| source Northwestern (X) |
level |
department SOCIOL Sociology (X) |
This seminar will focus on three masterpieces of mid-twentieth century African American fiction: Zora Neale HurstonÂs Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Richard WrightÂs Native Son (1940), and James BaldwinÂs Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953). We will examine the racial, sexual, and gender contexts in which these writers produced their novels. We will look at the role played by institutions, both literary (e.g. the Federal Writers Project) and social (e.g. the African American church). We will consider the role of regions and communities: HurstonÂs South, WrightÂs Chicago, BaldwinÂs Harlem. We will look at readership and reading practices to understand the audience for these novels. And, first and foremost, we will analyze the novels themselves to understand why they have been judged to be exemplary works.
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*This course will explore issues around social inequality in American society, incorporating recent national and international events into our discussions. We will come to understand what sociology as a theoretical and analytical discipline tells us about the ways in which individuals are stratified on the basis of socioeconomic status, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and other social markers. We will analyze competing theories about the scope, causes, maintenance, consequences, potential responses, and significance of social inequality by integrating academic and non-academic texts. Examinations of policy debates, political action, and public discourse designed to address social stratification will provide present-day relevance for our discussions. Research that captures the everyday lives of individuals will receive special attention to develop a better understanding of the structural and individual challenges faced by people at various locations of privilege and disadvantage. Lectures and discussion sections will place the book length works or selections of articles assigned in broader context and will allow students to interrogate and explore their assumptions, analyses, and prescriptions. By studying the commonalities and differences between social groups on the basis of the power that they wield and experience, we will develop a more complex understanding of the social, political, educational, and economic world.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
The revolutionary attempts to change the world have been a central process that shaped modernity. We shall discuss why revolutionary imagery became possible in the first place, how the liberals and Marxists thought about revolutions, and what revealed the latest theories of historical sociology. The course provides a lot of historically-grounded analysis relating to specific revolutionary waves of the last two hundred years and concludes with some speculations about the future.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
What is distinctive about sociology? It is not our subject matter, as there are many perspectives on social relations and social institutions, from both inside and outside of the academy. It is not our methodsÂthese we share with anthropology, economics, psychology and other social sciences. What sets us apart is our conceptual toolkit, the theoretical perspectives we apply in our attempts to understand social life and human behavior. This course will give students an in-depth familiarity with the core theoretical ideas of sociology, how they developed, and to what use they have been put. Students will read selections of classic and contemporary social theory organized according to five main sociological concepts or unit-ideas: community, authority, status, the sacred, and alienation. In addition, students will read selections from works that have utilized some of these ideas in social research.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
This course examines the grounds for and against capital punishment, then move on to study histories, applications, and recent policy research.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
This course focuses on the sociological understanding of law in a global perspective. The course will focus on the analysis of law as a historical product of juridical fields, structured by the creation and consolidation of legal professions, normative ideals and meaningful concepts over long periods of time. We will begin with classical readings on the process of autonomization of the field of Law from Church and State (from Max Weber to Pierre Bourdieu), and then explore more recent approaches which address questions of global legal pluralism. To that end, we will examine several aspects of the relationship between law and larger political forces driving the process of globalization. We will ask: How does the globalization of law affect its legitimacy? How is this process of globalization of law different from the traditional making of international law? Does it affect decision-making in courts? Does it affect the training of lawyers and judges? Or the creation of legal norms at all levels? Like constitutional law? Or field-specific bodies of law, like bankruptcy law or family law? Is this process of globalization used by jurists to pursue progressive strategies of social, political, and constitutional reforms? Or is it used to strengthen national, class, gender, and racial forms of domination? Students will be encouraged to develop an original approach to the topic and to illustrate their approach by researching cases of interest to them.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
We will examine how societies are stratified and how social classes are maintained and reproduced. Class membership and class difference are not only a matter of economic dynamics, but also of what is going on in peopleÂs headsÂlanguage, education, tastes, styles, manners, fashion, consumption, leisure, skills, and religious beliefsÂand of what is going on in peopleÂs bodiesÂposture, gait, diet and dieting, height, toning, tanning, athleticism, cosmetic surgery, health and illness, and charisma, in short: of culture. Our first goal is to gain an understanding of how economic dynamics and culture interact to reproduce social class.
