Sociology (SOCI)
SOCI 0001 Poverty and Inequality
What does it mean to live in poverty in the "land of plenty" and experience inequality in the "land of opportunity?" This First-Year Seminar explores these questions and others related to poverty and inequality in contemporary America. The first part of this course focuses on poverty. We will examine topics such as poverty perceptions and measurement, poverty trends, causes of poverty, poverty-related outcomes, and anti poverty policy. The second part of this course focuses on inequality more broadly. We will examine how inequality is defined and what it looks like in the U.S. We will compare the “Haves" and the "Have Nots” and discuss social class, mobility, wealth, and privilege. Lastly, we will explore how different domains (e.g. education, the labor market, health, the justice system) produce, maintain, and reproduce inequalities. Throughout the semester, we will consider the roles of race/ethnicity, gender, age, and place, and how they help deepen our understanding of poverty and inequality.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: URBS 0005
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0002 Social Inequality and Health - First Year Seminar
Eat well. Exercise regularly. Get 7-9 hours of sleep. We have all been bombarded with this type of advice for achieving and maintaining optimal health. But how are our health behaviors and outcomes shaped, influenced, and constrained by social factors? How does where we live influence how—and how long—we live? And how do racism, gender inequality, and other forms of social exclusion, oppression, and domination impact health and well-being? This course provides an introduction into how social forces, broadly, and social inequality, specifically, impact individual and population health. We will begin by learning about how health is more than the product of individual lifestyle choices and genetic factors by exploring the social determinants of health. We will then examine how social inequality—particularly along lines of race, immigration status, social class, and gender—contributes to population health differences. We will analyze how racism, gender inequality, and other forms of social stratification both shape access to health promoting resources and opportunities such as well-paying jobs and healthy and affordable foods and also pattern exposure to harmful stressors and toxins such as discrimination and violence. Finally, we will discuss and debate policy and programmatic approaches aimed at reducing population health disparities. In this course, we will examine concepts related social inequality and health through a process called "active learning,” which involves activities such as watching and reacting to films, reading about and responding to current events, and active dialogues and debates with classmates.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0003 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
This course will provide a foundation on the sociological perspectives of race and ethnicity in the United States. It begins by developing a working definition of race and ethnicity and examining racial categorization in the U.S. The first part of the course examines major themes including racial and ethnic identity, assimilation of immigrants, immigrants’ legal status, forms of racism and bias, white privilege, and intersectionality. The second part of the class focuses on race and social stratification, examining discrimination, wealth inequality, residential segregation, educational stratification, mass incarceration, and health. We will also discuss why COVID-19 has disproportionately affected minority communities, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the future of racial stratification. Students will examine policies that have perpetuated racial and ethnic inequality as well as those that attempt to ameliorate it.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0004 The Law in our Lives
This seminar will provide students with the opportunity to engage in a discussion of the rule of law and how to make sense of it in their daily lives in light of the various theoretical perspectives and doctrines of law. Frequently, law is viewed exclusively to be what lawyers and judges do and what law students study, but its enduring presence in our lives is often not thought about. The very building in which a student is taking a class is governed by legal codes. If a student stopped at the library to copy some research material, copyright laws are involved. If a student made a purchase prior to class, liability laws and contract laws are involved, and so forth. The interaction of the individual with the rule of law is not limited to domestic and national laws, it also extends to international law. In analyzing the individual’s interaction with the rule of law, this seminar will introduce students to the classical and contemporary perspectives of law and society. Students will then apply the concepts, theories and doctrines of law that they have learned to the various daily domestic and international interactions they have with the rule of law in all aspects of their social, economic and political lives.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0005 Sociology of Education First-Year Seminar
Schools play an important role in social life, and educational institutions are crucial in the creation of the social stratification system. Generally, schools reflect social inequalities, but, in some cases, schools also provide a pathway for upward mobility for a select few. In this course, we will examine important debates in sociology of education including the contributions of different types of schools (e.g., public schools, charter schools, and private schools). We will briefly examine disparities in funding, and the remarkable turnover in staffing as teachers flee the profession. Teachers are not neutral actors – and we will look at the research showing how teachers more harshly discipline African American children (especially boys) compared to white children, as well as how middle class children gain crucial advantages in educational settings. Course requirements include a midterm, final, and a research paper (i.e., five to seven pages) on a unique topic of interest.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0006 Anxious Times: Social Change and Fear
Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychiatric disorders in the US. Although over the last 150 years many have proclaimed to be entering an abrupt new age of anxiety, the prevalence of anxiety appears to have been increasing steadily over time. Anxiety is also treated more frequently by physicians, suggesting it is taken more seriously as an illness. This class will explore the rise of anxiety as the signature 21st century disorder. We will focus on how scientists have understood anxiety; its place relative to other psychiatric symptoms and disorders, such as depression; and what social factors have increased its prevalence. Along the way we will discuss the evolutionary dimensions of anxiety, as well as public beliefs about anxiety and its cultural significance.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0007 The Future of Work - First Year Seminar
This course draws on sociological research and other perspectives from the social sciences to conceptualize the complex and dynamic relationship between work and technology, in order to shed light on the future of work. Rather than viewing technology as an immutable force that sweeps across societies and leaves social change in its wake, we will examine how the design, implementation, and outcomes of technological change are imbricated in political, economic, and social forces. Using this perspective, we will interrogate distinctions between analytic categories that we often take for granted, such as the “old” and “new” economies, and the “local” and the “global.”
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0008 Work and Careers in the 21st Century - First Year Seminar
The premise of the class is that the workplace is undergoing major transformations that may well generate jobs, careers and organizations quite different from those currently in place. Many interrelated changes are underway, including: globalization, the information and internet revolutions, the diffusion of monitoring and evaluation systems, the mechanization and automation of many jobs and industries, the prospect of working remotely and the growing diversity of the labor force. These changes can be best understood by studying contemporary developments along with placing these changes in an historical perspective. By examining how the theory and practice of work have evolved over the last century and a half, we will be in a better position to understand the changes already in progress and those that may transform work and the workplace over the course of your careers.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0009 Diversity, Technology and the Penn Experience
Penn is diverse in many ways. Let us explore this diversity together and understand its subtleties. How has the word “diversity” evolved over the years? Why is it (at times) such a loaded concept? When, where and how does diversity change within various contexts? What does the concept mean in a university context? How might it change in the future? We will explore different constructions of diversity at Penn. Have new technologies changed the ways in which we perceive culture, communicate and share ideas? Increasingly, we construct notions of ourselves and of others using video and social media in addition to personal experiences. How do such technologies define who we are, and the boundaries we draw to define “us” and “them”? Do sub-cultures thrive now in new ways? How does each student’s journey to Penn bring in new perspectives on the university? Reflections on personal experiences in the context of theories (cultural capital, social capital) will be a core part of this seminar. Readings and research assignments are interdisciplinary and will require critical analysis of both classic and contemporary perspectives. In addition to other assignments, small weekly response papers are due before each class meeting to encourage engaged discussions
Fall
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0010 Modern Families: Society and the Changing American Family
The purpose of this course is to understand the American family as a contemporary social institution. We begin by asking how families define themselves. Who counts as a family member, who decides, and how has the definition of family changed over time? We then uncover the work that families do to sustain themselves. How do families negotiate and carry out time-intensive activities like paid work, childrearing, caregiving, housework, emotional labor, self-care, and community involvement? We explore how social institutions like employers, schools, and government challenge or enable families to succeed in this work. Finally, we focus on inequalities between families. How do families absorb the gendered, racialized, and socioeconomic inequalities that permeate American society, and how do they push back?
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0100 Sociology of the Black Community
This course explores a broad set of issues defining important aspects of the Black/African American experience. In addition to the "usual suspects" (e.g., race, socioeconomic status, poverty, gender, and group culture), we also think about matters of health and well-being, the family, education, and identity in Black/African American communities. Our goal is to gain a deeper sociological understanding and appreciation of the diverse and ever-changing life experiences of Blacks/African Americans.
Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 0008
1 Course Unit
SOCI 0270 The Immigrant City
This course focuses on immigrant communities in United States cities and suburbs. We survey migration and community experiences among a broad range of ethnic groups in different city and suburban neighborhoods. Class readings, discussions, and visits to Philadelphia neighborhoods explore themes including labor markets, commerce, housing, civil society, racial and ethnic relations, integration, refugee resettlement, and local, state, and national immigration policies. The class introduces students to a variety of social science approaches to studying social groups and neighborhoods, including readings in sociology, geography, anthropology, social history, and political science. Ultimately, the class aims to help students develop: 1) a broad knowledge of immigration and its impacts on U.S. cities and regions; 2) a comparative understanding of diverse migrant and receiving communities; and 3) familiarity with policies and institutions that seek to influence immigration and immigrant communities.
Spring
Also Offered As: LALS 0270, URBS 0270
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1000 Introduction to Sociology
Sociology provides a unique way to look at human behavior and social interaction. Sociology is the systematic study of the groups and societies in which people live. In this introductory course, we analyze how social structures and cultures are created, maintained, and changed, and how they affect the lives of individuals. We will consider what theory and research can tell us about our social world.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 1000
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1010 The Family
Family life is deeply personal but at the same time is dramatically impacted by social forces outside of the family. In this course we will examine how families are organized along the lines of gender, sexuality, social class, and race and how these affect family life. We will consider how family life is continually changing while at the same time traditional gender roles persist. For example, how "greedy" workplaces, which require long work hours, create work-family conflicts for mothers and fathers. We will also examine diverse family forms including single-parent families, blended families, families headed by same-gender parents, and families headed by gender non-conforming parents. The lectures will also examine how economic inequality shapes family life. Students will have the opportunity to apply key concepts to daily life.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: GSWS 1011
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1020 American Society
What is American Society? The literary critic Leslie Fielder once wrote,"...to be an American...is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always been, insofar as we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history..." In this course we will explore the elements of the myth that form the basis of the civil religion as well as the facts on the ground that contradict our conceptions of American Society. Examples of mythic elements and their contradiction that we will explore are: A nation founded to pursue liberty and freedom yet allowed slavery, equality of opportunity and persistent structural inequality, and a welcoming of the Immigrant coupled with a suspicion of the outsider.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1030 Deviance and Social Control
A sociological analysis of the origins, development, and reactions surrounding deviance in contemporary society. Topics include labeling theory, stigma, social organization, tradition, social power, crime, sexual deviance, drug use, and racism. Theoretical and methodological issues will be discussed and evaluated.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1040 Population and Society
The course serves as an introduction to the study of population and demography, including issues pertaining to fertility, mortality, migration, and family formation and structure. Within these broad areas we consider the social, economic, and political implications of current trends, including: population explosion, baby bust, the impact of international migration on receiving societies, population aging, racial classification, growing diversity in household composition and family structure, population and environmental degradation, and the link between population and development/poverty.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: GSWS 1042
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1050 Social Stratification
In this course we study the current levels and historical trends of inequality in the United States especially in cross-national comparative perspective. We discuss causes and consequences of inequality as well as various policy efforts to deal with inequality. Topics include intergenerational social mobility, income inequality, education, gender, race and ethnicity among others.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1051 Class Matters: Poverty, Prosperity, and the American Dream
Despite the United States being “the land of opportunity,” economic inequality is at an all-time high. The gap between the poorest and richest Americans continues to widen. Intergenerational social mobility continues to decline, and the “American Dream” of economic prosperity is becoming increasingly difficult to attain. So, who is rich and who is poor? How are income and wealth distributed in America? What are the causes and implications of this distribution? In this course, we will answer these questions from a sociological perspective. In the process, students will gain a fuller understanding of social class and how it relates to various domains such as family life, housing, education, employment, healthcare, and the legal system.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1060 Race and Ethnic Relations
The course will focus on race and ethnicity in the United States. We begin with a brief history of racial categorization and immigration to the U.S. The course continues by examining a number of topics including racial and ethnic identity, interracial and interethnic friendships and marriage, racial attitudes, mass media images, residential segregation, educational stratification, and labor market outcomes. The course will include discussions of African Americans, Whites, Hispanics, Asian Americans and multiracials.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 1060, ASAM 1510, LALS 1060, URBS 1060
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1070 Media and Popular Culture
This course relies on a variety of sociological perspectives to examine the role of media and popular culture in society, with a particular emphasis on the power of the mass media industry, the relationship between cultural consumption and status, and the social organization of leisure activities from sports to shopping.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: URBS 1170
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1090 Urban Sociology
This course is a comprehensive introduction to the sociological study of urban areas. This includes more general topics as the rise of cities and theories urbanism, as well as more specific areas of inquiry, including American urbanism, segregation, urban poverty, suburbanization and sprawl, neighborhoods and crime, and immigrant ghettos. The course will also devote significant attention to globalization and the process of urbanization in less developed counties.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: AFRC 1090, LALS 1090, URBS 1090
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1100 Sociology of Gender
Gender is an organizing principle of society, shaping social structures, cultural understandings, processes of interaction, and identities in ways that have profound consequences. It affects every aspect of people's lives, from their intimate relationships to their participation in work, family, government, and other social institutions and their place in the stratification system. Yet gender is such a taken for granted basis for differences among people that it can be hard to see the underlying social structures and cultural forces that reinforce or weaken the social boundaries that define gender. Differences in behavior, power, and experience are often seen as the result of biological imperatives or of individual choice. A sociological view of gender, in contrast, emphasizes how gender is socially constructed and how structural constraints limit choice. This course examines how differences based on gender are created and sustained, with particular attention to how other important bases of personal identity and social inequality--race and class-interact with patterns of gender relations. We will also seek to understand how social change happens and how gender inequality might be reduced.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: GSWS 1101
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1110 Medical Sociology
This course will give the student an introduction to the sociological study of medicine. Medical sociology is a broad field, covering topics as diverse as the institution and profession of medicine, the practice of medical care, and the social factors that contribute to sickness and well-being. Although we will not explore everything, we will attempt to cover as much of the field as possible through four thematic units: (1) the organization and development of the profession of medicine, (2) the delivery of health-care, especially doctor-patient interaction, (3) the social and cultural factors that affect how illness is defined, and (4) the social causes of illness. The class will emphasize empirical research especially but not only quantitative research.
