via in-class discussion, presentations, and written assignments.
  • Learn to represent complex relationships quantitatively and conduct high-dimensional data analyses using statistical programming.
  • Learn methods for avoiding over-fitting in high-dimensional data analysis.
  
SOC 6620 - Sociology of Race and Racism (3 Credits)  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023  
SOC 6660 - Event History Analysis (2 Credits)  
Event history analysis (also known as hazard or survival analysis) is a family of methods for the study of discrete outcomes over time. Typical sociological examples are demographic events (births, deaths), entry and exit from a social status (like marriage) and structural change (such as social revolutions). This class introduces main concepts, models, and measurement issues in event history analysis, and provides students with an opportunity to gain practical familiarity with these methods.
Exploratory Studies: (CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2019, Spring 2015  
SOC 6780 - Sociology of the Future (3 Credits)  
The discipline of sociology emerged out of efforts to understand social transformations like industrialization, the rise of a capitalist economy, and the erosion of local solidarities in favor of impersonal forms of social integration. Today, similar or even greater transformations are arguably afoot, but sociologists are less likely to directly address them. This seminar surveys some domains undergoing dramatic change, or where such change is plausibly on the horizon, with an eye to longer-term developments and their implications for contemporary theory and research. These include demographic shifts such reductions in family size, fluid conceptions of sex and sexuality, trends in violence at the individual and group level, climate change, and revolutions in work and communication technologies. The goal is not to anticipate what will happen (we wish!), but to bring questions about possible trajectories into focus, and to consider what we learn from past attempts at forecasting.
SOC 6890 - From Luddites to Silicon Valley: The Politics of Tech and Work (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ILRGL 5895  
This course is a survey of theories and politics of the labor process exploring how employers organize work, how workers respond to these efforts, and how this shapes industrial labor relations. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution scholars from Marx to Taylor considered how the design of the labor process impacted not only profit but workers' subjective experience of their work and their resistance. The last two decades have again seen significant changes and upheaval in the nature of work-gigification, digital surveillance, and the disruptive specter of generative AI-raising the importance of these questions yet again. Exploring the politics of how work is organized this course seeks to interrogate the historical context of these contemporary debates.
SOC 6910 - Independent Study (1-4 Credits)  
For graduates who wish to obtain research experience or to do extensive reading on a special topic. Permission to enroll for independent study is granted only to students who present an acceptable prospectus and secure the agreement of a faculty member to serve as supervisor for the project throughout the semester.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students with permission of faculty member willing to supervise project.  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023  
SOC 6950 - Spatial Demography (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with PUBPOL 6950  
Spatial Demography introduces core concepts and techniques for analyzing spatially referenced population data. Students learn about the spatial structure of social phenomenon and how to analyze and account for spatial relationships in formal analyses. We draw from examples in housing, health, and education to evaluate how populations are spatially distributed. The course covers methods for addressing spatial dependence and heterogeneity, as well as tools for describing spatial relationships (including various indices of segregation). A substantial portion of the course is also dedicated to practical skills for managing and presenting spatial data using GIS software, including geographic projections, geoprocessing, geocoding addresses, spatially joining layered data, and distance buffering.
Prerequisites: a course in Multivariate Regression using Stata.  
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students, or permission of instructor.  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
Learning Outcomes:
  • Think critically about spatial constructs in answering demographic questions.
  • Create thematic maps with mapping software.
  • Interpret and analyze maps, spatial data, and spatial methods critically.
  • Identify the use of various spatial analytic methods in social science research.
  • Calculate, and identify strengths and weaknesses, of common segregation indices.
  
SOC 7350 - Labor Sociology (3 Credits)  
Crosslisted with ILRGL 7350, GDEV 7350  
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2020, Fall 2016, Spring 2014  
SOC 8910 - Graduate Research (1-4 Credits)  
Work with a faculty member on a project that is related to your dissertation work.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 8920 - Graduate Research (1-4 Credits)  
Work with a faculty member on a project that is related to your dissertation work.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022  
SOC 8950 - Thesis Research (1-6 Credits)  
Work with chair of your committee on your dissertation work.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021  
SOC 8960 - Thesis Research (1-6 Credits)  
Work with chair of your committee on your dissertation work.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022