Course Descriptions 2024-2025
Courses primarily for:
Courses Primarily for Undergraduate Students
SOCIOL 101-7 – The Past & Future of the Future: How We Think About Individual and Collective Futures
| Individually and collectively, we think about what might happen. We consider the future over a range of time-horizons, from the immediate (what will happen in the next hour) to the distant (how will things look in a century). We worry about our own individual futures (will I have a job when I graduate from Northwestern?), we worry about other peoples’ futures (will my child get a job after they graduate from college?), and we worry about our collective futures (what will climate change do to our society over the next 50 years?). Frequently, we make plans for the future, either to create a future that we seek, or to avoid a future that is problematic. Public policy is often concerned with how to create better collective futures, and the tricky part is figuring out which alternatives are better than others, and for whom. Sometimes people make contingency plans, deciding what to do if something happens (for example, disaster planning). Such activity generally involves making two types of guesses: what will or could happen in the future, and what will our future preferences be about those various possibilities. In certain cases, the predictions we make are “self-fulfilling” in that the prediction helps to make itself come true (bank runs are a classic example). In this course, we will work through a series of examples where people have thought about the future, sometimes focused on its very specific features. Prompted by weekly required readings, we will discuss these examples seminar-style in order to hone our own thinking about the future. |
SOCIOL 101-7 – That Seventies Show: Politics and Society in the "Long 1970s" and the Origins of Our Time
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This course explores the idea that the extreme level of political polarization and economic inequality that prevails in our own time can be traced to the conflicts and dilemmas of the "long 1970s." This fall, special attention will be devoted to the role of campus protest. In addition to exploring primary sources from the period, students will read an interdisciplinary selection of monographs, book chapters, and journal articles. Grades will be based on class discussion as well as a combination of short and long writing assignments. |
SOCIOL 101-7 – Gender, Race, Class, and Reality Television
| How does The Bachelor shed light on modern courtship rituals, and what can Dance Moms teach us about the social functions of the family? What messages can we learn about the gendered and racialized social constructions of health and illness from The Biggest Loser? Reality television shows may seem like silly “guilty pleasures,” but they are also illuminating cultural artifacts that reflect contemporary American behaviors, norms, and tastes. In this course—by reading sociological literature, paired with episodes of reality shows—we will learn to analyze these forms of entertainment through a social scientific lens. We will consider the following questions: What messages about race, class and gender do these shows promote? What kinds of citizens are viewers encouraged to become through this genre? How are social differences represented within these programs? What impact do these shows have on our society, if any? |
SOCIOL 101-7 – Reality Bites: Politics, Culture, and Society in the Nineties
| Today, key aspects of American politics are characterized by the highest levels of polarization that have been witnessed for nearly a century. A similar statement can be made about the American economy. Income and wealth are more unequally distributed these days than they have been since the earliest decades of the twentieth century. We live in an age of extremes. What happened? How and why did we get here? This course draws on a selection of academic and popular readings as well as music, film, and television to explore idea that key dimensions of our unequal and polarized times can be traced to the social struggles, political conflicts, and economic dilemmas that played out during the period of time that goes under the aegis of "The Nineties." |
SOCIOL 101-8 – Why Are Some Countries Richer than Others?
| Why have some countries witnessed repeated industrial transformations, whereas others have economies that remain significantly non-industrial and agricultural? When and how did certain countries “get ahead” of others in the global economy? To what extent can less-developed countries “catch up” with more developed ones? How does “globalization” affect these chances? These are some of the questions that we will explore in this class. The goal of the seminar is to enhance our understanding of differences in levels of development among countries of the world, and to explore competing hypotheses designed to explain those differences. We will examine both the contemporary global economy and the historical processes that brought the current situation into being. |
SOCIOL 101-8 – Latinx Futurism
| What is Latinx futurism? Most of the imagined futures we are exposed to in the United States have been crafted by white authors. From Isaac Asimov’s science fiction novels about robots to high-production value blockbusters. An alternative cannon, Afrofuturism, has begun to blaze a path for understanding why the political, racial, and cultural position of those doing the imagining matters. In do so, Afrofuturism aims to inspire us to think carefully about how we deal with the pressing social issues of our time and have offered a new lens for thinking about the future. This discussion-based seminar takes this as a departure point and works towards including Latinx futurism in this frame. This seminar is an introduction to a way of thinking sociologically about technology, science, and society from the perspective of Latinx and Latin American communities. In their reading and writing assignments students will explore a broad array of topics, from the origins of postcolonial states, Zapotec science, and borderlands epistemology. |
SOCIOL 101-8 – Gender, Society and Politics
| This class will investigate how gendered social relations shape politics and policy, and how these in turn shape gender, with a focus on the United States, in comparative and global context. Gender is conceptualized as a set of relations, identifications and cultural schema, complexly interacting with biology and always constituted with other dimensions of power, difference and inequality (e.g., race, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status). We will analyze the gendered character of citizenship, political participation and representation, social rights and economic rights. We aim to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives. What do states do, via institutions of political participation and representation, citizenship rights and policies, to shape gender relations? How do gender relations influence the nature of policy and citizenship? How has feminism emerged as a radical challenge to the androcentrism and restricted character of the democratic public sphere? And how have anti-feminism and "anti-gender theory" come to be significant dimensions of politics? We expand on conventional conceptions of political participation and citizenship rights to include the grassroots democratic activism that gave birth to modern women's movements. We explore how women's political efforts -- across different political affiliations -- have given rise to the creation of alternative visions of democracy, social provision and economic participation, as well as reshaping formal politics and policies. Finally, we'll take advantage of the fact that we are in the run up to a midterm congressional election to examine the gendered aspects of the political landscape in the contemporary United States. Students will work with peers in small groups to examine how different candidates, from a range of different political positions, engage with gender issues. |