Also Offered As: HSOC 1222
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1111 Mental Illness
This course is designed to give a general overview of how sociologists study mental illness. We will be concerned with describing the contributions of sociological research and exploring how these contributions differ from those of psychology, psychiatry, and social work. This overview will be done in three parts: we will discuss (i) what "mental illness" is, (ii) precisely how many Americans are mentally ill, (iii) how social factors (e.g. race, gender, class) and social arrangements (e.g. social networks) lead to mental illness, and (iv) how we as a society respond to and treat the mentally ill. Throughout the course, we will be concerned with uncovering the assumptions behind different definitions of mental health and exploring their political, social, and legal implications.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: HSOC 1312
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1120 Law and Society
After introducing students to the major theoretical concepts concerning law and society, significant controversial societal issues that deal with law and the legal systems both domestically and internationally will be examined. Class discussions will focus on issues involving civil liberties, the organization of courts, legislatures, the legal profession and administrative agencies. Although the focus will be on law in the United States, law and society in other countries of Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America will be covered in a comparative context. Readings included research reports, statutes and cases.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 1123
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1130 Discrimination: Sexual and Racial Conflict
This course is concerned with the structure, the causes and correlates, and the government policies to alleviate discrimination by race and gender in the United States. The central focus of the course is on employment differences by race and gender and the extent to which they arise from labor market discrimination versus other causes, although racial discrimination in housing is also considered. After a comprehensive overview of the structures of labor and housing markets and of nondiscriminatory reasons (that is, the cumulative effects of past discrimination and/or experiences) for the existence of group differentials in employment, wages and residential locations, various theories of the sources of current discrimination are reviewed and evaluated. Actual government policies and alternatives policies are evaluated in light of both the empirical evidence on group differences and the alternative theories of discrimination.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: AFRC 1131, GSWS 1130
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1140 Asian Americans In Contemporary Society
This course will explore Asian America through sociological frameworks and research. At the outset, we will establish a strong theoretical foundation by studying key sociological theories related to race and ethnicity, assimilation, and racial stratification. Additionally, we will briefly review key turning points in Asian American history. Throughout the semester, we will explore a broad range of contemporary topics, such as racial and ethnic identities (including multiracial identities); racialized desire and interracial relationships; controlling media images and subversive representations; transracial adoption; affirmative action; anti-Asian racism; and the role of the "model minority" myth in contemporary U.S. politics. Above all, this class will critically evaluate the viability of an Asian American panethnic identity while also exploring important axes of heterogeneity (e.g., class, gender, and sexuality) within the broader Asian American category.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: ASAM 1500
1 Course Unit
SOCI 1150 Fair Housing, Segregation and the Law
This course introduces students to the variegated roles of housing in society and has three broad aims. First, the roles of housing as shelter, locus of community, financial asset, and determinant of political power and representation will be described and explored in detail. Second, the way the different functions of housing serve to create and reinforce social stratification is explored. Finally, the function and role of public policy in housing will also be examined.
Spring
Also Offered As: URBS 1155
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2000 Sociological Research Methods
One of the defining characteristics of all the social sciences, including sociology, is a commitment to empirical research as the basis for knowledge. This course is designed to provide you with a basic understanding of research in the social sciences and to enable you to think like a social scientist. Through this course students will learn both the logic of sociological inquiry and the nuts and bolts of doing empirical research. We will focus on such issues as the relationship between theory and research, the logic of research design, issues of conceptualization and measurement, basic methods of data collection, and what social scientists do with data once they have collected them. By the end of the course, students will have completed sociological research projects utilizing different empirical methods, be able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various research strategies, and read (with understanding) published accounts of social science research.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: HSOC 2002
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2010 Social Statistics
This course offers a basic introduction to the application/interpretation of statistical analysis in sociology. Upon completion, you should be familiar with a variety of basic statistical techniques that allow examination of interesting social questions. We begin by learning to describe the characteristics of groups, followed by a discussion of how to examine and generalize about relationships between the characteristics of groups. Emphasis is placed on the understanding/interpretation of statistics used to describe and make generalizations about group characteristics. In addition to hand calculations, you will also become familiar with using PCs to run statistical tests.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 2010
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2011 Using R for Introductory Statistics
This course will serve two joint purposes: (1) it will introduce students to statistics, with a focus on how they are used in social science research; (2) it will introduce students to R, an open-source, free software for statistical computing. When students complete this course, they will be able to perform various numerical and graphical tasks to describe a variable, and to summarize the distribution of a variable using measures of central tendency and spread. They will also be able to use correlation and regression to describe the relationship between two variables.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2200 Religion
How do the many religious institutions in our society differ, and what common qualities do they share? Why do some religious institutions adapt to modernity while others do not? In particular, why are the politics of sex and gender so fundamental to the current organization of the American religious landscape? These questions will be the central motivating questions for the semester. The course will begin with an introduction to current theories in the sociology of religion. We will then apply and critique those theories as we learn more about the histories, members, practices and beliefs of all the major religious groups in the US today, including Mainline, Fundamentalist and Evangelical Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and other groups such as the Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. Students will pick two religious groups (one liberal and one conservative) to observe over the course of the semester and will write papers comparing and contrasting the two groups.
Not Offered Every Year
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 5200
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2210 Race and the Media
This course considers the theory and practice of minority representation in the public domain: film, theater, television, music, advertising and museums. How has "minority" been defined - who is included and why? How have notions of "minority" status been constructed in our public languages and what may be the impact of those images on both minority and non-minority populations? Our focus will be on representation and how it may work to marginalize or empower members of minority populations. While we will concentrate primarily on ethnic minorities, we will also consider how these same issues might affect sexual minorities. Our discussions will be supplemented by film and video examples. While the course will be theoretically situated in communication, it will consider how the perspectives of anthropology, feminism, and literary and ethnic studies have affected our understanding of public representations.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: AFRC 2210
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2220 Health of Populations
This course is designed to introduce students to the quantitative study of factors that influence the health of populations. Topics to be addressed include methods for characterizing levels of health in populations, comparative and historical perspectives on population health, health disparities, health policy issues and the effectiveness of interventions for enhancing the health of populations. These topics will be addressed both for developed and developing world populations. The course will focus on specific areas of health and some of the major issues and conclusions pertaining to those domains. Areas singled out for attention include chronic diseases and their major risk factors, such as smoking, physical activity, dietary factors and obesity. Throughout the course, the focus will be on determining the quality of evidence for health policy and understanding the manner in which it was generated.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: HSOC 2202
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2240 Law and Social Change
Beginning with discussion of various perspectives on social change and law, this course then examines in detail the interdependent relationship between changes in legal and societal institutions. Emphasis will be placed on (1) how and when law can be an instrument for social change, and (2) how and when social change can cause legal change. In the assessment of this relationship, emphasis will be on the laws of the United States. However, laws of other countries and international law relevant to civil liberties, economic, social and political progress will be studied. Throughout the course, discussions will include legal controversies relevant to social change such as issues of race, gender and the law. Other issues relevanat to State-Building and development will discussed. A comparative framework will be used in the analysis of this interdependent relationship between law and social change.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 2240
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2250 Work in a Changing World - The Sociology of Work
The material world is shaped and maintained through work, but so is the social world. How work is organized, allocated, and rewarded determines the opportunities people have for developing their own capacities, the kinds of ties they will have with others, and how much control they will have over their own lives. We will consider various sociological perspectives on work and compare alternative ways of organizing work, with a focus on the contemporary United States.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2260 The Future of Work
This course draws on sociological and social scientific research and theorizing to conceptualize the complex and dynamic relationship between work and technology. Rather than viewing technology as an immutable force that sweeps across societies and leaves social change in its wake, we will examine how the design, implementation, and outcomes of technological change are imbricated in political, economic, and social forces. We will mostly, though not exclusively, focus on developments in and case studies of work and technology in the United States. We will begin by examining theoretical perspectives on the historical interplay between work and technology. Then, we will consider contemporary issues, building dialogues between our theoretical groundwork and empirical evidence to trace continuities and disjunctures. By the end of the course, you will be equipped to interrogate the role of technology in capitalism's past, understand its relation to our present age of digital disruption, and imagine the possibilities for our uncertain future.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2270 Families and Capitalism
Despite highly romanticized and idealized views about family life, families play a crucial role in sustaining and organizing capitalist societies and inequalities by race, gender, and class. This course reviews classic and contemporary social theory to understand how family norms and behaviors shape and are shaped by political and economic structures. Students will learn about capitalism, racism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy, and engage with questions that connect these to family norms and behaviors. This includes questions like: why has gay marriage been outlawed until recently? Why were slaves denied marriage and family life? Why is caring for others disproportionately done by women and often unpaid? Why is poverty related to unstable family lives? Through engaging with this class material students will learn how to sociologically and critically rethink current family issues and the future of family life. Class structure and goals: This class requires carefully reading social theory texts (many of these texts might be dense, we will learn how to read them efficiently) and active participation in class discussion. Students will prepare short presentations, discussion questions, and write a research paper analyzing one policy related to family life (analyzing its politics and its relation to the social structures covered in class).
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2280 Sociology of Education
Schools play a crucial role in shaping inequality. In the United States, every child is told that anyone can grow up to become President. Yet, accidents of birth matter as children born to working-class families often have vastly different educational experiences than do the children born to upper-middle-class families. This course will provide an overview of educational institutions and the experiences of children within them. We will learn about social class and race differences in children's experiences before school, during elementary school and secondary school, and in college. For example, racial inequality increases the more years children spend in school. There are also dramatic differences in the character of school experiences for children from different racial and ethnic groups. Learning about schools also helps us understand other social institutions including inequality in neighborhoods, family life, government policies, and the labor market.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2281 Demography of Education
The proposed course will be open to undergraduate and graduate students with different assignments to each of undergraduate and graduate students. The major topic of the course is the impacts of education, especially college education, on various kinds of family behavior such as dating, cohabitation, living arrangements, marriage, fertility, parenting, divorce, and remarriage. In many countries, some family behaviors, if not all, are increasingly differentiated between college-educated and non-college-educated. For instance, increase in divorce is more evident among the less educated than their more educated counterparts, while marriage decline is more substantial among the less educated. Although parents’ time and money investments in children’s education have generally increased over time for both college-educated and non-college-educated parents, the increase is much more substantial among college-educated parents than their non-college-educated counterparts, leading to divergence. In such societies, college education has increasingly differentiated population with respect to family behavior, which has important implications for inequality of children’s well-being. Of course, such diverging family behavior is not observed every society. In some countries, educational differentiation in family behavior is minimal. In this course, students first will be able to have a global perspective on education and family behavior by reviewing empirical evidence of the relationship between education and various kinds of family behavior across a variety of countries. After learning how different measurements and methods are used to identify the relationship between education and family behavior, Students will be able to evaluate how empirical evidence is robust. Second, students will learn about different theories that explain why education has specific relationships with family behavior. Finally, students will have an opportunity to conduct their own research (in the format of either an empirical or a review paper) by choosing a specific context where they will first document the relationship between education and family behavior and apply theories to explain the relationship with explicit consideration of specific contextual factors.
Fall or Spring
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 5970
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2290 Advanced Topics in Family Sociology
This course will focus on the intersection of family life and inequality. The course will cover theories and empirical research examining the ways in which the political economy of family life is implicated in sustaining and organizing inequalities by class, gender, sexuality, and race.