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This course explores the modern American urban street gang. It looks at the long sociological tradition of theory and research on such gangs, much of it conducted right here in Chicago. It looks at the structure and activities of such gangs and the response of local community institutions including the police, and national urban and criminal justice policy with respect to street gangs.
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This course introduces graduate students the sociology of culture (understanding the social influences on cultural formations) and cultural sociology (understanding the cultural influence on social processes). We shall be looking at readings that are fundamentally sociological, regardless of whether or not they have been written by sociologists. There are no specific prerequisites, although a passing acquaintance with Weber, Durkheim, and Marx will be helpful. While there will be some lecturing, most classes will be seminars. Students will come to class prepared to discuss the readings and their applications.
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This course teaches people about how to do summative program evaluations from both a theoretical and practical perspective. It begins with the theory of a program then the program's equability assessment. Next, it deals with the program's implementation. After this it considers how to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the program and about the explanation and generalized ability of its findings. Finally, it deals with the thorny question of how to put a value on the findings so that evaluation can be truly evaluative.
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This course will examine key topics in modern American healthcare through a sociological lens, with a particular emphasis on social groups and institutions such as hospitals. Areas of focus will include the medical profession(s), demographics and insurance, and the development of the U.S. medical system. In addition, we will touch on clinical trials, evidence based medicine, and the regulatory environment. The current debates about changing the U.S. healthcare system will be a recurring topic throughout the quarter.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
What is the purpose of education in American society? Does the formal educational system reduce or reinforce inequality? How do we (as individuals and as a society) benefit from the education system? In this seminar we will use look at a familiar topicÂeducationÂthrough a sociological lens. Drawing on personal experience, popular media and sociological theory, we will analyze and critique the goals and outcomes of the American education system.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
The course looks at the impact of society on genderÂon how being a male or female makes a difference in peopleÂs lives. We consider how social norms, the mass media, laws, public policies, and employers practices all affect the degree of gender equality or inequality in contemporary society. Topics include the sex gap in pay, occupational sex segregation, discrimination, household work, childrearing, sexuality.
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This course is designed to acquaint students with selected sociological concepts,theories, and their applications to problems in the sociology of eduacation. The field of sociology of education is too broad to survey in a single quarter course. Instead we will focus on a few broad topics in the field. This focus will provide the opportunity to analyze some highly controversial issues in a systematic and rigorous manner,examine areas of current research in the field of sociology of education. Major topic areas include theories of achievement, tracking, inequality in school, inequality in the classroom, school organization, public vs. private education, the voucher debate, and race.
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African Societies contain elements of tradition and modernity. The latter derives from the influence of colonialism and the consequent Westernization. This course examines African social institutions such as the family and the role of women, economy, politics, and religion in their traditional setting. In doing so, we will examine socio-cultural processes different from the Western experience. The interaction between traditional African society and Western contact will be analyzed to identify elements of change and possible areas of conflict and/or consensus that may have resulted from the contact. Colonial and postcolonial social processes and institutions including independence movements, the economy, religion, family & gender roles, politics, urbanization, the environment and international relations will be discussed. Our focus is Africa South of the Sahara.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
Civil wars are the main type of contemporary armed conflict. Sadly, a major item in international headlines are civil wars. Think Iraq, Afghanistan, Columbia, Somalia and Rwanda or, most recently, Georgia. This course provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview on civil wars: their causes, dynamics, outcomes, and aftermath. The goal is to equip students with analytical tools that, unfortunately, might become quite useful in their future careers. Imagine you are dropped in an unfamiliar country engulfed in civil strife (as a journalist, aid worker, diplomat/spy, or social scientist). How do you make sense of what is going on? How do you write about it?