SOCIOL 110-0 – Introduction to Sociology
| Sociology is a field of study that examines how people and groups interact, navigate, and make decisions within the structure and constraints of their social world. Often these social processes go unobserved or unacknowledged, and sociologists treat it as their job to shed analytical light on how people experience and participate in society. Through sociological analysis, we can answer questions like: How did Evanston become largely segregated by race? Why is it illegal for people to sell their kidneys? Is suicide contagious? Why would someone pay for Instagram followers? Sociology is a huge field of study, and includes and enormous variety of topics and methods. Each week, we will focus on a specific area of sociological study (Culture, Gender, Race, Family, Money, Deviance, etc.) with the goal of offering you a general overview of the types of questions sociologists ask and how they answer them. By the end of the quarter, you will be able to think sociologically about your own world, and hopefully develop a budding interest in one or more of the areas we discuss in class. |
SOCIOL 206-0 – Law and Society
| Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes. Law shapes our day-to-day lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, "law is too important to leave to lawyers." Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology, history, anthropology, political science, critical studies, and psychology) in order to explore the sociology of law and law's role primarily in the American context (but with some attention to international law and global human rights efforts). The thematic topics to be discussed include law and social control; law's role in social change; and law's capacity to reach into complex social relations and intervene in existing normative institutions and organizational structures. |
SOCIOL 208-0 – Race and Society
| This class will explore the nature of race in an effort to understand exactly what race is. It seeks to understand why race is such a potent force in American society. Close attention will be paid to the relationship between race, power, and social stratification. The course will examine the nature of racial conflict and major efforts to combat racial inequality. |
SOCIOL 212-0 – Environment and Society
| Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion around environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks. A primary, central focus of this sociology course is environmental inequality, and students engage with a wide range of theories to examine environmental issues of their own choosing. This is not a public policy course. |
SOCIOL 216-0 – Gender and Society
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Gender structures our daily lives in fundamental ways, yet we are often unaware of its effects. For example, why do we associate blue with boys and pink with girls? Why do most administrative forms only have two categories (i.e. Male and Female)? Why do male doctors, on average, have higher incomes than female doctors? The course introduces students to the sociological analysis of gender as a central component of social organization and social inequality in the US context. We start by reviewing key sociological concepts that are important to the study of gender. Next, we explore the causes and consequences of gender inequalities in important social institutions such as the family, the education system, and the labor market. We conclude by considering gender inequality in an international comparative context to understand crosscutting similarities and differences between the US and both high- and low-income contexts. This allows us to explore the role social norms and policies play in perpetuating and/or mitigating gender inequalities. |
SOCIOL 223-0 – Masculinities
| Gender studies have traditionally focused on women. Yet critical work on men and masculinities show us how people of all genders are impacted by gender expectations and assumptions. Furthermore, studies of masculinities shed light on practical questions like, why do men die earlier than women? And, why are men more likely to commit mass shootings? In recent years, the public spotlight has cast light on savory and unsavory aspects of masculinity; think about the rise of the term “toxic masculinity,” the #MeToo movement, advertisements aimed at men, and blogs commenting on the behavior of men on the reality show The Bachelorette. In this course, we will go beyond banal statements like “men are trash” to critically ask, What role does masculinity play in social life? How is masculinity produced, and are there different ways to be masculine? This course provides students with an intensive introduction to the foundational theory and research in the field of masculinities studies. We will use an intersectional lens to study the ways in which the concept and lived experience of masculinity are shaped by economic, social, cultural, and political forces. As we study the institutions that socialize people into gender, we will examine how the gendered social order influences the way people of all genders perform masculinity as well as the ways men perceive themselves, people of other genders, and social situations. Verbally and in writing, students will develop an argument about the way contemporary masculinity is constructed and performed. |
SOCIOL 226-0 – Sociological Analysis
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How do sociologists do their work? How do they make discoveries and draw conclusions about the social world around us? This course is an introduction to sociological research methods. We will learn how to design a research study - everything from choosing a topic and formulating a research question to developing a research plan. We will explore a range of research methods from surveys, interviewing, observational methods and content analysis to "big" data approaches. We will also think about the strengths and weaknesses of various sociological methods and what these methods can contribute to our understanding of the social world. We will also debate and discuss the role of the researcher in the research process along with thinking about ethical concerns and IRB protections for research subjects. We will also critically examine how social science research is presented to us in our everyday lives (including news reporting, political polls and social media postings). The goal of this course is for students to be able to design an appropriate methods plan to investigate a sociological research question they are interested in, but also to become more critical when learning about the latest social science study from media and social media outlets.