Fall or Spring
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 5240
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2300 Environmental Sociology
This seminar will explore how sociologists and adjacent social scientists have investigated the intersections of the environment with inequalities of wealth and power, with a focus on a broad "climate change and society" field. The seminar will cover a) recent efforts to reframe the history of capitalism as the history of a socio-environmental system (and overlaps between that agenda and the "racial capitalism" framework); b) the genesis of US-based environmental justice scholarship; c) the global sociology of carbon emissions and international environmental movements; and, d) new trends in "climate change and society" studies.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2310 Anxious Times: Social Change and Fear
This class will discuss the meaning, significance, and causes of anxiety. What is anxiety? How is anxiety different from depression, another common form of psychological distress? What does it mean to say we’re in an “age of anxiety”? And are we now, in fact, in one? Although this class is rooted in the sociological study of anxiety, we will also approach the topic from the standpoint of other disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry, history, and biology. We will discuss the development of anxiety as a concept; trends in anxiety over time and between cohorts; biological and social scientific research on anxiety’s causes; the cognitive dimensions of anxiety; and how anxiety is treated in medical settings. Some specific topics include the significance of status anxiety in the 21st century, social comparison processes, relationships, family, and attachment styles, and how social media has undermined mental health.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2410 Metropolitan Growth and Poverty
This course analyzes the role of metropolitan regions in the U.S. and global economies, including the sources of metropolitan productivity, the ways that metropolitan structures affect residents, and analyses of public policy in metropolitan areas. The economic, political, and social forces that have shaped World War II urban and regional development are explored, including technology, demography, and government. Special attention is paid to how metropolitan change affects residents by income and race. Topics include: gentrification, schools, suburbanization, sprawl, metropolitan fragmentation, concentration of poverty, race, and various economic revitalization initiatives.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: URBS 2410
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2420 Social Problems and Public Policy
This course approaches some of today's important social and political issues from a sociological vantage point. The course begins by asking where social problems come from. The main sociological perspectives of Marx, Weber and Durkheim are developed in connection with the issues of inequality, social conflict and community. We then turn to the social construction of social problems by examining how various issues become defined as social problems. This involves a consideration of the role of the media, social experts and social movements. The last section of the course considers how social problems are addressed. Here we discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of government programs and regulations versus market-based approached. We also discuss the role of philanthropy and volunteerism. Finally, we consider the risk of unanticipated consequences of reforms. Along the way, we will consider a variety of social issues and social problems, including poverty, immigration, crime, global warming, and education.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2430 Race, Science & Justice
What is the role of the life and social sciences in shaping our understanding of race? How has racial stratification influenced scientists and how have scientists constructed racial difference and helped to maintain or contest racial inequities? How have these racial theories shaped the production of scientific knowledge and the way we think about human bodies, diversity, and commonality—and what are the consequences for justice in our society? This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, medicine, and public health, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 2430
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2450 Poverty, Race and Health
This course is designed to introduce students to current literature on race/ethnic difference in health and mortality in the United States, covering such topics as explanations for why some race/ethnic groups fare better than others, how inner city poverty and residential segregation may contribute to racial/ethnic differences in health outcomes, and health of immigrants versus native-born populations. Current policy debated and recent policy developments related to health are also briefly discussed. The course is organized as a seminar with a combination of lectures and class discussions.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: URBS 2450
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2460 Social Inequality and Health
Eat well. Exercise regularly. Get 7-9 hours of sleep. We have all been bombarded with this type of advice for achiev- ing and maintaining optimal health. But how are our health behaviors and outcomes shaped, influenced, and con- strained by social factors? How does where we live influence how - and how long - we live? And how do racism, gender inequality, and other forms of social exclusion, oppression, and domination impact health and well-being? This course provides an introduction into how social forces, broadly, and social inequality, specifically, impact individual and population health. We will begin by learning about how health is more than the product of individual lifestyle choices and genetic factors by exploring the social determinants of health. We will then examine how social inequality - particularly along lines of race, immigration status, social class, and gender - contributes to population health differences. We will analyze how racism, gender inequality, and other forms of social stratification both shape access to health promoting resources and opportunities such as well-paying jobs and healthy and affordable foods and also pattern exposure to harmful stressors and toxins such as discrimination and violence. Finally, we will discuss and debate policy and programmatic approaches aimed at reducing population health disparities. In this course, we will examine concepts related to social inequality and health through a process called "active learning," which involves activities such as watching and reacting to films, reading about and responding to current events, and active dialogues and debates with classmates.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2470 Outsider Within: Unpacking Intersectionality in Everyday Life
Who belongs within the fabric of American society? Put another way, who is protected by social and political structures and institutions and who is targeted? In what ways do social categories such as race, class, and gender render or reduce equal access to socio-political structures and institutions? Black feminist scholars have uncovered the ways in which social categories such as race and gender augment one's social standing in American society, including the provision of equality, opportunity, and outcomes. Legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" to describe the interlocking oppressions that black women uniquely faced as occupants of two social identity categories: "black" and "woman", not one or the other. Since then, critical scholars have greatly expanded the concept to include non-black women and other groups. Further, there has been a call to examine marginalized social groups beyond their oppressed status, but as agents of change. In this course, we will develop theoretical and practical knowledge of intersectionality in contemporary American society that goes beyond the original formulation of the theory. This is a critical speaking seminar with a focus on improving and evaluating oral communication skills. We will discuss the theoretical tenets of intersectionality and its uses for analyzing pressing social problems. Each week, we will analyze a contemporary sociological issue, drawing from popular culture, visual mediums, multi-media, and new media to understand and apply intersectionality theory. There will be written and spoken communication assignments due weekly. In addition to in-class assignments, our work will culminate in two major oral communication projects: an individual and group oral communication project, both with a multitude of creative possibilities. Come prepared to engage yourself as an orator, collaborator, and sociological thinker.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2480 Economic Inequality, Advantage and the Rich
This class explores key issues of inequality from the perspective of advantage. While social scientists studying inequality have more traditionally focused on poverty and disadvantage, we will read and discuss issues of capital, riches, and economic advantage, paying attention to intersections of economic advantage and riches with gender, 'race' and class. We will address inequalities in the labour as well as capital markets, debate how we can conceptualise and measure those who are 'rich', and look at the relationship between riches, whiteness, masculinity and privilege. Students are encouraged to bring their ideas of riches and advantage to class.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2490 Work, Love, and Independence: Coming of Age in East Asia
How do millennials in East Asia make transition to adulthood? What does it mean to become an adult in East Asia? Under the contexts of rapid educational expansion, growing economic inequality, and shifting cultural norms, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese young people are facing various challenges in coming of age. The dim outlook for landing a full-time, stable, and good job, for instance, had led many Korean millennials to 'give up' dating, marriage, and parenting, considered as major milestones of adulthood. More and more young millennials delay departure from their parental home. At the same time, East Asian millennials are highly educated, tech-savvy, and culturally diverse, distinguishing themselves from older generations. This course first offers an overall view of changing patterns and timing of transition to adulthood in East Asia (particularly compared to experiences of young adults in the United States and Europe). In the class, students will be able to identify demographic, cultural and economic factors that shape specific pathways to adulthood in East Asia. The course highlights diversity and heterogeneity in stories of coming of age among East Asian millennials from different socioeconomic, cultural, and demographic backgrounds. Diverse narratives and perceptions of adulthood in East Asia are discussed.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2600 Global Health
Combining lectures, discussions and documentaries, the course will help students develop a sociological perspective on global public health (GPH). This will include exploring the relationship between the discipline of sociology and field of public health; difference between sociology in and sociology of global public health; sociological critique of public health interventions and finally, proposing socio-medical model to the understanding global public health movement. It will also familiarize students with the key global public health concepts, patterns and trends of global burden of disease, central actors in global health, and policy interventions and implementation. Of particular importance are health-related millennium and sustainable development goals to address key global health threats and solutions, and recent reformulations for post-2015 health-related agenda. Furthermore, as the focus on the global dimension of public health does not override the concerns and consequences for micro and meso-levels, students will become awareness of mechanisms and challenges involved in incorporating World Health Organization's commitment to primary healthcare in 1978 with that of global public health principles that currently dominate the agenda of public health. Selected case studies will serve as illustrative material.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2610 Latinos in the United States
This course presents a broad overview of the Latino population in the United States that focuses on the economic and sociological aspects of Latino immigration and assimilation. Topics to be covered include: construction of Latino identity, the history of U.S. Latino immigration, Latino family patterns and household structure, Latino educational attainment. Latino incorporation into the U.S. labor force, earnings and economic well-being among Latino-origin groups, assimilation and the second generation. The course will stress the importance of understanding Latinos within the overall system of race and ethnic relations in the U.S., as well as in comparison with previous immigration flows, particularly from Europe. We will pay particular attention to the economic impact of Latino immigration on both the U.S. receiving and Latin American sending communities, and the efficacy and future possibilities of U.S. immigration policy. Within all of these diverse topics, we will stress the heterogeneity of the Latino population according to national origin groups (i.e. Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Latinos), as well as generational differences between immigrants and the native born.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: LALS 2610
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2620 Social Movements
This course examines the main sociological theories and concepts in the analysis of revolutions, popular protest, and social movements. Special attention will be given to three theoretical traditions: resource mobilization, political process, and cultural analysis. We will study narratives, symbols, performances, and old and new media forms in the construction of identities and solidarities and the mobilization of publics. Historical and contemporary cases from the U.S. and around the world will be examined.
Also Offered As: COMM 2620
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2630 Contemporary Issues in African Society
This course will deal with law and society in Africa. After surveying the various legal systems in Africa, the focus will be on how and to what extent the countries of Africa "re-Africanized" their legal systems by reconciling their indigenous law with western law and other legal traditions to create unified legal systems that are used as instruments of social change and development. Toward this end, the experiences of various African countries covering the various legal traditions will be included. Specific focus will be on laws covering both economic and social relations. This emphasis includes laws of contracts and civil wrongs, land law, law of succession, marriage and divorce and Africa's laws of International Relations, among other laws. Throughout this course a comparative analysis with non-African countries will be stressed.
Also Offered As: AFRC 2630
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2640 Media Culture & Society in Contemporary China
This course covers Chinese media, culture, and society from the 1970s to the present. It examines the causes and consequences of social and institutional transformation, with an emphasis on civic engagement, cultural change, and the impact of digital media. In analyzing these developments, the course pays special attention to historical contexts and draws on concepts and theories from sociology, communication, and related fields. The course helps students develop nuanced and sophisticated approaches to the understanding of contemporary Chinese media, culture, and society and cross-cultural phenomena more broadly.
Also Offered As: COMM 2640
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2650 Sociology of the Climate Emergency
We're in the midst of a climate emergency, with climate change the most pressing problem. We need to transform our social and economic system to avoid the worst. There's still time to do this, while establishing the conditions for us, and our descendants, to live brilliant, stimulating lives. To move forward, we need to supplement natural science with social science. In the course, will ask, how did we get into this ecological crisis? How does climate figure in contemporary politics? How do the climate and water crises intersect with inequalities around the world? How does an ongoing revolution in the energy sector reflect these tendencies, and what is its promise? What are the big competing paradigms for positive, transformative change today? This fresh-person seminar will tackle these vast questions by introducing students to a range of novel social perspectives on the contemporary global environmental crisis - a crisis that is usually otherwise represented in coldly scientific terms or according to cliches about environmentalists.
Also Offered As: LALS 2650
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2660 International Migration
A comprehensive review of theories and research on international migration. The course introduces the basic precepts of neoclassical economics, the new economics of labor migration, segmented labor market theory, world systems theory, social capital theory and the theory of cumulative causation. Readings examine patterns and processes of global migration during the classic age from 1800-1914 as well as during the postwar period from 1945 to the present. The course also covers a history and evaluation of immigration policies around the world, and devotes signification attention to theoretical and empirical perspectives on immigrant adaptation. Within this larger topic, we will also discuss internal migration and urbanization; the relationship between gender and migration; the spatial distribution of immigrants within the United States, immigrant communities, and ethnic enclaves; and the undocumented population in the United States.
Also Offered As: LALS 2660
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2670 Sociology of Immigration
TBD
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2680 Contemporary Immigration in the U.S.
While this course will engage immigration issues more broadly, we will centrally focus on questions of immigrant incorporation and the effects of U.S immigration policy. We will start with the broad question of what should be done about the estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Then, we will take a deeper look at the ways in which macro-level forces such as our laws and institutions shape the micro-level, everyday lives of undocumented immigrants and those living in mixed-status families. We will pay close attention to the circumstances of young people, including their experiences of exclusion and belonging across social and educational contexts. More specifically, we will examine how these factors might affect young people's development, schooling experiences, academic trajectories and aspirations, assimilation and ethnic identity, family dynamics, civic engagement, and employment.
Also Offered As: LALS 2680
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 5680
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2690 Comparative and International Education - Focus on East Asian Education
East Asian societies, specifically China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, have experienced extraordinary expansion of education during the last few decades, probably the most rapid expansion in human histories so far. The spectacular development of education has been considered as a critical source of dramatic economic growth and technological advance in the region as well as global popularity of East Asian cultures. East Asian education is distinctive not only with respect to quantitative expansion but also to its qualitative development. East Asian students have constantly occupied top ranks in various international academic tests such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). The excellence performance of East Asian students has attracted attention of policy makers and educators in other parts of the word to learn sources of their educational success. Despite all these quantitative and qualitative developments, however, East Asian education has also been criticized with its high levels of educational standardization, centralization, and exam-focused learning among others. Critics, both inside and outside of the region, have increasingly questioned whether East Asian education would be appropriate for flexible and globalized economies that require more individualized and differentiated learning opportunities. These distinctive features and developments of East Asian education provide an extremely useful case with which to understand the roles of education for individuals and societies. The proposed course will focus on the following four themes: 1) Historical background of East Asian Education; 2) Features of School Learning and Beyond in East Asia; 3) Educational Inequality in Comparative Perspective; and 4) Consequences of Education for Individuals and Societies. This course will be designated as a Penn Global Seminar, which requires a short-term travel after a semester-long class. During the semester of Spring 2023, students will learn historical development and various features of East Asian education. After finishing the semester, students will have an opportunity to actually visit South Korea. The focused trip to Korea will provide unique experiences of seeing and learning how education actually works in an East Asian society. In Korea, students will visit actual K-12 schools to observe how daily learning occurs inside of Korean schools and to talk with school teachers and students. The trip will also include visits to some education-policy institutions as well as higher education institutions.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2691 Innovation, Regulations, Technology, and Society: Experience from East Asia
Innovation and creativity are universally recognized as aspects of modern life. From stem cell research to nanotechnology and machine learning, innovation is heralded as a thing of value to be actively fostered, as a key ingredient for the betterment of the human condition, and often as a desirable process for economic growth. While existing innovative activities are often based in the so-called advanced economies, particularly the United States and the European Union, increasingly we see new players on the global scene vying for influence and offering new forms of innovation and upgrading. These new players are often countries from East Asia. What positions do these East Asian countries occupy in the global knowledge economy? How are they navigating a constantly evolving and competitive frontier technology market where ownership of intellectual property rights remains in the hands of a handful of advanced economies? Technological innovation can take a toll, not least in the form of increased level of risks that a society must bear, as well as in environmental degradation, worker strife stemming from a shortage of jobs, gender disparity, and expanding wealth and knowledge gaps (including access to knowledge) between different socioeconomic classes. In this course, we will consider how regional patterns (and national variations) of economic growth and sociocultural changes under way in East Asia have been influenced by the global technological revolution, as well as the infrastructure of power and governance. Particularly, the course exposes students to scholarship on the governance of the global political economy, with a focus on the socio-legal regulation of emerging science and technology. The course will begin with discussing how states strike a balance between innovation and protection through implementing relevant regulatory frameworks. In addition, we will explore what implications emerging technologies have for societies, as well as how these evolving dynamics impact the lived experience of local communities.