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Why are some diseases so dangerous? What makes societies vulnerable to epidemic disease? How do pathogens exploit these vulnerabilities? In this course we use the tools of epidemiologists to examine epidemics from the germs perspective, and the tools of social scientists to think about epidemics from the societal perspective. Course topics include avian flu, HIV/AIDS, and cholera in John Snows London.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
*This course will explore issues around social inequality in American society, incorporating recent national and international events into our discussions. We will come to understand what sociology as a theoretical and analytical discipline tells us about the ways in which individuals are stratified on the basis of socioeconomic status, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and other social markers. We will analyze competing theories about the scope, causes, maintenance, consequences, potential responses, and significance of social inequality by integrating academic and non-academic texts. Examinations of policy debates, political action, and public discourse designed to address social stratification will provide present-day relevance for our discussions. Research that captures the everyday lives of individuals will receive special attention to develop a better understanding of the structural and individual challenges faced by people at various locations of privilege and disadvantage. Lectures and discussion sections will place the book length works or selections of articles assigned in broader context and will allow students to interrogate and explore their assumptions, analyses, and prescriptions. By studying the commonalities and differences between social groups on the basis of the power that they wield and experience, we will develop a more complex understanding of the social, political, educational, and economic world.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes citizens and shapes our day to day lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, law is too important to leave to lawyers. Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology, anthropology, political science, critical studies, psychology) in order to explore the sociology of law and laws role primarily in the American context (but with some attention to international law and global human rights efforts). The thematic topics to be discussed include law and social control, laws role in societal change, and laws capacity to reach into complex social relations and intervene in existing normative institutions, organizational structures, and the like.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
The course looks at the impact of society on genderon how being a male or female makes a difference in peoples lives. We consider how social norms, the mass media, laws, public policies, and employers practices all affect the degree of gender equality or inequality in contemporary society. Topics include the sex gap in pay, occupational sex segregation, discrimination, household work, childrearing, sexuality.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
This course provides an introduction to the basic ideas of statistics as well as its application to survey data. The general objective is to make you familiar with the main principles of descriptive and inferential statistics as well as with regression analysis. In the labs you are instructed to analyse real data using the statistical software package SPSS. By the end of this course, you should be able to understand and use different graphs, tables, descriptive statistics like the mean and standard deviation, correlation and regression, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. This should enable you (i) to analyse your own data and to draw meaningful conclusions with regard to your research questions, and (ii) to critically read and evaluate other social science research using quantitative methods.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
What is distinctive about sociology? It is not our subject matter, as there are many perspectives on social relations and social institutions, from both inside and outside of the academy. It is not our methodsthese we share with anthropology, economics, psychology and other social sciences. What sets us apart is our conceptual toolkit, the theoretical perspectives we apply in our attempts to understand social life and human behavior. This course will give students an in-depth familiarity with the core theoretical ideas of sociology, how they developed, and to what use they have been put. Students will read selections of classic and contemporary social theory organized according to five main sociological concepts or unit-ideas: community, authority, status, the sacred, and alienation. In addition, students will read selections from works that have utilized some of these ideas in social research.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
This course is an overview of the sociology of the family focusing on the contemporary United States. We will begin the course, however, by looking at the history of family and how its form and roles within have changed over time. The course will pay particular attention to diversity in family formation and experiences by class, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation and in how people learn their social roles and interact within family units. We will also consider how families shape individuals and their life chances through both social learning and access to resources. The final part of the course we will look at how family members balance their work and home lives including an examination of how domestic and work roles and tasks are divided up within the family.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
This course offers an introduction to the sociology of religion and investigates the role of religion in the United States. Despite sociological theories predicting the demise of religion in modernity, religion is vital and vibrant in contemporary American society. Through the sociological lens, we will examine what makes American religion particularly American, and how it functions in multiple dimension of public and private life. This course particularly encourages students to observe and experience religion through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in Evanstons religious congregations.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page
An examination of science and scientific knowledge from a sociological perspective. Topics include the nature of science as a social process, the history of science as a distinct enterprise, the status of scientific knowledge, and the role of science and technology in the contemporary world.
Score: 12.3595705 Details | Listing | Web page