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SOCIOL 235-0 – Critical Though on Race & Ethnicity
| In 2006, Henry Louis Gates popularized the practice of DNA ancestry testing through his PBS series “African American Lives”. In it, he uses DNA testing to uncover ancestral connections to ethnic groups in Africa, as well as Europe and elsewhere. Since then, interest in DNA ancestry testing has exploded. Despite the various controversies surrounding the reliability of industry practices, as well as the limitations of applying statistical analysis to DNA results, as of 2020, over 30 million people had taken such tests. And yet, scholarly consensus is that race and ethnicity are socially constructed concepts that have real consequences but are not biological in nature. Moreover, we see the consequences of this classification all around us—race shapes our communities, our families, and our daily lives. What is it about race that makes us believe it is constitutive of some essential, biological self, and yet racial categories and meanings are constantly in flux? How should we understand race as a concept when racial meanings, practices, and identities are both deeply embedded in our governments and institutions, and yet also specific to place and space? In this course, we will pay close attention to the classification of groups and the naturalization of racial categories. Throughout the course, we will examine the invention, production, and reproduction of race from a social constructionist perspective, focusing on the work that race does, as well as how it is constantly being remade. We will consider various theoretical perspectives on race and race-making, both in the U.S. and globally. We will also consider the construction of race in relation to historical processes like colonialism and slavery, and how race structures inequality in everyday life. |
SOCIOL 276-0 – Sociology of Disaster
| Disasters are catastrophic events with human and natural causes and may be gradual or sudden and unexpected. What these events share is their potential to disrupt communities, displace residents, and cause economic, emotional, and social suffering. We know that disasters are on the rise globally and in the US, incurring significant economic and social consequences. The aim of this course is to understand how disasters like pandemics, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, plane crashes, oil spills, and terrorism provide a “strategic research site” where we can examine social life and inequality. In this course, students will be introduced to the idea that disasters are fundamentally social events. We will focus on the social, political, and economic conditions that influence disaster experience and recovery, paying special attention to the ways that social characteristics like race, class, gender, and age structure social vulnerability to risk before, during, and after disasters. In learning to think critically about prevailing media representations of disasters, students will master content analysis methodology by engaging in a term-long research project in which they study one recent disaster event and the associated media coverage. This is an introductory level course without any prerequisites. |
SOCIOL 276-0 – Introduction to Science and Technology Studies (STS)
| Science and technology are implicated in some of the most pressing issues that face the contemporary world. What is the proper role of scientific experts in democratic policy-making? In what ways are climate change initiatives entangled with questions about distributive justice? If numbers are objective, why do public statistics seem to provoke more debates than they settle? In what sense is artificial intelligence a creature of modern capitalism? What kind of connection might there be between surveillance technologies and the history of colonialism? This course will introduce students to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) by way of exploring these questions. We will tackle a diverse set of readings in STS, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and law, and our geographical focus will range across the Global North and the Global South. All students who are interested in thinking outside of conventional disciplinary boundaries are welcome to enroll. Students who complete the course will be exposed to new perspectives on widely accepted ideas like scientific objectivity, technological progress and expertise. Together we will explore how we can make science and technology work for society's needs, rather than society working towards scientific and technological progress. |
SOCIOL 276-0 – Sociology of Reputation
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A reputation is not something that happens, but is something that is made. This course is about how reputations get made and where our beliefs about others come from.
Throughout the quarter, we will ask questions like:
How do we change our behavior when perceived by others? How do others frame our behaviors for their own purposes. What kind of work do people put into constructing the memories of themselves and others? Are memories political? Where do heroes come from? How about villains?
Fortunately for us, a number of cultural sociologists and social psychologists have spent their careers writing about these topics. We will spend the quarter engaging with these scholars and their texts, while bringing in current and historical examples of reputation management. Throughout the quarter, we will think through sociological concepts like trust, style, drama, jokes, character, coolness, gossip, and fame.
By then end of this course, we will know to think carefully and analytically about how reputations emerge, how they persist, and how they change. In doing so, we will see that our perceptions of others come from somewhere, and it is worthwhile to take a step back and understand where our perception’s of others come from.
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SOCIOL 277-0 – Native Society Past and Present
| Description coming soon. |
SOCIOL 302-0 – Sociology of Organizations
| We all interact with organizations. You are interacting with an organization right now. Much of everyday life, whether it is school, work, shopping, or eating occurs within the context of organizations. The goal of this course is to teach you to think analytically about the organizations you interact with. We will examine why organizations are the way they are, how scholar's understandings of organizations have changed over time, and how scholars today think about organizations. |
SOCIOL 303-0 – Analysis and Interpretation of Social Data
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This course introduces statistics and data analysis for the social sciences, focusing on understanding, interpreting, and deploying data and statistical analysis to understand the social world. The course begins without numbers, encouraging students to be critical and analytical of the data they encounter every day. Using examples from policy, journalism, and the election, students will practice reading, interpreting, and critiquing empirical analyses. After gaining familiarity with the reasoning underlying data analysis, the second part of the course will introduce basic statistical analysis. Students will collect, analyze, and interpret data in an area of their interest. The goal is for students to critically engage with statistical topics – to understand the strengths, weaknesses, assumptions, and contributions of statistics to scientific understanding and exploration. Finally, the course will explore how computation is remaking modern social understanding. Though a focus on machine learning and neural networks, students will explore the contribution of data to human knowledge, while also gaining insight on why such methods pose serious challenges to human well-being. While not a programming course, students will do exercises and homework using free tools, such as google sheets and the statistical software “R”. Labs will be focused on gaining proficiency with these tools. |