Also Offered As: EALC 2701
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2700 Current Issues in Contemporary Japan
In this course, we aim to understand what social issues in Japanese society exist and how they occur. Japan had experienced rapid industrial and economic developments until the 1980s. The Japanese systems of education, labor markets, and social security, which have continued until today, were established by this period approximately. Although people at that time were suffered from problems like harsh entrance examinations for secondary and higher educations, long working hours after they started a job, and gender inequality, they accepted these problems in exchange for their economic flourishment.
Also Offered As: EALC 1759
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 5690
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2810 Designing a Green New Deal: From Concept to Program
This advanced social science and design seminar is about mobilizing expert knowledge to develop transformative policy ideas to make the Green New Deal come alive. We'll look at cutting edge social science and design scholarship on the problems we're trying to solve, and the successes and failures of past efforts at transformative policy. And we'll focus in particular on the built environment. How might a Green New Deal make the physical changes to our infrastructures, homes, energy landscapes, transportation systems, public recreation amenities, care facilities, and more, in ways that slash carbon emissions, increase resiliency, and abolish inequalities of race, class, gender, and nation? That's not a rhetorical question: in this class, we'll assemble knowledge, get into teams, and come up with concrete proposals.
Also Offered As: LALS 2810
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2902 The US and Human Rights: Policies and Pratices
After an examination of the philosophical, legal, and political perspectives on Human Rights, this course will focus on US policies and practices relevant to Human Rights. Toward that end, emphasis will be placed on both the domestic and the international aspects of Human Rights as reflected in US policies and practices. Domestically, the course will discuss (1) the process of incorporating the International Bill of Human Rights into the American legal system and (2) the US position on and practices regarding the political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights of minorities and various other groups within the US. Internationally, the course will examine US Human Rights policies toward Africa. Specific cases of Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, as well as other cases from the continent, will be presented in the assessment of US successes and failures in the pursuit of its Human Rights strategy in Africa. Readings will include research papers, reports, statutes, treaties, and cases.
Fall
Also Offered As: AFRC 4200
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2903 Exhibiting Black Bodies
This course concerns the exhibiting of Black Bodies in Museums and gallery spaces. We will trace the evolution of public history from the "Cabinets of Curiosity" in 18th and 19th Century Europe, through to the current institutional confirmation of the vindications traditions represented by Museu Afro Brasil (Sao Paulo, Brazil), National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington,D.C.), and the Museum of Black Civilization (Dakar, Senegal). We will give particular attention to "why these representations at these times in these places?." In the process of addressing these questions we will give voice to the figures who conceived the curatorial content from those with the colonial mentality, to those with the abolitiionist and nationalist and Pan-African visions.
Also Offered As: AFRC 2903
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2904 Oil to Diamonds: The Political Economy of Natural Resources in Africa
This course examines the ways in which the processes of the extraction, refining, sale and use of natural resources – including oil and diamond – in Africa produce complex regional and global dynamics. We explore how values are placed on resources, how such values, the regimes of valuation, commodification and the social formations that are (re)produced by these regimes lead to cooperation and conflict in the contemporary African state, including in the relationships of resource-rich African countries with global powers. Specific cases will be examined against the backdrop of theoretical insights to encourage comparative analyses beyond Africa. Some audio-visual materials will be used to enhance the understanding of the political economy and sociality of natural resources.
Fall
Also Offered As: AFRC 4500, ANTH 3045, PSCI 4130
Mutually Exclusive: AFRC 5700
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2905 Everyday Life in Africa
This course will explore the different dimensions of everyday life in Africa. Everyday life has been described by Agnes Heller (1978) as “the secret yeast of history.” What constitutes this “yeast of history” in contemporary Africa? In exploring everyday life, we will examine the existing (in)capacities in the structures of state and society in Africa for human well-being in relation to the differences between political life (bios) and bare life (zoe). The course engages with the everyday life in terms of how social, economic, and political lives are constituted and the implications of this process for whether Africans live well or not, how they die, and their struggles for alternative lives. With (ethnographic) accounts and perspectives from different countries in Africa, the course focuses deeply on how to understand and explain the conditions under which everyday social needs and economic necessities are turned into political/existential struggles as well as the conditions under which political exigencies can transform into economic, social and bodily fatalities. The overarching questions that will animate this course include these: What are the prevalent conditions of everyday life in Africa? What and who determines (in)eligibility regarding the everyday tools of good life and human survival? How are these determinations related to the differential distribution of potential and/or actual injury, harm, and damage to human life and the conditions of its survival? What can ethnographic insight contribute to our understanding of everydayness in Africa? The roles of sexualities, gender, generation, humor, identities, racism, hate, memory, memorial, transactions, etc., in the construction, reconstruction, and deconstruction of daily life – and death – in the continent will be examined. Audio-visual materials will be used to analyze important themes about quotidian life in Africa.
Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 2762, ANTH 2762
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2907 Race, Rights and Rebellion
This course provides an in-depth examination of theories of race and different kinds of social struggles for freedom around the globe. We will critically engage the latest scholarship from a variety of scholars and social movement actors. From anti-slavery revolts to struggles for independence to anti-apartheid movements, this course will emphasize how racialized peoples have employed notions of rights and societal resources grounded in cultural differences. Though much of the readings will highlight the experiences of African descendant peoples in Africa and its diaspora, the course will also explore the intersections of Black struggles with social movements organized by indigenous peoples in the Americas. Students will also have the unique experience of accessing readings primarily written by primarily Black scholars, some of whom have participated as key actors in the social movements they describe. Key concepts include power, resistance, subaltern, hegemony, identity politics, consciousness, and intellectual activism. The course will be organized around the following objectives: 1. To explore a range of contemporary theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to the study of social movements; 2. To focus on the relationship between race, gender, class, culture, and politics in the African diaspora; 3. To study the historical development of organized struggles, social protests, uprisings, revolutions, insurgencies, and rebellions; 4. To examine the political agency of African descendant peoples in the global struggle for liberation and citizenship.
Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 3515, ANTH 2515, LALS 3515
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2910 Globalization And Its Historical Significance
This course sets the current state of globalization in historical perspective. It applies the concepts of anthropology, history, political economy and sociology to the study of globalization. We focus on a series of questions not only about what is happening, but about the growing awareness of it and the consequences of this increasing awareness. In answering these questions we draw on a variety of case studies, from historical examples of early globalization (e.g. The Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, global flows of conspicuous commodities such as sugar, coffee, and tea, the rise and transformations of early capitalism), to issues facing our current globalized world (e.g. mass-mediatization and multilingualism, border regimes and international migration, planetary urbanization). The body of the course deals with particular dimensions of globalization, reviewing both the early and recent history of each. The overall approach is historical and comparative, setting globalization on the larger stage of the economic, political and cultural development of various parts of the modern world. The course is taught by anthropologists who draw from economic, linguistic, sociocultural, archaeological, and historical perspectives, offering the opportunity to compare and contrast distinct disciplinary approaches. It seeks to develop a general social-science-based theoretical understanding of the various historical dimensions of globalization: economic, political, social and cultural.
Fall
Also Offered As: ANTH 0120, HIST 0862
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2920 Criminology
This introductory course examines the multi-disciplinary science of law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcing. It reviews theories and data predicting where, when, by whom and against whom crimes happen. It also addresses the prevention of different offense types by different kinds of offenders against different kinds of people. Police, courts, prisons, and other institutions are critically examined as both preventing and causing crime. This course meets the general distribution requirement.
Fall
Also Offered As: CRIM 1000
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2921 Criminal Justice
This course examines how the criminal justice system responds to crime in society. The course reviews the historical development of criminal justice agencies in the United States and Europe and the available scientific evidence on the effect these agencies have on controlling crime. The course places an emphasis on the functional creation of criminal justice agencies and the discretionary role decision makers in these agencies have in deciding how to enforce criminal laws and whom to punish. Evidence on how society measures crime and the role that each major criminal justice agency plays in controlling crime is examined from the perspective of crime victims, police, prosecutors, jurors, judges, prison officials, probation officers and parole board members. Using the model of social policy evaluation, the course asks students to consider how the results of criminal justice could be more effectively delivered to reduce the social and economic costs of crime.
Spring
Also Offered As: CRIM 1100
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2931 Latinx Communities and the Role of CBO's in Social Change
The purpose of this course to create a Latino Studies/Service Learning ABCS course that cultivates dialogue and knowledge about the social, political, cultural and historical complexities of the Latinx experience in the United States (Philadelphia in particular) and the roles Latinx CBO's play in meeting the needs of Latinx communities and in impacting social change.
Fall
Also Offered As: LALS 4240
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2932 Latinx Cultural History
This course takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of the resiliency and impact of Latinx cultural and artistic contributions, esthetics, expressions and institution building int he United Stats from the Civil Rights Era to the present. We will explore how Latinxs arguculturally defining being "American"; how their artistic expressions fit and influence the creativity and productivity of American and global Arts & Cultural expressions; and the Latinx interactions of race, culture, society, economy and politics in the U.S.
Also Offered As: LALS 4250
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2933 Global Chinas and Chinese Diasporas
This seminar delves into the global imprint of contemporary Chinese diasporic communities, examining their significant influence from the lens of multiple sectors and regions—from Wenzhou migrants shaping the fashion industry in Italy to copper mining enterprises in Zambia to Chinese-owned nail salons and massage parlors dotting New York City. This exploration situates Chinese communities within the context of an interconnected world. As China has ascended to become the world’s second-largest economy, its impact is not confined within its borders but extends into international politics, culture, commerce, technology, and beyond. This class endeavors to unpack the complexities of China’s global engagement and deepen students’ understanding of Chinese communities worldwide. The course is divided into two main sections. The first section provides an overview of the historical journey of China on the global stage and an introduction to research methods specific to studying this phenomenon. In the second half, the course adopts a more granular approach, delving into critical topics such as race and ethnicity, gender and family dynamics, transnational identity, educational achievement, labor, entrepreneurship, and soft power.
Also Offered As: ASAM 2620
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2940 Homelessness & Urban Inequality
This first-year seminar examines the homelessness problem from a variety of scientific and policy perspectives. Contemporary homelessness differs significantly from related conditions of destitute poverty during other eras of our nation's history. Advocates, researchers and policymakers have all played key roles in defining the current problem, measuring its prevalence, and designing interventions to reduce it. The first section of this course examines the definitional and measurement issues, and how they affect our understanding of the scale and composition of the problem. Explanations for homelessness have also been varied, and the second part of the course focuses on examining the merits of some of those explanations, and in particular, the role of the affordable housing crisis. The third section of the course focuses on the dynamics of homelessness, combining evidence from ethnographic studies of how people become homeless and experience homelessness, with quantitative research on the patterns of entry and exit from the condition. The final section of the course turns to the approaches taken by policymakers and advocates to address the problem, and considers the efficacy and quandaries associated with various policy strategies. The course concludes by contemplating the future of homelessness research and public policy.
Fall
Also Offered As: AFRC 0010, URBS 0010
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2942 Cities, Suburbs, Regions
This course will explore the political, economic, social, and demographic forces impacting development patterns in metropolitan areas, with a particular focus on Philadelphia. We will examine the government policies, economic forces, and social attitudes that affect the way a region grows, and the impact of these forces on poverty, equity and segregation. Specific topics to be discussed include the factors that make a region competitive, the city's changing role in the region, the impact place has on opportunity, and approaches to revitalizing and improving communities.
Spring, odd numbered years only
Also Offered As: URBS 2530
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2943 Global Urban Education
This course examines the demographic, social, and economic trends impacting the growth of global cities--providing the context for global urban education. Through the dual lens of globalization and local urban culture, we explore relationships between urban education and economic development, democratic citizenship, social movements, social inclusion, equity, and quality of urban life. We consider key historical legacies (e.g., Colonialism), informal settlements and "slums," the rise of the "knowledge economy", and the role of international aid. Additional topics include: early childhood; gender equity; youth culture; impacts of crisis and war; urban refugees; teacher training and identity; accountability & governance; information & computer technology; religion, indigenous cultures, and language identity; & the role of the private sector and school choice. We focus on cities like Sao Paolo, Mexico City, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, Jakarta, Mumbai, Lahore, Tehran, and Cairo, and draw comparisons to cities like New York, London, Paris and Tokyo.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: URBS 2580
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2944 Perspectives on Urban Poverty
This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to 20th century urban poverty, and 20th century urban poverty knowledge. In addition to providing an historical overview of American poverty, the course is primarily concerned with the ways in which historical, cultural, political, racial, social, spatial/geographical, and economic forces have either shaped or been left out of contemporary debates on urban poverty. Of great importance, the course will evaluate competing analytic trends in the social sciences and their respective implications in terms of the question of what can be known about urban poverty in the contexts of social policy and practice, academic research, and the broader social imaginary. We will critically analyze a wide body of literature that theorizes and explains urban poverty. Course readings span the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, urban studies, history, and social welfare. Primacy will be granted to critical analysis and deconstruction of course texts, particularly with regard to the ways in which poverty knowledge creates, sustains, and constricts meaningful channels of action in urban poverty policy and practice interventions.
