FALL 2024

 

SOCI 5001    PROSEMINAR

WEDNESDAY 4:40 – 5:30 PM   SIMON CHENG

Part one of a required year-long seminar for all M.A. candidates in the first year of study. Provides an orientation to graduate education and offers students opportunities for professional development. Topics include strategies for successful graduate education; advice on mentoring and networking; starting a thesis project, presenting research, applying for grants, and publishing. Reviews various career opportunities for professional sociologists and provides guidance on how to best prepare for the job market.

 

SOCI 5003 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY

MONDAY 3:30 – 6:15 PM    NANCY NAPLES

This course provides an overview of the relevant research, theoretical perspectives, and pedagogical tools for practical use teaching sociology. The course emphasizes the diversity of pedagogical approaches to teaching sociology and how faculty have responded to the varied institutional, political, regional, and demographic contexts in which we teach. We will explore the limits and possibilities for designing and implementing both required and elective courses in different venues (large/small courses; lower/upper division; face-to-face, hybrid and on-line; public/private schools/universities in neoliberal context. Topics for the course include: managing/encouraging class discussion;  the politics of experience in the classroom, experiential learning, teaching about difficult topics (e.g. racism, abuse, structural violence) and unpacking exemplars of sociology courses.

 

SOCI 5201    THE LOGIC OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

TUESDAY 12:30 – 3:15 PM    MARY FISCHER

Required of all M.A. candidates in the first year of study. Covers the logic of how to frame and design social research. Topics include the link between theory and method, selection of a research topic, inductive versus deductive reasoning, causality (including research designs for identifying causal relations) and causal errors, conceptualization, operationalization, levels of analysis, measurement, reliability and validity, sampling, using mixed methods, research ethics, and the politics of social research.

 

SOCI 5251    CORE THEORISTS

THURSDAY 3:30 – 6:15 PM    BEATRIZ ALDANA MARQUEZ

An examination of the original writings of the major figures in sociological theory: Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Simmel. The course focuses upon the theories of these major figures, their relations with contemporaries, their interconnections, and their influence upon subsequent theory and theory groupings.

 

SOCI 5751    DEMOGRAPHY

MONDAY 12:30 – 3:15 PM   ELIZABETH JACOBS

This course asks how changes in the global population shape the world around us. The class introduces the social science of demography and is organized around three core population dynamics: fertility, mortality, and migration. We focus on case studies where population issues raise policy or ethical dilemmas, such as China’s one child policy, the retirement age in France, the global response to climate change, or immigration debates in the United States. We also consider how societal changes like dating apps, universal healthcare, and family leave can shape the composition of a nation. These cases will offer a window into how demographers collect and analyze data to understand patterns in the growth and distribution of the world’s population. Throughout the course, students will learn how to write read, interpret and evaluate demographic research and write analytic responses to the current debates in the field. This course satisfies the W (Writing) general education requirement.

 

SOCI 5895    SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH

TUESDAY 3:30 – 6:15 PM    RYAN TALBERT

This course will cover four primary areas: (1) theories, arguments, and methods of the sociology of health; (2) the organization of medicine and healthcare; (3) the social distribution of health, illness, and access to care; and (4) the promotion of health equity. It will pay special attention to intersections of race/ethnicity, class, and gender as well as other contexts (e.g., neighborhoods, social relationships, and life course transitions) that are important factors in mental, physical, and population health. Students will learn theories, concepts, and terminology in medical sociology and the sociology of mental health through student-led presentations, critical engagement of the research literature, and interactive discussions.

 

SOCI 6231    QUALITATIVE RESEARCH II

THURSDAY 12:30 – 3:15 PM    ELIZABETH HOLZER

Advanced topics in qualitative methods of social research. Further interrogation of topics including contemporary theoretical and epistemological debates in qualitative methodology; continued exploration of ethical issues and diversity of traditions in conducting fieldwork, interviewing, and analysis of virtual, and archival research. Hands-on approaches to gathering data and addressing the relationship between theory, analysis, and data; and introduction to a variety of perspectives on writing and narrative analysis.