SOCIOL 304-0 – Politics of Racial Knowledge
| On a daily basis we consume—often without notice or concern—a substantial amount of racial knowledge. We routinely ingest, for example, infographics about demographic trends, media coverage on crime and undocumented immigration, and advertisements for ancestry tests. In complex and contextually specific ways, this diet shapes our personal and collective identities, social interactions and relationships, and political aspirations and anxieties. In this course, we endeavor to study the politics of racial knowledge—the ways in which categories, measurements, and other techniques of knowledge production have helped to constitute “race” as a seemingly objective, natural demarcation among human populations and institute forms of racial domination and inequality. Historically, racial knowledge has stipulated and legitimated what we might describe as a kind of racial ontology, a set of assumptions, claims, and prescriptions about race and racial superiority/inferiority—e.g. the notion that “whites” or “the West” represent the apex of human civilization. Drawing on diverse texts, this course explores of the emergence, evolution, and effects of racial knowledge. This exploration will begin by discussing the historical relationship between the modern concept of race and European colonialism and slavery. Subsequently, we will track several major developments in the history of racial knowledge, from Enlightenment naturalists to censuses to contemporary genomics research. |
SOCIOL 306-0 – Sociological Theory
| The main emphasis in this course is on how sociological theory informs social research. We will read selections of classical social theory and then look at how various scholars have used that theory to help them analyze some aspect of society. We will keep moving between theoretical statements and applications or refinements of that theory. The course will be a mix of lectures and discussion. |
SOCIOL 307-0 – School and Society
| This course is a critical sociological look at education in the United States with a focus on contemporary debates and issues. The course will cover how sociologists have both theoretically and empirically looked at schooling practices, what students learn, and how schools fit into the larger society including how the educational system in the U.S. interacts with political, economic, familial, and cultural institutions. We will also spend much time examining how educational experiences and opportunities are shaped by multiple social statuses including gender, socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity. We will focus on K-12 and higher education including the transition to higher education. Throughout all of these issues and topics, we will consider how schools both challenge and support existing systems of inequality. |
SOCIOL 309-0 – Political Sociology
| This class will investigate how gender shapes politics and policy, and how these in turn shape gender, in the United States and other countries, situated in global context. Gender is conceptualized as a set of relations, identities and cultural schema, always constituted with other dimensions of power, difference and inequality (e.g., race, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status). We will analyze the gendered character of citizenship, political participation and representation, social rights and economic rights. We aim to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives. What do states do, via institutions of political participation and representation, citizenship rights and policies, to shape gender relations? How do gender relations influence the nature of policy and citizenship? How has feminism emerged as a radical challenge to the androcentrism and restricted character of the democratic public sphere? And how has anti-feminism come to be a significant dimension of politics? We expand on conventional conceptions of political participation and citizenship rights to include the grassroots democratic activism that gave birth to modern women's movements. We explore how women's political efforts have given rise to the creation of alternative visions of democracy, social provision and economic participation, as well as reshaping formal politics and policies. And, finally, we will take advantage of the fact that we are in the middle of an election to examine some of the gendered aspects of the political landscape in the contemporary United States. The course readings feature different types of materials – original documents, scholarly books and articles, a textbook, policy reports, popular non-fiction work on aspects of gender, policy, politics and society. These are supplemented by films and online resources. |
SOCIOL 310-0 – Sociology of Family
| This course is an overview of the sociology of the family focusing on contemporary issues in the U.S. We will begin the course, however, by looking at the history of the family and how its form and roles within have changed historically. The course will pay particular attention to diversity in family experiences by social status including generation, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and gender. We will also think about how the intersection of work and family lives differ greatly across demographic groups as well as addressing popular misconceptions regarding the integration of occupational and family lives. The aim of this course is for students to learn how sociologists have studied families in the U.S., understand general trends in how contemporary U.S. families live, explore issues of diversity among family experiences and structures, and contemplate how “the family” fits in with other social institutions, including the economy. Overall, the goal of the course is for students to become more engaged and critical of issues related to family life that are presented to us in our daily lives through the media, from politicians and family advocates, and in our interpersonal exchanges. |
SOCIOL 313-0 – Technology and Society
| Technology is ubiquitous. This course covers central tenets in the sociology of technology by pairing an empirical focus on a different technology each week with a theoretical paradigm. A total of eight technologies will serve as the exemplars through which the question(s) concerning technology will be explored: bicycles, cars, computers, facial recognition, genetic sequencing, soap, shipping containers and virtual reality. Each of these technologies is approached as a window into the social, political, racial, and economic determinants of technological innovation. The central goal of the course is to equip students with the tools for unpacking the technologies societies take for granted and critically engaging with new technologies that may reproduce social inequities. While much of the scholarship we will consider is broadly sociological, some of it is drawn from other fields, and part of the goal of the course is to show what is gained when we think about technology from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students from other disciplines are welcome. |
SOCIOL 316-0 – Economic Sociology
| "Money & Social Relations" Discussions of "the economy" often seem distant and technical. But economic activity can also be viewed like any other social activity: behavior that is structured by norms, institutions, and relationships. Economic Sociology presents this perspective. The course discusses sociology's main insights about the economy and how they contrast with perspectives from economics and psychology. Among other topics, we will discuss money's functions in intimate ties, changing norms around financial management, the relationship between money, gender, and race, and how this all relates to aggregate trends of inequality. |
SOCIOL 317-0 – Global Development