Fall
Also Offered As: HIST 0812, URBS 4200
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2945 Globalization & The City: Global Urbanization
In 2008, the UN estimated that the worlds population had become primarily urban, for the first time in history. According to the OECD, by the end of the century, close to 85% of the projected population will live in cities. The transition towards an urban planet is likely to have far-reaching economic, environmental, social, political, and cultural impacts on our species, many of which we cannot yet predict. But what is urbanization? Will it lead to more inequality, exploitation, conflict, resource consumption, and exposure to natural disasters and climate change, or is it an opportunity to move the world in a more sustainable and equitable direction? Taught by Chandan Deuskar and Patricio Zambrano Barragan, this course aims to explore these questions. In the first half of the semester, we will discuss various challenges associated with global urbanization and its impacts. In the second half, we will focus on responses to these challenges. The assignments will allow students to explore some of the most salient debates around global urbanization By the end of the semester, students will be better able to understand the context for any future academic research, professional work, or business activities in the cities of the 'developing world'. The course will help provide a foundation for any students considering graduate studies or professional work in the fields of urban planning or international development.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: URBS 4570
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2946 The History & Theory of Community Organizing
"Power concedes nothing without a demand."--Frederick Douglass. "Workers of theworld, unite!"--Karl Marx. "Don't mourn. Organize."--Joe Hill. "Strong people do not need strong leaders."--Ella Baker. "Freedom is a constant struggle."--Angela Davis. We will review the history and theory of critique, resistance, and solidarity, as we consider old and new social movements and freedom struggles around the world (Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia)--from encampments for indigenous sovereignty of tribal lands to demonstrations by poor and working people seeking "the right to the city;" from sit-ins and strikes to occupations and takeovers, from uprisings and insurrections to revolutions and counterrevolutions, from anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-caste, and anti-racist insurgencies to mobilizations for racial and gender justice and solidarity economy; from civil rights, labor rights, student rights, human rights, animal rights, and environmental organizing to movements for peace, democracy, equality, and liberation--and more (based on student interests and commitments). Strategies and techniques will be reviewed. Successes and failures will be registered. Limitations and possibilities will be debated. Source material will be drawn from mainstream and radical traditions within popular praxis and numerous fields, including urban studies, philosophy and critical theory, religion, history, artand culture, anthropology, politics, development economics, social psychology, sociology, organizational development, and law. Note: Attendance at the first class is mandatory (for those already enrolled and for those considering enrollment in the course). Enrolled students who miss the first class must drop the course. Those who were not able to enroll but who attend the first class will be permitted to enroll.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: URBS 4730
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2950 Population and Public Health in Eastern Europe
Since the collapse of communism in 1989 in Eastern Europe (and 1991 in the Soviet Union), many of the countries in the region have experienced public health crises and demographic catastrophe. Below replacement fertility rates and massive out migration have decimated the populations of these countries even as populations age and place unsustainable strains on pension systems and medical services. The demographic collapse has also been accompanied by falling male life expectancy and the rise of alcoholism, depression, domestic violence, and suicide. The economic exigencies of the transition from communism to capitalism dismantled welfare states at the exact moment when health services were most needed, leaving charities and nongovernmental organization to try to fill in the gaps. Through a combination of readings from the fields of epidemiology, demography, and medical anthropology, this course examines the public health implications of poverty and social dislocation in post-communist states. All readings and assignments are in English.
Also Offered As: ANTH 1670, REES 1670
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2951 The History of the Information Age
We are said to live in an “information age.” Information technologies have been credited with ushering in an era of unprecedented information creation, collection, storage, and communication. We experience the impact of this firsthand: these technologies increasingly pervade our homes, our workplaces, our schools, our most private spaces. But what exactly do we mean when we speak of the information age? When and how did it come into being? What developments—social, economic, political, or technological—made the digital world possible? How do these fit in the longer history of technology and society? And how is all this different from earlier eras? In this course, we explore these questions by looking to the history of information, information technologies, and information sciences, a history that long predates the digital computer. Although, at the center of our story will be the development of new information technologies—from the printing press and the telegraph to the computer and of course the Internet—our focus will not primarily be on machines, but on people and how individuals conceptualized, contributed to, made sense of, and dealt with the many transformational changes that have shaped the contours of our modern digital world. We will explore forms of identity, knowledge, and community that have emerged within this information age. Our goal will be to deepen historical perspectives and build analytical tools to critically evaluate the role of information in our increasingly digital world today.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: STSC 1600
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2952 Health and Social Justice
This course considers various theoretical approaches to justice and health, motivated by the idea that a moral framework is needed to address the ethical challenges posed by inequalities in access, quality, financial burdens, and resource priorities, as well as rising health care costs. The course includes four parts. The first part examines ethical frameworks that involve various approaches to medical and public health ethics. The second part presents an alternative theory of justice and health, the health capability paradigm (HCP), grounded in human flourishing. The third part explores domestic health policy applications, including equal access, equitable and efficient health financing and insurance, rising costs and allocating resources. The fourth and final part of the course investigates domestic health reform, particularly a normative theory of health policy decision making grounded in political and moral legitimacy. The course scrutinizes the relevance of health justice for governing health at the domestic level, that is within countries, offers a new theory of health and social justice, the health capability paradigm, and of health governance, shared health governance, evaluating current domestic health systems and proposals for reforming them in light of these alternative theoretical frameworks.
Also Offered As: BENF 2260
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2960 Participatory Cities (SNF Paideia Program Course)
What is a participatory city? What has that term meant in the past, what does it mean now, and what will it mean going forward? Against the backdrop of increasing inequality and inequity, and the rise in a search for solutions, what role can citizens play in co-creating more just cities and neighborhoods? How can citizens be engaged in the decision-making processes about the places where we live, work, and play? And most importantly, how can we work to make sure that all kinds of voices are meaningfully included, and that historically muted voices are elevated to help pave a better path forward? This course will connect theory with praxis as we explore together the history, challenges, methods, and approaches, and impact of bottom up and top down approaches to community participation and stakeholder involvement in cities. Multiple opportunities will be provided to be involved in community engagement work for live projects in Philadelphia.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: URBS 3140
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2970 Social Inequalities: Caste and Race
This course introduces students to two systems of inequity, caste in South Asia, particularly in India, and race in the United States. It’s main objective is to demonstrate how these modes of inequity, sometimes dismissed as outdated or irrelevant, continue to shape social and state institutions like family, law, and bureaucracy. The course will explore sociological literature on caste and race and examine how these systems existed in a range of historical contexts. It will examine how certain groups were recipients of economic, political, and social privilege, and how these groups othered communities such as Afro-Americans in the United States and Dalits in India. We will consider how privileged groups continue to represent modern institutions like state and law that fail to protect disadvantaged communities in both India and the United States. The course will also explore how privileged communities employ the tool of gendered violence of different kinds like physical violence against men and sexual violence against women of Afro-American communities and Dalit communities to maintain forms of social power and control. The final unit of the course will deal with the emerging and imagined solidarities between Afro-American social and political movements in the United States and Dalit movements in India.
Also Offered As: AFRC 2219, GSWS 2219, SAST 2219
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2971 Bioethics
This course is intended to introduce students to the fundamental principles of bioethics and the many ethical issues that arise in the rapidly changing fields of biomedicine and the life sciences. The first half of the course will provide an overview of the standard philosophical principles of bioethics, using clinical case studies to help illustrate and work through these principles. In the second half of the course we will focus on recent biomedical topics that have engendered much public controversy including diagnostic genetics, reproductive technologies and prenatal screening, abortion, physician assisted suicide, human experiments, and end of life decision making. We will use the principles learned in the first half of the course to systematically think through these bioethical issues, many of which affect our everyday lives.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: HSOC 1330
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2972 Sex and Socialism
This seminar examines classic and current scholarship and literature on gender and sexuality in contemporary Eastern Europe, and examines the dialogue and interchange of ideas between East and West. Although the scholarly and creative works will primarily investigate the changing status of women during the last three decades, the course will also look at changing constructions of masculinity and LGBT movements and communities in the former communist bloc. Topics will include: the woman question before 1989; gender and emerging nationalisms; visual representations in television and film; social movements; work; romance and intimacy; spirituality; and investigations into the constructed concepts of "freedom" and "human rights."
Also Offered As: ANTH 1688, GSWS 1680, REES 1680
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2973 Culture on Trial: Race, Media & Intellectual Property
This course explores the US intellectual property regime’s impact on the production, distribution and consumption of media and art. By the end of the class, students will come away with historical, theoretical, and practical understandings of how media technology changes the law and how the law has subsequently responded to changes in media technology. This course is affiliated with CWIC (Communication Within the Curriculum). See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.
Also Offered As: CIMS 2935, ENGL 2935
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2974 Adivasis/Indigenous Peoples & British Colonialism in India
Modern Western colonialism impacted the world in many ways. However, each country and community has had a different encounter and experience with colonialism. For the Adivasis (indigenous peoples) of India, it was catastrophic and marked a new phase in their history. The pre-colonial symbolizes a period of freedom in the hills and forest, whereas the colonial era symbolizes state coercion, eviction from land and the end of free movement in the forest. The proposed course discusses Adivasis' encounters with the British colonial state. The course examines Indian history from the perspectives of Adivasis and contrasts these with dominant paradigms of Indian history. In this way, the course allows students to understand India from a different perspective. Under British colonialism, the diverse ethnic self-governing communities were imagined as primitive, uncivilized, barbaric, violent, backward and childlike people. The course discusses how such constructions impacted Adivasi social life and development. It traces how the expansion of the colonial state in forests and hills put an end to self-rule and induced massive migration from the plains of India and asks how Adivasi areas were integrated into the colonial economy. How did the colonial state use revenue and forest policies and regulations to bring these areas under its control? How did commercialization of agriculture and forest conservation work to further marginalize Adivasis? The course also examines how Adivasi knowledge of cultivation and forest conservation were viewed by the colonial state and asks why the colonial state encouraged caste-Hindu peasant migration into Adivasi areas. Finally, it traces the ways that colonial intervention has resulted in a series of contestations, acts of resistance, and insurgencies by Adivasi groups? Tracing forms of Adivasi resistance, the course puts these into conversation with intellectual history, emphasizing the role of rumours, myths, and orality, which provided the basis for the new insurgent consciousness that spread throughout Adivasi communities. Adivasi resistance movements have been documented and analyzed by colonial rulers and anthropologists. Colonial discourses were successful in criminalizing Adivasi politics. Ironically, many colonial-era discourses concerning Adivasis have been perpetuated within the post-colonial academy. The anti-colonial struggles of Adivasis were constructed as sporadic, spontaneous, unorganized and apolitical. The inauguration of the Subaltern Studies Project has reversed such arguments and attempted to provide ideological integrity to Adivasi politics. Students will be introduced to important literature on Adivasi anti-colonial insurgent consciousness and will be encouraged to think critically about the concepts and theories of subaltern politics. Assigned readings include texts by James Scott, Ranajit Guha, David Arnold, David Hardiman, Ajay Skaria, Dhanagare, Ramachandra Guha, Biswamoy Pati, Alpa Shah, Crispin Bates, Jangkhomang Guite and Bhangya Bhukya. One aim of the course is to sensitize the students to how the political and cultural mobilizations by subalterns have contributed to the shaping of democracy.
Spring
Also Offered As: ANTH 2109, HIST 0853, SAST 2239
Mutually Exclusive: SAST 5239
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2976 American Race: A Philadelphia Story (SNF Paideia Program Course)
This course proposes an examination of race with a two-pronged approach: one that broadly links the study of race in the United States with a multi-disciplinary approach and also simultaneously situates specific conversations within the immediate location of Philadelphia, home to the University. The broad historical examination advances key concepts of race and racialization, explores key theoretical methodologies, and highlights major scholarly works. For example, students will engage with the study of race through Africana Studies, Asian American Studies, Urban Studies and through Latin American & Latinx Studies. Readings and methodologies will introduce students to critical issues in education, in literature, in sociology, and with methods in oral history, archival work, and ethnography. Most importantly, this extensive approach highlights the impact of race across multiple communities including Black Americans, immigrant populations, and communities that are marginalized to emphasize connections, relationships, and shared solidarity. Students are intellectually pushed to see the linkages and the impacts of racism across and among all Americans historically and presently. As each theme is introduced a direct example from Philadelphia will be discussed. The combination of the national discourse on race, with an intimate perspective from the City of Philadelphia, engages students both intellectually and civically. The course will be led by Fariha Khan and Fernando Chang-Muy but guest instructors with varied disciplinary backgrounds and guest speakers from local community organizations. Each instructor not only brings specific disciplinary expertise, but also varied community engagement experience.
Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 1115, ANTH 1150, ASAM 0115, LALS 0115, SAST 1115, URBS 1150
1 Course Unit
SOCI 2977 Just Futures Seminar I
This seminar analyzes the historical construction of race and ethnicity in the Americas by focusing on the processes of dispossession–of land, bodies, and heritage–that started with the European colonization of the continent. The first part of the class builds a theoretical framework that will allow students to understand the origin of ethnic and racial classifications as acts of symbolic power, and their connections to specific historical conjunctures. The second and main part of the class focuses on the historical processes that resulted in the colonization of the Americas and the global transformations that came from the encounter of people in the “New World” (the development of capitalism, the emergence of settler colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade, and modern liberalism) in order to trace the genealogy of the ethnic and racial classificatory systems that continue to be used today. We will pay particular attention to the transformation of land tenure and labor regimes and how different political economies produced different logics of racialization. The focus of the seminar is in the Americas as a unit, including both North and South America, and the Caribbean, from the 15th century to the present. The readings come from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, history, political science, settler colonial studies, and law. The last part of the class is organized as a workshop where students will develop their ideas for a final project and discuss student-selected readings.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: LALS 2977
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3000 Sociological Theory
This course will introduce students to sociological theory until the 1970s. We will read excerpts of original works from key theorists in, or influencing, the discipline. We will read original works of Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, DuBois, Gramsci, Marcuse, C. Wright Mills and more. We will also read a few more recent works echoing classical theory. The goal of this course is to help students understand the core concepts, including those of class, race, power, markets and the state, in classical sociological theory and to sharpen their own sociological imaginations.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3010 Contemporary Sociological Theory
This course will explore contemporary social theory with an emphasis on theories and theoretical orientations related to social interaction, identity, culture, and inequality. For example, we will discuss sociological theories from the last half century about race and racism, gender, social class, education, emotion, and violence. Importantly, we will consider theory in the context of its application to empirical social science research and real world concerns. The course fulfills the theory requirement for sociology minors and all soicology majors.
Fall or Spring
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 6010
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3200 Qualitative Methods
Some social scientific questions are best answered, or can only be answered, using qualitative methods, such as participant observation and interviewing. Qualitative methods can give otherwise unattainable insights into social reality and thus provide understanding of the mechanisms and meanings of social processes that might remain black boxes using non-qualitative methods. But the complexity of raw social situations and the fundamental nature of the methods required to describe and analyze these situations raise serious challenges for systematic and explanatory research. Over the course of the semester you will learn first-hand about the power and challenges inherent in qualitative methods by using them. You will design and carry out your own pilot research project using significant participant observation and interviewing. You will carefully construct a research plan intended to answer a specific, novel research question in the first few weeks of the course and then watch that design collide with the reality of the social world. You will spend the semester implementing, reflecting on, and revising that research plan. Class time will consist of instructor presentations, examinations of research based on qualitative methods, and workshops in which you will develop your plan or field techniques and evaluate the research of classmates in a constructive manner. Throughout the semester you will be evaluated through a series of small assignments. These smaller assignments will build upon one another and ultimately contribute to your final assignment, which is a research proposal designed to answer a specific, novel question grounded in the research you conduct during this class.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3210 Sample Survey Methods
This course provides an introduction to survey data collection. In meeting this objective, we examine the major planning tasks necessary for conducting surveys, including problem formulation, study design, questionnaire and interview design, pretesting, sampling, interviewer training and field management, code development and coding of data, and data cleaning and management. We critically explore the design of surveys and collection of data from epistemological and ethical perspectives. Students will leave the class with a solid understanding of the basic process of survey data collection and a familiarity with its strengths and weaknesses as a method of inquiry into human behavior.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3220 Basic Demographic Methods
This course provides an introduction to basic demographic concepts, data, indicators, and techniques. The course emphasizes hands-on applications of techniques in the analysis of population dynamics in the U.S. and elsewhere. Students will learn about the main sources of demographic data, including censuses, surveys, and vital statistics, and methods to estimate demographic processes (e.g. mortality, fertility). Students will leave the course with a solid grounding in a) the sources and limitations of demographic data; b) the construction of basic demographic indicators; and c) appropriate use of basic demographic techniques to answer questions about human populations.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3230 Demography of Race
This course will examine demographic and statistical methods used to capture the impact of racial stratification in society. This course covers the skills and insights used by demographers and social statisticians in the study of racial data. A key challenge facing researchers is the interpretation of the vast amount of racial data generated by society. As these data do not directly answer important social questions, data analysis and statistics must be used to interpret them. The course will examine the logic used to communicate statistical results from racial data in various societies. We will question the scientific claims of social science methodology by extending the critical perspective to biases that may underlie research methods. We will discuss good and bad practices within the context of the historical developments of the methods.
Also Offered As: AFRC 3230
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3240 Demographic, Economic, and Social Interrelations
The course investigates economic and social determinants of fertility, mortality, and migration, and it discusses the effects of population variables on economic and social conditions, including economic and social development. Topics discussed in the course include: How do economic changes affect marriage, divorce, and child bearing decisions? How do households make decisions about transfers and requests? How can economic and sociological approaches be combined in explanatory models of demography change? How does immigration to the US affect the ethnic composition of the population, the earnings of native workers, taxes on natives, and the macro-economy? What causes the aging of populations, and how will population aging affect the economies of industrial nations, and in particular, pension programs like Social Security? What accounts for the rise in women's participation in the wage labor force over the past century? How are family composition and poverty interrelated? Does rapid population growth slow economic development with low income countries? In addition to these topics, the course also covers selected methods not included in DEMG/SOCI 535/536 and 609.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3250 Methods of Investigation
In a time of abundant fake news and mis-information, it becomes ever important for students (for all, really!) to learn how to critically assess (and produce) robust empirical evidence to uncover patterns and trends about social life. The goal of this course is to do just that through the use of census microdata, video and photographs, with a focus on social inequality! Or, in other words…a first goal of this course is to introduce students to empirical work that will let them identify robust evidence on social inequality across a diverse set of topics and countries. A second goal of the course is to provide students with key analytical skills through working with microdata to uncover social inequality globally. Having exposure and hands-on experience with the correct tools to read (and produce) evidence on patterns and trends on social research is an important skill for students in any major. We will use publicly available census microdata on more than 100 countries from IPUMS and photographs from the Dollar Street Project. Students will work with a country, produce their own analysis and combine it with photographs and videos. As a Signature Course, a third key goal of the course is to teach students skills that will enable them to more easily read empirical work and write results more clearly and concisely. Students will practice reading academic research, do class exercises, write case studies, and complete a research paper/video/photo essay that will aid them in these goals.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3998 Independent Study
Directed readings and research in areas of sociology. Permission of instructor needed.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 3999 Senior Research
Senior Research is for senior sociology majors only. Students are assigned Sociology advisors with assistance from Undergraduate Chair.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 4100 Thesis Workshop I
The purpose of this course is to guide senior sociology majors in writing a research proposal for a senior honors thesis. Students will learn about various research approaches, how to write a focused literature review, and kinds of data necessary to answer a wide variety of research questions, including their own. Throughout the course, students will work on designing a research question, generation researchable hypotheses, and coming up with a design for their proposed study. The final paper for this course will be a research proposal that is the basis for students' independent research project. This course satisfies the research requirement for sociology majors and is designed primarily for seniors who are planning to write an honors thesis.
Spring
Prerequisite: SOCI 2000
0.5 Course Units
SOCI 4101 Thesis Workshop II
This is the second part of the Thesis Workshop course. Prerequisite: SOCI 4100. Permission must be granted by the department.
Fall or Spring
Prerequisite: SOCI 2000 AND SOCI 4100
0.5 Course Units
SOCI 4998 Honors Independent Study
Independent study section for senior Sociology majors working on an honors thesis. Students are assigned an advisor by the undergraduate chair.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5200 Religion
How do the many religious institutions in our society differ, and what common qualities do they share? Why do some religious institutions adapt to modernity while others do not? In particular, why are the politics of sex and gender so fundamental to the current organization of the American religious landscape? These questions will be the central motivating questions for the semester. The course will begin with an introduction to current theories in the sociology of religion. We will then apply and critique those theories as we learn more about the histories, members, practices and beliefs of all the major religious groups in the US today, including Mainline, Fundamentalist and Evangelical Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and other groups such as the Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. Students will pick two religious groups (one liberal and one conservative) to observe over the course of the semester and will write papers comparing and contrasting the two groups.
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 2200
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5240 Advanced Topics in Family Sociology
This course will focus on the intersection of family life and inequality. The course will cover theories and empirical research examining the ways in which the political economy of family life is implicated in sustaining and organizing inequalities by class, gender, sexuality, and race.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: DEMG 5240
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 2290
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5330 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Race and ethnicity are, above all, both converge as system of ideas by which men and women imagine the human body and their relationships within society. In this course we will question the concept of race and ethnicity and their place in modern society (1500 - 2020). While the course reviews the pre-1500 literature our focus will be on the last 500 years. This course reviews the research that has contributed to the ideas about ethnicity and race in human society. The review covers the discourse on race in political propaganda, religious doctrine, philosophy, history, biology and other human sciences.
Also Offered As: AFRC 5330, DEMG 5330
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5350 Quantitative Methods I
This course is an introduction to the practice of statistics in social and behavioral sciences. It is open to beginning graduate students and--with the permission of the instructor--advanced undergraduates. Topics covered include the description of social science data, in graphical and non-graphical form; correlation and other forms of association, including cross-tabulation; bivariate regression; an introduction to probability theory; the logic of sampling; the logic of statistical inference and significance tests. There is a lecture twice weekly and a mandatory "lab."
Fall
Also Offered As: DEMG 5350
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5351 Quantitative Methods II
As the second part of a two-semester sequence, this graduate course focuses on regression analysis as used in social science research. In particular, we discuss features and assumptions of linear regression and logistic regression models. We learn how to apply regression models to real social science data using Stata and how to interpret the results.
Spring
Also Offered As: CRIM 6351, DEMG 5351
Prerequisite: SOCI 5350
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5400 Discourse Analysis
Discourse Analysis examines both verbal and non-verbal communication to explore the making of claims of meaning, truthfulness, and authority, in everything from political speech to advertising to scientific reports. The course presents a range of methods and theoretical frameworks for analyzing discourse in a wide variety of social contexts (journalistic, legal, political, medical, familial). Readings and exercises draw from theories of signs, symbols, gestures, and language to analyze communicative acts and events. The goal of the course is to provide a solid grounding in the theories of speech, writing, symbols, and images, and to survey a broad array of empirical studies that have grown out of these theoretical frameworks. The course is appropriate for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Also Offered As: COMM 5400
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5430 Climate, Environment, and Childhood in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Climatic and environmental hazards and their implications for the health and welfare of children are a major global concern. In a recent press release, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that approximately one billion children are at extremely high risk of experiencing impacts of the climate crisis; many will experience multiple climate shocks combined with poor essential services such as water, sanitation, and healthcare. Children from poorer countries and those from economically, socially, and politically marginalized groups within countries may be particularly vulnerable to climate risks and environmental hazards. Focusing on low- and middle-income countries, this class will explore the question, how do global childhood inequalities, broadly defined, condition both the risks of experiencing climatic and environmental hazards and the impacts, once exposed. The course is appropriate for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5440 Sociology of the Climate Emergency
This seminar will explore how sociologists and adjacent social scientists have investigated the intersections of the environment with inequalities of wealth and power, with a focus on a broad "climate change and society" field. The seminar will cover a) recent efforts to reframe the history of capitalism as the history of a socio-environmental system (and overlaps between that agenda and the "racial capitalism" framework); b) the genesis of US-based environmental justice scholarship; c) the global sociology of carbon emissions and international environmental movements; and, d) new trends in "climate change and society" studies.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5450 Economic Development, Education, and Inequality in East Asia
Where are East Asian economies and education headed? Can a new model of East Asian economy and education be established to achieve economic sustainability and equity in rapidly changing global contexts? In this seminar, we will survey 1) evolution of the East Asian economic model, focusing on changes in economic development strategies, labor market structures, and relationships with global economies; and 2) features of East Asian educational systems, focusing on educational opportunities and learning outcomes. In reviewing East Asian economy and education, a central question is not only how productive East Asian economy and education is but also how equal economic and educational opportunities are in the region. In the final part of the seminar, students will come up with some policy recommendations for East Asian economy and education to better achieve economic sustainability and equity. This graduate-level course is also open to advanced undergraduate students.