| This course explores the large-scale economic and social changes that have constituted “development,” and that have radically transformed human society. The course focuses on the historical experience of Europe and “the people without history” as well as the contemporary experience of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the historical discussion, we explore the evolution of human society from antiquity to the modern nation-state; the transition from agrarian to industrial economic systems; and the expansion of European colonialism across the globe. In our discussion of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we consider the legacies of colonialism for development; the ways in which countries have attempted to promote economic development and industrialization; and issues of inequality and human welfare in a globally connected world. |
SOCIOL 318-0 – Sociology of Law
| This course examines the relationship between law and the distribution of power in society, with a particular emphasis on law and social change in the United States. Readings will be drawn from the social sciences and history, as well as selected court cases that raise critical questions about the role of race, gender, and sexual orientation in American society. Among the material we will examine are the documents made public in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Students should be aware that some of this material is graphic and disturbing. |
SOCIOL 320-0 – Gender, Health, and Medicine
| In this course, we will examine how the Western medical system and accompanying health practices impact people of different genders, as well as how healthcare as an institution and practice produces gender categories. Using interdisciplinary research with a focus on sociological studies, we will interrogate the social, institutional, and biological links between gender and health. We will discuss health inequalities between women, men, and trans* people from different race, ethnic, and class backgrounds, using sociological research to understand why these inequalities and forms of difference emerge and are sustained. We will explore how modern Western medicine views male and female bodies and defines their health and illnesses accordingly. Students will complete two short research projects over the term in which they use different data sources (interviews and media content) to examine gendered perceptions of health, health behaviors, help-seeking behaviors, and experiences with medical institutions. |
SOCIOL 322-0 – Immigration and Society
| Description Coming Soon |
SOCIOL 328-0 – Inequality & American Society
| Social stratification explores how human society gets divided into haves and have-nots. It encompasses both the unequal distribution of scarce resources and the processes through which those resources are distributed unevenly to individuals according to a wide range of social characteristics. It also explores how individuals can change their social position over time (mobility) and examines how different dimensions of social status (such as race, class, and gender) can intersect, or sometimes diverge. This class will cover sociological explanations, theories, and research on key forms of inequality in the United States. Some of the main questions we will address include: What is social stratification and how is society “stratified”? What do the extremes of social inequality look like? How does one climb the ranks in society? What are the social institutions that contribute to, and sometimes attenuate, inequality? What role do race and gender play in stratifying society? What are the consequences of inequality in the United States for individuals? And where do we go from here? |
SOCIOL 329-0 – Field Research and Methods of Data Collection
| The goal of this course is to give students experience in qualitative research methodologies. Qualitative methods are a primary way that sociologists learn about the larger social world, develop theories, and make sense of complex situations and interactions. Qualitative methods allow sociologists to understand the world from the perspective of individuals and social groups and gain a better understanding of how the social world operates. |
SOCIOL 330-0 – Law, Markets, and Globalization
| This course examines law in the context of recent trends which have increasingly integrated the world’s social and economic systems, and which have produced a backlash. Globalization means greater interdependence and less national autonomy. It occurs as international flows of capital, goods, services, and people increase. Transactions, interactions and relationships that formerly occurred within national boundaries now occur across them. But transactions and relationships involving capital, goods, services and people are not self-sustaining. Rather, they are supported and regulated by an institutional foundation that typically centers on the legal system. As part of globalization, particular legal and institutional forms are also spreading throughout the world. Because the legal and institutional frameworks that support these transactions exist primarily at the level of the nation-state, a governance mismatch has emerged. Globalization means that more is going on between national jurisdictions than within them, and tensions arise between competing institutional models. Thus, globalization motivates both an extension of legal systems, and a confrontation between different legal systems that can be resolved conflictually or concordantly. Either outcome leads to institutional convergence. We consider a number of different kinds of law but focus especially on commercial law, quasi-legal trade agreements (e.g., WTO), and commercially-relevant quasi-legal institutions. We pay attention to legal developments in developing and transitional economies, and also consider how the international community deals with significant common problems like economic inequality and global climate change. |
SOCIOL 343-0 – Social Networks
| Social networks have a profound affect on what you feel, think, and do. Whether or not you get a job, who will date or marry, whether or not you’ll catch a contagious disease are all affected by the social networks in which you live. This class explores the ways our social networks shape society, and how society shapes our social networks. Social Network Analysis (SNA) refers to both a theoretical perspective and a set of methodological techniques. As a theoretical perspective, SNA stresses the interdependence among social actors. This approach views the social world as patterns or regularities in relationships among interacting units and focuses on how such patterns affect the behavior of network units or actors. A “structure” emerges as a persistent pattern of interaction that can influence a multitude of behaviors, such as getting a job, income attainment, political decision making, social revolutions, organizational merges, global finance and trade markets, delinquent youth behaviors, the spread of infectious diseases, and so on. As a methodological approach, SNA refers to a catalog of techniques steeped in mathematical graph theory and now extending to statistical simulation, and algebraic models. This course surveys the growing field of SNA, emphasizing the merger of theory and method. |
SOCIOL 356-0 – Sociology of Gender
| This course is an opportunity for students to critically examine what is often a taken-for-granted aspect of social life: gender. This course will involve learning about gender as well as applying gender theory. We will study a variety of theoretical approaches to the study of gender, with particular focus on how problems are identified and theories are developed. We will examine emergent cases of gender theorization – childhood gender and sexuality panics, bathroom surveillance, and the intersex experience, among others. By the end of the term, students will be able to 1) describe and compare theoretical anchors for the sociological study of gender and 2) in writing, apply gender theory to original ethnographic data. This is a reading-heavy upper division course and prior course experience in gender/sexuality studies (by way of taking Gender & Society or other course work) is strongly advised. |
SOCIOL 376-0 – Sociology of the Future
| Individually and collectively, we think about what might happen in the time to come. We consider the future over a range of time-horizons, from the immediate (what will happen in the next hour) to the distant (how will things look in a century). We worry about our own individual futures (will I have a job when I graduate from Northwestern?), we worry about other peoples’ futures (will my child get a job after they graduate from college?), and we worry about our collective futures (what will climate change do to our society over the next 50 years?). Frequently, we make plans for the future, either to create a future that we seek, or to avoid a future that is problematic. Public policy is often concerned with how to create better collective futures, and the tricky part is figuring out which alternatives are better than others, and for whom. Sometimes people make contingency plans, deciding what to do if something happens (for example, disaster planning). Such activity generally involves making two types of guesses: what will or could happen in the future, and what will our future preferences be about those various possibilities. In certain cases, the predictions we make are “self-fulfilling” in that the prediction helps to make itself come true (bank runs are a classic example). In this course, we will work through a series of examples where people have thought about the future, sometimes focused on very specific features. Students are expected to participate in class discussions in addition to completing a series of short take-home writing assignments. Readings are a mixture of social science articles (non-fiction) and two novels (fiction) offering visions of the future. |
SOCIOL 376-0 – American Politics and Policy from the New Deal
| This course traces the social and political development of public policy in the United States from the New Deal to the present day. Among other topics, it is concerned with industrial relations, social policy, fiscal policy, immigration policy, banking and securities regulation, civil rights, and health care. Why has public policy in these areas developed in the myriad ways that they have—and not in other ways that they might have plausibly developed? By the end of the quarter, students should understand the basic structure and content of public policy in each of these different areas, and they should be able to formulate and defend their own views on the origins, development, and future prospects of these policies.. |
SOCIOL 376-0 – Race/Gender/Sex & Science: Identities & Difference
| How do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural meanings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. By studying a range of cases, we will explore the dynamic interplay among expert findings, social identities, and political arguments. |
SOCIOL-376-0 – Stigmatized Sexualities
| From abstinence-only sex education programs to the public response to songs like WAP by Cardi B & Megan thee Stallion, we are bombarded with messaging that sexuality is stigmatized. But why is sexuality so taboo? How do social forces shape the way we view, experience, and regulate sexuality? Using a sociological lens, this course explores the intersection of sexuality and stigma. We will begin by exploring foundational theories of both stigma and sexuality in the social sciences. Armed with these frameworks, we will then engage with in-depth case studies of different stigmatized sexualities, including homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, HIV/AIDS, infidelity, sex work, kink, ethical non-monogamy, and disabled sexualities. The course will empower students to interrogate their own assumptions and to critically examine the forces that perpetuate sexual inequality in society. By the end of the course, students will have gained a deeper understanding of how stigma operates at both the individual and structural level. The final assignment requires students to write a proposal for a research project that would answer a sociological question of their choice about stigma and sexuality. |
SOCIOL 376-0 – Colonial Citizenship
| Debates over who should belong are long standing in the United States and informed by ideas of race. In this course, students will explore how, as the United States empire expanded, powerful elites and politicians decided what kind of people could be part of the polity and on what terms. Students will learn the history of U.S. citizenship law, why certain people were eligible for U.S. citizenship, and why some territories became independent, others became states, and still others remained colonies. Course material will primarily draw on and emphasize historical and social scientific approaches to the study of race, immigration, citizenship, and empire. Students will benefit from previous courses in any of these topics. This course puts the histories of U.S. territorial acquisition in North America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific in conversation with one another. The analytical focus is on how the U.S. conquered, defined territory and people, and determined rights and membership. By paying attention to how the United States constructed race in different times and for different populations, students are encouraged to see commonalities in the classification and treatment of Asian (American), Latin American (and LatinX) and Indigenous peoples. As a whole, the course will demonstrate how U.S. elites and state actors repeatedly invested in and defended the idea of the United States as a white nation. |
SOCIOL 376-0 – The State of Techno-Capitalism
| In this course we will rethink two classical ideas—the state and capitalism— in light of contemporary technological change. We move beyond treating technology as a neutral tool and instead analyze it as a social, political, and cultural force that actively reorganizes and is reorganized by power, labor, governance, capital, and everyday life. We explore topics such as the rise of the tech-billionaire class, platform economies and gig work, bureaucracy, algorithmic systems, misinformation, e-governance, environmental regulation, smart cities as intertwined sociotechnical systems rather than isolated innovations. Through comparative works from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States, the course sheds light on the global political economy while attending to national differences, local histories and cultures. We will also explore how social actors resist, subvert and contest technological power to imagine alternative futures. The course equips students with classical frameworks and critical conceptual tools for analyzing the intertwining of technology, politics, and economy in modern life. |
SOCIOL 392-0 – Measuring Queer Lives
| Why are younger people more likely to identify as transgender than older people? What are the challenges, opportunities, and dangers of asking about gender and sexuality on the U.S. Census? Can survey researchers account for gender and sexual fluidity? This seminar examines the emerging field of “queer demography,” which aims to measure the size and characteristics of the LGBTQ population. We will read and discuss research about queer and transgender families, aging, health disparities, and more. Along the way, we will learn to critically analyze survey questions and statistical methods for assumptions about gender, sex, and sexuality. We will also think deeply about social categories and the politics of measurement more generally. This course is interdisciplinary and draws from sociology, science and technology studies, statistics, gender and sexuality studies, critical quantitative methods, and public health. Students of all backgrounds are welcome—we will work together to break down and contextualize the readings. |
SOCIOL 392-0 – Seminar: Work in the 'New' Economy