Also Offered As: EALC 5702, EDUC 5450
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5500 The Sociology of Poverty
This seminar will provide a graduate-level overview of and training in the sociology of poverty. It takes a comparative perspective by examining poverty across different theoretical perspectives, dimensions, and substantive domains as well as across different time periods and place contexts. This course will cover a range of topics pertaining to poverty such as the conceptualization and measurement of poverty, poverty levels and trends, and disparities in poverty. We will study how poverty research has evolved, various theories of the causes of poverty, and the consequences of poverty for individuals and society. We will explore the link between poverty and place, including poverty within urban, suburban, and rural contexts and across different sub-national units (e.g. regions, states, neighborhoods). While we will focus much attention to poverty in the U.S., we will also examine poverty across rich democracies and in less developed countries to gain a better understanding of global poverty and its broader impact. We will also explore how poverty is produced and maintained through various domains such as the family, education, the labor market, housing, the criminal justice system, and the welfare state. Finally, we will assess the effectiveness of poverty policies as well as other anti-poverty strategies. Throughout the course, we will use an intersectional lens that considers the roles of race/ethnicity, gender, age, and other axes of inequality in the perpetuation of poverty. By the end of this course, students will be able to draw on different perspectives and methodological approaches to critically discuss poverty and issues pertaining to poverty. Course requirements include weekly readings, class participation, critical responses, and a research paper.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5530 Ethnography of Sociological Research
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to basic skills and concepts in ethnographic field research, including participant observation, interviewing, field documentation, and the scholarly presentation of qualitative data. Students will learn to apply these skills and concepts through an assigned set of exercises in concert with a semester-long project based on intensive fieldwork at a research site of their choosing. In addition, we will examine exemplars of published fieldwork in both classical and contemporary sociology.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5550 Pro-Seminar in Sociological Research
In the non-credit seminar students will be introduce to key areas in sociological research, and a set of professional skills necessary to navigate graduate school and a successful academic career. Students will also be introduced to faculty and resources available at Penn. This course is required for all first-year graduate students in Sociology
Fall
0 Course Units
SOCI 5560 Pro-Seminar in Sociological Research II
This graduate seminar for first-year graduate students will be a two-semester course covering the major subfields of sociology -- their classical and contemporary theories, current methods and substance.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5610 Cultural Sociology
Studies culture as values, scripts, practice, performance, and style in the contexts of everyday life, social class, and status groups, social movements, and changes of communication technologies. Approaches politics, society, institutions,identities, and social change as dynamic processes and complex interactions at both micro/meso and meso/macro levels. Examines the production, reception, circulation and effects of signs,symbols, and stories. Readings include both classic authors (Elias, Simmel,Bakhtin, Goffman, Foucault, Bourdieu, Raymond Williams, etc.) and contemporary works from sociology and communication studies.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: COMM 5610
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5620 Soci Movements & Poli Sc
This course explores the impact of systems of government on the collective call to action of populations, and vice versa. Through a local, national, and global lens, this course analyzes the tensions that are produced by the at-times divergent priorities of those in political power versus those who seek social progress and change.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5630 Mechanisms for Perpetuating or Reducing Inequality by Class, Race and Gender
TBD
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5635 Sociology of Health and Illness
The sociology of health and illness is a broad field covering a range of substantive and empirical issues, including (but not limited to): the social production of health, illness, morbidity and mortality; inequalities in health, illness, and disease; medicalization; the experience of illness and the sick role; and the organization and delivery of health care. While we cannot cover everything, this course is designed to give students an overview of central topics and key debates in the field, with particular emphasis on the social, structural, political, economic, and cultural forces shaping the production of health and illness. Though the course will focus predominately in the U.S. context, we will also integrate global and comparative perspectives whenever possible. The course will emphasize active discussion, cooperative learning, and continuous improvement.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5637 Gender and Health in Post-Socialist Society
In terms of gender and health arrangements, post-socialist societies have provided through the course of their history examples both of radical empowerment and of evident discrimination, rapid emancipation and conservative backlashes. Social policy researchers frequently refer to this as a sui generis social laboratory, where health and gender policy experiments have taken place. This course aims to examine the premises and societal outcomes of such 'experiments' both on the empirical and conceptual levels. The course pursues two interconnected goals (1) to explore the specificities of gender and health in post-socialist societies, i.e. to consider how these phenomena are grounded in and affected by the political and institutional transition from state socialism; (2) to explore theoretical insights that social studies of the post-socialist experience provide for our understanding of health and gender. The course is structured thematically and chronologically. By tracing transformations of socialist and post-socialist gender order the first part of the course introduces students to the political and institutional context of societies under consideration. The second part of the course discusses social science categories that are used to analyze gender and health (medical professionalism, medical knowledge, emotions in healthcare, etc.) and examines, how attention to socialist and post-socialist experience can enhance our conceptualizations. The third part is devoted to different dimensions of health and gender inequalities on post-socialist space. Empirical researches discussed in this part are mostly concerned with the case of Russia, but are not limited to it. Generally, the course builds into the discussion on what analytical results can be gained through comparing health and gender in post-socialist and 'Western' contexts, and what variations between and within post-socialist societies exist. This is an introductory level graduate course.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: REES 5637
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5640 Poverty, Race and Health
This course is designed to introduce students to current literature on race/ethnic difference in health and mortality in the United States, covering such topics as explanations for why some race/ethnic groups fare better than others, how inner city poverty and residential segregation may contribute to racial/ethnic differences in health outcomes, and health of immigrants versus native-born populations. Current policy debated and recent policy developments related to health are also briefly discussed. The course is organized as a seminar with a combination of lectures and class discussions.
Also Offered As: LALS 5640
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5670 Urban Sociology
This course will examine the urban structures and processes which characterize the social and cultural milieu of the contemporary American city. Specific course topics will include the social organization of local urban subcultures and neighborhood communities, the cultural consequences of gentrification and racial segregation, the reputation of cities in the public imagination, and the commodification of the urban landscape.
Also Offered As: URBS 5670
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5680 Contemporary Immigration in the U.S.
While this course will engage immigration issues more broadly, we will centrally focus on questions of immigrant incorporation and the effects of U.S immigration policy. We will start with the broad question of what should be done about the estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Then, we will take a deeper look at the ways in which macro-level forces such as our laws and institutions shape the micro-level, everyday lives of undocumented immigrants and those living in mixed-status families. We will pay close attention to the circumstances of young people, including their experiences of exclusion and belonging across social and educational contexts. More specifically, we will examine how these factors might affect young people's development, schooling experiences, academic trajectories and aspirations, assimilation and ethnic identity, family dynamics, civic engagement, and employment.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: LALS 5680
Mutually Exclusive: LALS 2680, SOCI 2680
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5690 Current Issues in Contemporary Japan
In this course, we aim to understand what social issues in Japanese society exist and how they occur. Japan had experienced rapid industrial and economic developments until the 1980s. The Japanese systems of education, labor markets, and social security, which have continued until today, were established by this period approximately. Although people at that time were suffered from problems like harsh entrance examinations for secondary and higher educations, long working hours after they started a job, and gender inequality, they accepted these problems in exchange for their economic flourishment.
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 2700
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5700 Oil to Diamonds: The Political Economy of Natural Resources in Africa
This course examines the ways in which the processes of the extraction, refining, sale and use of natural resources – including oil and diamond – in Africa produce complex regional and global dynamics. We explore how values are placed on resources, how such values, the regimes of valuation, commodification and the social formations that are (re)produced by these regimes lead to cooperation and conflict in the contemporary African state, including in the relationships of resource-rich African countries with global powers. Specific cases will be examined against the backdrop of theoretical insights to encourage comparative analyses beyond Africa. Some audio-visual materials will be used to enhance the understanding of the political economy and sociality of natural resources.
Fall
Also Offered As: AFRC 5700, ANTH 5700
Mutually Exclusive: AFRC 4500
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5710 Visualizing W.E.B.DUBOIS
This seminar will focus on a project that views history as a result of our contemporary society in which biographical truths are constantly shifting. So the historical biographers write about the way they remembered and visualize the past, and not about the way that it happened. We will take Du Bois's biography in his own words and interrogate his narrative with the visual narratives of his life and influence produced by others. "Visualizing W.E.B Du Bois" focuses on photographic, film, and video representations intended to present some aspect of Du Bois's reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record. Such projects include photos, materials originally shot on film stock, and digital images that can be either displayed in a book or magazine, and moving images made into a film or video for a TV show or released for screening in cinemas, or other broadcast mediums like YouTube and Vimeo.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: AFRC 5710
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5960 Sociology of Education
This graduate seminar will introduce students to some of the key theoretical and empirical work in the sociology of education. We will examine how schools work to maintain or alleviate inequality, and focus on differences in educational achievement and attainment by race, ethnicity, immigrant status, class, and gender. We will review work on the educational experiences of youth from early childhood to young adulthood.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 5970 Demography of Education
The major topic of the course is the impacts of education, especially college education, on various kinds of family behavior such as dating, cohabitation, living arrangements, marriage, fertility, parenting, divorce, and remarriage. In many countries, some family behaviors, if not all, are increasingly differentiated between college-educated and non-college-educated. For instance, increase in divorce is more evident among the less educated than their more educated counterparts, while marriage decline is more substantial among the less educated. Although parents’ time and money investments in children’s education have generally increased over time for both college-educated and non-college-educated parents, the increase is much more substantial among college-educated parents than their non-college-educated counterparts, leading to divergence. In such societies, college education has increasingly differentiated population with respect to family behavior, which has important implications for inequality of children’s well-being. Of course, such diverging family behavior is not observed every society. In some countries, educational differentiation in family behavior is minimal. In this course, students first will be able to have a global perspective on education and family behavior by reviewing empirical evidence of the relationship between education and various kinds of family behavior across a variety of countries. After learning how different measurements and methods are used to identify the relationship between education and family behavior, Students will be able to evaluate how empirical evidence is robust. Second, students will learn about different theories that explain why education has specific relationships with family behavior. Finally, students will have an opportunity to conduct their own research (in the format of either an empirical or a review paper) by choosing a specific context where they will first document the relationship between education and family behavior and apply theories to explain the relationship with explicit consideration of specific contextual factors. The proposed course will be open to undergraduate and graduate students with different assignments to each of undergraduate and graduate students.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: DEMG 5970
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 2281
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6002 Criminal Justice Data Analytics
This course covers the tools and techniques to acquire, organize, link and visualize complex data in order to answer questions about crime and the criminal justice system. The course is organized around key questions about police shootings, victimization rates, identifying crime hotspots, calculating the cost of crime, and finding out what happens to crime when it rains. On the way to answer these questions, the course will cover topics including data sources, basic programming techniques, SQL, regular expressions, webscraping, and working with geographic data. The course will use R, an open-source, object oriented scripting language with a large set of available add-on packages.
Fall
Also Offered As: CRIM 6002
Mutually Exclusive: CRIM 4002
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6010 Contemporary Sociological Theory
This is a graduate-level course that will explore contemporary social theory with an emphasis on theories and theoretical orientations related to social interaction, identity, culture, and inequality. For example, we will discuss sociological theories from the last half century about race and racism, gender, social class, education, emotion, and violence. Importantly, we will consider theory in the context of its application to empirical social science research and real world concerns.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: COMM 6010
Mutually Exclusive: SOCI 3010
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6020 Proseminar in Classical Sociology
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the classical foundations of sociology by drawing on canonical readings by Marx, Engels, Durkheim, Weber, Du Bois, Addams, Simmel, Park, and Goffman, among others. We will read these texts in the context of three major sociological themes: work and social inequality, culture and social structure, and urban interaction and culture in the city. Final papers will require students to draw on classical sociological works in their analyses of contemporary empirical research in sociology.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6030 Master's Research in Sociology
This graduate course is intended to be helpful to students as they produce an MA thesis. The course is structured to provide social support and feedback as students move through the stages in the development of a project (i.e. data analysis, review of the literature, development of a thesis, and revision). Students should begin the semester with a data set in hand; additional data analysis will occur during the term. (In some cases, students may be finishing their data collection.) In addition, the course is intended to provided professional development opportunities for students by providing "insider" information about the publication process. Students will be given examples of journal review (including reviews that reject a paper), copies of papers as they move through the revision process, and guidelines for producing a publishable piece of work The goal is for students to produce a manuscript that can be submitted for publication in the near future. This is a required course for second year gradate students in Sociology.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6040 Methodology of Social Research
This course will give students familiarity with the common research methods social scientists use to conduct research. Ethnographic, interview, survey, experimental and historical/comparative research methods will be covered. Four themes will be explored: 1) the basics of solid research design, 2) the various advantages and disadvantages of each method, 3) when the use of a method is appropriate or inappropriate for the research question, and 4) how to evaluate researchers' claims on the basis of the evidence they present. These themes will be explored by reading examples of and conducting exercises designed to give students hands-on experience in each of the methods. Students will conduct the exercises on a topic of their choice, which together will culminate in their final paper.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: DEMG 6040
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6050 Public-Use Data for Social Science Research
Public-use data are quantitative information obtained from surveys and other databases that are available for anyone to use at no cost. This course prepares students to work with public-use data to address social science research questions. Participants will become familiar with the origins, purpose, design, structure, and limitations of US and international public-use data to study individuals, families, neighborhoods, and institutions such as schools and state and national governments; acquire skills to design analytic samples and manage data for reproducibility and replicability; and apply a variety of quantitative methods to public-use data to answer illustrative research questions.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6070 Introduction to Demography
A nontechnical introduction to fertility, mortality and migration and the interrelations of population with other social and economic factors.
Fall
Also Offered As: DEMG 6070
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6090 Basic Demographic Methods
The course is designed to introduce students to basic concepts of demographic measurement and modeling used to study changes in population size and composition. The course covers basic measures of mortality, fertility and migration; life table construction; multiple decrement life tables; stable populations; population projections; and age patterns of vital events. Students will learn to apply demographic methods through a series of weekly problem sets.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: DEMG 6090
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6110 Structural Equation Models
Statistical modeling with multiple equations and latent variables. The first part of the course will focus on linear models that could be estimated with any of the well-known SEM programs (e.g., LISREL, EQS, or Amos). Both Mplus and SAS will be used exclusively in this part of the course. The second part will focus on Mplus models for variables that are categorical, count, or censored. Maximum likelihood methods for missing data will also be covered.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6120 Categorical Data Analysis
This course deals with techniques for analyzing multivariate data which the dependent variable is a set of categories (a dichotomy or polytomy). Topics will include linear probability models, logit (logistic) regression models, probit models, logit analysis of contingency tables, cumulative logit and probit (for ordinal data), multinomial logit, conditional logit (discrete choice), unobserved heterogeneity, log-linear models, square tables, response-based sampling, and repeated measures. Methods will be illustrated using the Stata System. There will be several assignments using Stata to analyze data provided by the instructor.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: DEMG 6120
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6130 Event History
An applications-oriented course on statistical methods for the analysis of longitudinal data on the occurrence of events, also known as survival analysis, failure-time analysis, hazard analysis or duration analysis. Emphasis on regression-like models in which the risk of event occurrence is a function of a set of explanatory variables. Topics include accelerated failure-time models, hazard models, censoring, Cox regression models, time-dependent covariates, completing risks, repeated events, unobserved heterogeneity, discrete-time methods.