| Is your future job safe from AI? Why does a "strong" economy feel so precarious for so many? From the gig economy to remote work, from AI automation to trade wars, the world of work is transforming at a dizzying pace. This course cuts through the hype to ask: What’s truly new about the “new” economy, and what can theories about the ‘old’ economy tell us (or not) about what comes next? We will learn how workers' experiences and opportunities are shaped by their relationships—to employers, to other workers, to consumers, and to new technologies like “AI.” Course readings include a combination of foundational sociological texts and contemporary case studies. This course is designed for students of all backgrounds with a strong interest in understanding the forces that structure our economic lives. You will leave with a deeper understanding of the current economy, and the skills to predict and interpret the future of work as it unfolds. |
SOCIOL 392-0 – Cultures of Care: Mental Health Across Borders
| In today’s world, we talk more and more about mental health. But what defines “mental health”? Who decides what qualifies as care, and whose knowledge matters? How do diagnoses, therapies, and healing practices travel across cultures, and what social consequences do they bring? This seminar examines how ideas of mind, distress, and healing circulate across cultural, political, and institutional contexts, taking on new meanings and forms of authority. We begin with examples from the United States and other Western settings, then move outward to the Global South to explore how culture, religion, institutions, politics, economies, and colonial histories shape what it means to be well or unwell in the modern world. Each week pairs theoretical questions about culture, power, and emotion with case studies of mental health practice, including psychiatry, psychotherapy, self-help cultures, digital wellness, and grassroots activism. Students will learn how suffering and healing are not only private experiences but also social and moral practices embedded in systems of knowledge, institutions, policies, and everyday norms. The course invites students from all backgrounds to reflect critically and personally on how societies construct normality, illness, and care, and how those constructions shape lives across borders. |
SOCIOL 392-0 – Sociology of Sport
| Whether you are a seasoned sports enthusiast or simply a Super Bowl commercial fan, there is no denying the influence of sport in contemporary society. The sociology of sport explores how sports reflect evolving societal norms, contribute to individual and national identity, and reify or challenge existing social inequalities. This 300-level seminar course is intended to provide students with the opportunity to further their knowledge of core sociological concepts through the lens of sports. In the first half of the quarter, we will explore connections between sport and individual identity, including race, gender, class, embodiment, and morality. In the second half of the quarter, we will examine sports in relation to macro-social themes, including education, the economy, and culture. Students will have the opportunity to observe and analyze sporting events, and to engage in thoughtful evaluation of contemporary sporting debates. Over the course of the quarter, students will gain experience in ethnographic observation, data analysis, theory building, critical thinking, and collegial discussion. |
SOCIOL 398-1 – Senior Research Seminar
| This is the first class in a two-quarter sequence in which students will complete a senior thesis in sociology. In this fall quarter, students will identify and motivate a sociological research question and create a research design and empirical strategy that will answer that question. Students will also complete a research proposal and begin data collection. Finally, students will connect with a faculty advisor in the Department of Sociology. The faculty advisor will provide each student with intellectual input throughout the research and writing process. They will also serve as the primary reader of the thesis when it is complete. |
SOCIOL 398-2 – Senior Research Seminar
| Independent research projects carried out under faculty supervision. Prerequisite for 398-2: B- or better in 398-1. |
SOCIOL 440-0 – Stratification, Race and Gender
| Description coming soon. |
Courses Primarily for Graduate Students
SOCIOL 400-0 – Introduction to Statistics and Statistical Software
| This course is designed to teach you the basics of single variable calculus, probability, set theory, random variables, and hypothesis testing. The course prepares students for the next class in the statistics sequence. Required Math Prefresher **BEFORE** the quarter starts - contact instructor for details and schedule. |
SOCIOL 401-1 – Linear Regression
| This course is part of the quantitative methods sequence for graduate students in sociology. The main topic of the course is the theory and practice of linear regression analysis. We will cover multiple ordinary least squares regression, regression assumptions, regression diagnostics, basic path models, data transformations, and issues in causal inference. If time permits, we may discuss other regression-based topics such as fixed and random effects models. |
SOCIOL 401-2 – Categorical Regression
| This course is part of the quantitative methods sequence for graduate students in sociology. For most of the course, we will focus on regression-like methods for categorical outcomes, notably binary outcomes, ordered outcomes, nominal outcomes, count outcomes, and (if time permits) event outcomes. The course will also include discussion of practical issues in performing statistical analysis of secondary data. I assume that you the enter class either having data at hand to perform an analysis or that you can find data on your own. The major goals of the course are for students (1) to become proficient enough in regression models for categorical variables to understand, explain, and critique its use in articles appearing in sociology journals and (2) to be able to perform a competent analysis of data that is of sufficient quality to appear as an article in a sociology or social science journal. The major assignment for the course will be for students to write a paper that is a data analysis of secondary data. The final paper should be similar to a draft of a publishable article, although there will be some required sections not found in a regular article.. |
SOCIOL 403-0 – Field Methods: Qualitative Data Collection
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This graduate course is an introduction to ethnographic field methods. Students will learn how to conduct participant observation and in-depth interviews, two methods that often work in tandem in ethnographic sociological studies. We will discuss various aspects of research design and practical strategies to manage and adequately analyze and make sense of the considerable volume of data that ethnographic studies commonly generate. We will discuss epistemological issues, attending to how to use empirical ethnographic data to generate conceptual and theoretical conclusions, and we will also demarcate the capabilities and limitations of ethnographic research. Throughout the course, we will reflect on questions of research ethics, power, and representation. |
SOCIOL 406-1 – Classical Theory in Sociological Analysis
| Against the backdrop of Cartesian reservations about the possibility of a "science" of the social world, this course examines several of the major justifications that social thinkers have offered, historically, for constructing such a science. In the process, the course also considers the different conceptions of the social world that have been part of these justifications. The principal thinkers examined are Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois. |
SOCIOL 406-3 – Contemporary Theory in Sociological Analysis
| This graduate seminar provides an overview of how different thinkers have conceived of modernity, the conditions under which society became “modern,” as well as modernity’s constituent parts, related processes, and alternatives. It puts theories of modernity in conversation with post/de-colonial critiques and the Black Radical Tradition. |