Not Offered Every Year
Prerequisite: SOCI 5351
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6200 Sociological Research II
This course is intended to aid in the selection, framing, writing and revising of sociological dissertation proposals. It is also intended to provide a forum for the presentation of dissertation research in progress. The goal is to provide a forum for the acquisition of professional socialization in sociology. We will discuss the framing of research questions, the design of research strategies, and the writing of dissertation proposals. We will discuss the process of submitting manuscripts for conferences and journals, preparing a curriculum vitae, job search strategies, and preparing for effective colloquium presentations. We will also review articles currently under review at the American Sociological Review. It is expected that third year graduate students in Sociology will enroll in this class.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6210 Health, Mortality and Aging
The course focuses on the description and explanation of health and mortality in human populations and their variability across several dimensions such as age, time, place, social class, race, etc. The course includes general theories of health, mortality and morbidity, investigations of mortality and related processes in developing and developed countries, and discussions of future mortality trends and their implications for individual lives and the society at large.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: DEMG 6210
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6220 Fertility
The biological, social and demographic factors explaining the levels, trends and differentials in human fertility. Data, measures, and methods used in the context of the more and the less developed countries, with an emphasis on the historical and current course of the fertility transition.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: DEMG 6220
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6280 Migration and Development
International migration is one of the most important phenomena driving urban, community, economic, and human development. This course focuses on the ways that migrants and community, government, and private institutions work to influence development around the world. We explore a range of large- and small-scale economic development, human and community development. After a brief introduction to histories and theories of migration and development, our major themes include: 1) the work of institutions, governments, and private sector firms in sending and receiving nations that influence migration and development; 2) diaspora-led transnational development, including remittances, hometown and country associations, and transnational advocacy and community organizing; and 3) local revitalization, labor and housing markets, workforce and enterprise development in migrant-receiving settings. Readings are drawn from a variety of social sciences, planning and development studies, including from academia and practice. Guests from local and transnational development organizations will visit the class. Assignments include short papers on the readings and a research paper or project designed by each student in consultation with the instructor. Ultimately, the course aims to help students develop: 1) a broad knowledge of migration and development in geographic and institutional settings around the world; 2) an in-depth understanding of community and economic development practices in migrant sending and receiving communities; and 3) familiarity with social science approaches to evaluating the dynamics and impacts of migration and development.
Spring, even numbered years only
Also Offered As: CPLN 6280
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6320 Demography of Race
This course will examine demographic and statistical methods used to capture the impact of racial stratification in society. This course covers the skills and insights used by demographers and social statisticians in the study of racial data. A key challenge facing researchers is the interpretation of the vast amount of racial data generated by society. As these data do not directly answer important social questions, data analysis and statistics must be used to interpret them. The course will examine the logic used to communicate statistical results from racial data in various societies. We will question the scientific claims of social science methodology by extending the critical perspective to biases that may underlie research methods. We will discuss good and bad practices within the context of the historical developments of the methods.
Also Offered As: DEMG 6320
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6331 Population Processes II
Population Processes II is part of a two-course sequence designed to introduce students to the core areas of demography (fertility, mortality, and migration) and recent developments in the field. PP II is divided into two parts. The first focuses on family demography and the biological, social and demographic factors explaining levels, trends, and differentials in human fertility transition with an emphasis on the historical and current course of fertility transition in developed and developing countries. The second part of the course provides a comprehensive review of theories and research on international migration. Readings examine patterns and processes of global migration during the classic age from 1800-1914 as well as during the postwar period from 1945 to the present. The course also covers a history and evaluation of immigration policies around the world, and devotes significant attention to theoretical and empirical perspectives on immigrant adaptation, including the relationship between gender and migration.
Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6430 Social Stratification
This is an advanced level graduate seminar where we will review contemporary research on social stratification and mobility. We will examine empirical and theoretical studies not only in the US but also in other countries to address how the pattern of social stratification varies across societies and over time. The main topics to be discussed are social mobility, occupational attainment, educational inequality, gender and race, and family processes and stratification. We will also examine studies that address how national contexts mediate social stratification. Advanced undergraduate students will be admitted with permission.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: DEMG 6430
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6490 A Course on Elites
Most of the studies of inequality look at poverty and the impact of poverty. This course will be a study of those at the top of the social stratification system. We will take a broad vision of elites of to include the upper-middle-class as well as those in the top 1%. The course will examine the concentration of wealth in American society. It will examine elite families. It will also look at elite education. There will be a unit on the financial industry, the 2008 debacle, and the failure of the government to regulate this important industry. We will also study the influence of race by comparing the black upper-middle-class with white upper-middle-class families. Thus, we will also look at the power of elites in a number of spheres. Finally, we will also read theoretical perspectives including the work of C. Wright Mills, Marx, and Bourdieu. Thus, in addition to the focus on social stratification, this course cuts across sociology of the family, economic sociology, cultural sociology, and race and ethnic relations.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6600 Exhibiting Black Bodies
This course concerns the exhbiting of Black Bodies in Museums and gallery spaces. We will trace the evolution of public history from the "Cabinets of Curiosity" in 18th and 19th Century Europe, through to the current institutional confirmation of the vindications traditions represented by Museu Afro Brasil (Sao Paulo, Brazil), National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington,D.C.), and the Museum of Black Civilization (Dakar, Senegal). We will give particular attention to "why these representations at these times in these places?." In the process of addressing these questions we will give voice to the figures who conceived the curatorial content from those with the colonial mentality, to those with the abolitiionist and nationalist and Pan-African visions.
Fall or Spring
Also Offered As: AFRC 6200
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6620 Panel Data Analysis
This course focuses on the ability to use, analyze, and understand panel data. Panel data contain repeated measurements of the dependent variable for the same individuals, and possibly repeated measurements of the predictor variables as well. Panel data offer important opportunities for controlling unobserved variables and for answering questions about causal ordering.
Also Offered As: DEMG 6620
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6670 Social Interaction
The dynamics of interpersonal interaction, especially in face-to-face encounters during limited short periods of time. Topics include: the theory of interaction rituals deriving from Durkheim, Goffman and their contemporary followers; conversation analysis; micro-ethnographic studies of non-verbal behavior and embodied interaction; sociology of emotions; symbolic interactionist theory and the social nature of mind, self, and inner dialogue; electronically mediated interaction and its effects on social ties; and the relationship between micro and macro sociology.
Not Offered Every Year
1 Course Unit
SOCI 6770 International Migration
A comprehensive review of theories and research on international migration. The course introduces the basic precepts of neoclassical economics, the new economics of labor migration, segmented labor market theory, world systems theory, social capital theory and the theory of cumulative causation. Readings examine patterns and processes of global migration during the classic age from 1800ï¿?1914 as well as during the postwar period from 1945 to the present. The course also covers a history and evaluation of immigration policies around the world, and devotes signification attention to theoretical and empirical perspectives on immigrant adaptation. Within this larger topic, we will also discuss internal migration and urbanization; the relationship between gender and migration; the spatial distribution of immigrants within the United States, immigrant communities, and ethnic enclaves; and the undocumented population in the United States.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: LALS 6770
1 Course Unit
SOCI 7070 Second Year Research Seminar I
This course is intended to hone the skills and judgment in order to conduct independent research in sociology and demography. We will discuss the selection of intellectually strategic research questions and practical research designs. Students will get experience with proposal writing, the process of editing successive drafts of manuscripts, and the oral presentation of work in progress as well as finished research projects. The course is designed to be the context in which master's papers and second year research papers are written. This is a required course for second year graduate students in Demography. Others interested in enrolling in only one of the courses may do so with the permission of the Chair of the Graduate Group in Demography.
Fall
Also Offered As: DEMG 7070
1 Course Unit
SOCI 7071 Second Year Research Seminar II
This is the second part of a two-course sequence designed to introduce and familiarize second year students with current norms for academic research, presentation and publishing in the field of Demography. Students are expected to finalize the analyses and to complete their second year research paper. This is a required course for second year demography students. Others interested in enrolling in the course may do so with the permission of the Chair of the Graduate Group in Demography.
Spring
Also Offered As: DEMG 7071
1 Course Unit
SOCI 7310 Advanced Demographic Methods
This course considers a variety of procedures for measuring and modeling demographic processes. We will consider both deterministic (drawn from classic demographic methods, stable population theory, and the like) and stochastic (drawn from statistics) perspectives and methods, including their integration. Pre-requisites: DEMG 609 and SOCI 536 (or its equivalent).
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: DEMG 7310
Prerequisite: SOCI 6090 AND SOCI 5351
1 Course Unit
SOCI 7468 Ethnographic Research Methods
A course in ethnographic participant observational research; its substantive orientation, literature, and methods. Emphasis is on the interpretive study of social organization and culture in educational settings, formal and informal. Methods of data collection and analysis, critical review of examples of ethnographic research reports, and research design and proposal preparation are among the topics and activities included in this course. Prerequisite: This course is designed to follow after Qualitative Modes of Inquiry (EDUC 682) and as such it is suggested that students have some background in qualitative methods before enrolling.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: EDUC 7468
1 Course Unit
SOCI 7960 Demographic, Economic, and Social Interrelations
The course investigates economic and social determinants of fertility, mortality, and migration, and it discusses the effects of population variables on economic and social conditions, including economic and social development. Topics discussed in the course include: How do economic changes affect marriage, divorce, and child bearing decisions? How do households make decisions about transfers and requests? How can economic and sociological approaches be combined in explanatory models of demography change? How does immigration to the US affect the ethnic composition of the population, the earnings of native workers, taxes on natives, and the macro-economy? What causes the aging of populations, and how will population aging affect the economies of industrial nations, and in particular, pension programs like Social Security? What accounts for the rise in women's participation in the wage labor force over the past century? How are family composition and poverty interrelated? Does rapid population growth slow economic development with low income countries? In addition to these topics, the course also covers selected methods not included in DEMG/SOCI 5350/5360 and 6090.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: DEMG 7960
1 Course Unit
SOCI 8810 The Performance Society: Readings in Social and Media Theories
Social action has a performative character - people act as if on a stage in response to audience expectations, whether offline or online. This seminar traces the history of this line of critical thought from Weber and Bakhtin through Goffman and Victor Turner to contemporary authors such as Judith Butler, Byung-Chul Han, Jon McKenzie, and Charles Tilly. Special attention will be devoted to the relationship between media and performance, examined through recent work by media scholars and sociologists such as Ben Agger, Jeffrey Alexander, Jeffrey Berry, Danah Boyd, Alice Marwick, and Sarah Sobieraj. A central issue concerns the will to perform. Why are individuals in modern society compelled to perform? What are the manifestations and forms of performance in institutional and non-institutional politics (such as revolutions and social movements)? How are performances related to emotion? How do the internet and digital media shape the forms and meanings of performance? What are the consequences of the performance imperative? A term paper is required.
Not Offered Every Year
Also Offered As: COMM 8810
1 Course Unit
SOCI 9320 Proseminar in Management in Qualitative Methods
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the methodological approaches we commonly think of as qualitative, with special emphasis on ethnography, semi- structured interviews, case studies, content analysis, and mixed-methods research. The course will cover the basic techniques for collecting, interpreting, and analyzing qualitative (i.e. non-numerical) data. In the spring quarter, the course will operate on two interrelated dimensions, one focused on the theoretical approaches to various types of qualitative research, the other focused on the practical techniques of data collection, such as identifying key informants, selecting respondents, collecting field notes and conducting interviews. In the fall semester, the course will operate on two interrelated dimensions, one focused on the theoretical approaches on building arguments and theory from qualitative data, the other focused on the practical techniques of data collection, such as analyzing data, writing, and presenting findings. Note: This class is part of a two-part sequence which focuses on qualitative data collection and analysis. The first of this course, offered in the Spring, focuses on data collection and the second half of the course, offered the following Fall, will focus on qualitative data analysis. Each course is seven weeks long. Students may take either class independently or consecutively.
Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given for either
Also Offered As: MGMT 9320
0.5 Course Units
SOCI 9970 Independent Readings and Research
For advanced students who work with individual instructors upon permission. Intended to go beyond existing graduate courses in the study of specific problems or theories or to provide work opportunities in areas not covered by existing courses. One-term course offered either term.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 9980 Independent Readings and Research
For advanced students who work with individual instructors upon permission. Intended to go beyond existing graduate courses in the study of specific problems or theories or to provide work opportunities in areas not covered by existing courses. One-term course offered either term.
1 Course Unit
SOCI 9990 Directed Readings and Research
Primarily for advanced students who work with individual instructors upon permission. Intended to go beyond existing graduate courses in the study of specific problems or theories or to provide work opportunities in areas not covered by existing courses.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit
SOCI 9999 Independent readings and research
For advanced students who work with individual instructors upon permission. Intended to go beyond existing graduate courses in the study of specific problems or theories or to provide work opportunities in areas not covered by existing courses.
Fall or Spring
1 Course Unit