SOCIOL 410-0 – Race, Racism, and Resistance
| Description coming soon. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Sociology of Sexuality
| This graduate seminar asks the following questions: What do we learn about society by studying sexuality? What do we learn about sexuality by studying society? We will focus on sociological approaches to studying sexuality and link sexuality studies to broader sociological questions about culture, social interaction, social inequality, globalization, social movements, science, health, and public policy. We will explore various theoretical and methodological approaches that have been used in sociological studies of sexuality—including those that guide sexuality-related analyses of meanings and identities, practices and behaviors, politics, power, relationships, population movement, collective identities and social movements, and morality and social control. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Politics of Knowledge
| Description coming soon. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Status and Inequality in Education
| Description coming soon. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Sociology of Immigration
| Description coming soon. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Case Study and Small-N Methods
| This seminar offers a broad and advanced introduction to the field of comparative and case study methodology. The emphasis is on what are conventionally regarded in political science as "qualitative" methods for the analysis of a relatively small number of cases. In sociology, this field is generally known as comparative-historical methodology. The course focuses on recent methodological writing, though a few classical pieces are also included. The readings are not specific to any substantive subfield in political science or sociology. The course assumes no prior background in qualitative methodology, but the material is advanced. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Sociology of Technology
| The ubiquity of modern technology has rendered its effects of producing and reproducing power relations increasingly visible. Despite the increased visibility of these effects, the underlying sociological dynamics through which technology is constructed and the mechanism by which power operates through it are elusive. This graduate seminar follows a genealogical approach to the sociology of technology to explore the theoretical and empirical basis behind the thesis that technology and society are co-constituted. To do so, the readings and discussion of this seminar are organized around fundamental questions in the sociology of technology that touch on a wide variety of empirical domains: How and under what conditions do individuals and organizations innovate? How does power become embedded in artifacts, algorithms, and infrastructure? How is the agency of individuals and organizations inflected or shaped by technology? How do visions of the future and expectations surrounding technology operate as modern ideology? We will additionally explore some of the key debates surrounding the study of technology across the social sciences. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Sociology of Family
| This course is designed to provide an overview of recent scholarship in sociology and the social sciences on contemporary families in the United States and other industrialized countries. We will focus on research that considers how families have changed over the last century and how the structure, functions, and experiences of family life vary across race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexual identity, and national context. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Introduction to Computational Methods in the Social Sciences
| Social scientists use computers for every step of the research process, but seldom take advantage of their full potential. This course equips social scientists with computational principles and habits for making the research process more efficient, flexible, and reproducible. It is designed for early stage graduate students using *any* research method (statistical, ethnographic, historical comparative, etc.) with little specialized background in computational techniques. Most techniques taught in this course require substantial labor (learning, installing, and customizing) but offer exponential gains in efficiency and peace of mind over one's research career. This course aims to provide structured time for this initial adoption and the foundations necessary for pursuing advanced computational techniques. |
SOCIOL 476-0 – Social Science Fiction: Methods, Models and Stories
| Social Science Fiction is a class that centers on methods, models, and storytelling. Indeed, it is not concerned with the latest, greatest analytic methods or the hottest, super models stalking the academic milieu. Rather, the course reviews how social scientists use fictional simulations—demographic methods and agent-based models—to explore social phenomena, and how authors incorporate social science into their storied, fictional representations of our world. To this end, we will review the ways social scientists use simulations to tell stories about social systems, study the methods that authors use in literary stories to connect and convey information to readers, and investigate the ways that scholars can utilize fictional storytelling to recognize and communicate novel insights about their research. |
SOCIOL 438-0 – Computational Content Analysis
| Much of the social world is stored in digital text. Such textual traces include social media posts, email correspondences, party manifestos, blogs, novels, newspaper articles, press releases, medical records, academic articles, and much more. Not only are archival data increasingly available in electronic form, but more and more human communication and interaction occurs natively through digital text. These vast amounts of data can be a treasure trove for social science – but to make them useful for our purposes, we need natural language processing and machine learning methods. This class offers an overview of text analytical tools currently used in social science research. You will be introduced to a set of methods and provided with examples of how they are applied to answer concrete social science research questions. Beyond surveying approaches, we will explore some of the methods ourselves, and you will learn how to use them for your own work. In this class, we will use R. Therefore, some coding experience (or exceptional motivation to attain it independently alongside the class) is expected. |
SOCIOL 480-0 – Introduction to the Discipline
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Introduction to the department, faculty, and adjunct faculty. Faculty discuss their research and teaching interests. Mandatory two-quarter weekly seminar for first-year study. |
SOCIOL 490-0 – Research: Second-Year Paper
| This course guides second-year Ph.D. students in the Sociology department in preparing a draft of their second-year paper. A series of exercises leads in incremental steps to a full draft, and feedback is provided from the professor as well as from other students. |
SOCIOL 519-0 – Responsible Conduct of Research Training
| RCR Training |
SOCIOL 570-0 – Seminar on College Teaching
| This seminar offers a space for graduate students to discuss topics related to college TAing and teaching. The course covers the following topics: practical skills and strategies to be an effective and efficient teaching assistant, particular TAing/teaching challenges for women, minority, international, and LGBT instructors, leading discussion sections and lecturing, how to create inclusive classrooms, how to construct a syllabus, defining your teaching philosophy, and perspectives on student evaluations. |
SOCIOL 576 – Ethnography Workshop
| Click here to learn more. |
SOCIOL 576-0 – Quantitative and Computational Methods Workshop
| Click here to learn more. |