SOCIOL 101-6 Chicago Landscapes: Place, Space and the Creation of Community
Chicago has played a prominent role in the literary and social imagination. This course will explore (1) how community is created, imagined and remembered in Chicago, (2) how Chicago has shaped our thinking about what it means to live in a modern city, and (3) the significance of place for people's identity. The course will include some basic concepts and strategies for analyzing urban life and we will compare sociological, historical and fictional approaches. Students will also learn several methods used by sociologists to collect evidence. In addition to introducing students to a fascinating city and some core sociological ideas, my goal is for students to learn to think and read more critically, and to communicate your ideas more effectively, both as speakers and writers.
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.
How issues emerge. Rules, rule enforcers, rule breakers; advocates, opponents, and victims of problems. Blame, help, and entitlement. Current problems and systemic contradictions.
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.
This course will examine how society shapes sexuality, as well as how sexuality shapes society. Although many consider sexuality to be deeply personal, in fact, social context greatly affects how individuals understand and experience sexuality. Questions this course will consider include: What is the relationship between individual identities and practices and broader social, cultural, and structural contexts? How does sexuality intersect with gender, class, race/ethnicity, geographic location, age, and nationality? What are sexual subcultures? The course will also consider how sexuality is related to different types of social inequalities. At the end of the course, students will be able to discuss how studying sexuality helps us better understand complex social processes.
SOCIOL 276-0 Introductory Topics in Sociology: Neighborhoods and Crime
Crime is often seen as a “city problem.” But not all cities are alike and, more than that, not all neighborhoods are alike. In fact, one of sociology’s most enduring findings is that certain social problems—including crime—are highly concentrated within cities. The central question this course seeks to answer is: “Why do some neighborhoods have higher rates of crime than others?” In addressing this question, the course covers a wide range of theories, paying particular attention to ecological, social structural, and cultural aspects of city-life. In addition to covering the main sociological theories in these areas, the course will also focus on several in-depth topics including: street gangs, the underground economy, immigration, and mass incarceration.
This course approaches the study of sociological institutions –often referred to as ‘the rules of the game’—from a design perspective. We’ll work to understand how these institutions emerge and address existing societal problems, ultimately analyzing the potential of different institutional configurations to encourage or discourage desired outcomes. We focus on both coordination-type dilemmas (e.g. how to parent, which side of the street to drive on, who provides health care) and collective-action dilemmas (e.g. how to police fishermen going over quota, farmers reining in downstream pollution). We end with a study of how institutions persist – possibly beyond their useful lifespans – such as the persistence of the intentionally inefficient ‘QWERTY’ keyboard, and a conversation about why it’s difficult to enact policy change.
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. Throughout the quarter, 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.
Social theory provides a lens to understand how power operates in modern societies. It helps us examine not only the production of socio-economic and political inequalities but also the reproduction of social order, namely, how society holds together despite all the antagonisms such disparities create. In this course, we will study three strands of social theory—emancipatory, positivist, and critical. Emancipatory theorists, most notably Marx, "speak truth to power" to emancipate oppressed groups. They hope their theories will arm the oppressed against their oppressors in their struggles for freedom. Mainstream, positivist theorists, in contrast, take the point-of-view of the social planner and seek to use science to reform society. Finally, critical theorists, such as Frederic Nietzsche, Max Weber, and Michel Foucault, share positivists' skepticism toward emancipatory theorists. Yet, they do not try to base their authority on science, as they see science as just another way power operates. Moreover, they believe power to be intrinsic to social relations and think emancipation is simply not possible. Instead, they seek to reconfigure power relations to create more ethical social structures.
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.
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 323-0 American Subcultures and Ethnic Groups
In this course, we will explore a diverse set of subcultures that collectively make up the pluralistic fabric of American society. In no way could we possibly explore the numerous and rich diversity of these subcultures so of necessity we will focus on a selected subset of them. These will include subcultures based on youth and age, sexuality, interest and leisure, and ethnicity. You will have the option of selecting a specific subculture of interest to you to study in detail. We will ask a set of sociological questions that are pertinent to all subcultures that will make up the weekly themes of the course. These themes range from identity to language, symbols, beliefs and ideology, ritual practices, types of organization, inequalities of resources, status & stigma, and power and politics.
Each student selects a particular subculture of interest to you to focus on throughout the course and become “the class expert” on that subculture. Your presentation, along with additional readings and resources leads to a final paper.
This course examines law in the context of recent trends which have increasingly integrated the world’s social and economic systems. 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.
How are experiences of health and illness influenced by the gendered social and political context in which our bodies are located? This course will introduce you to the major theoretical and substantive topics that comprise the social study of gender, its relationship to health and illness, and the influence of social movements, politics, and policymakers. We will explore a wide range of historical and theoretical understandings of gendered bodies, identities, processes, and institutional structures, with a focus on how they contribute to gendered patterns and inequalities in experiences of health and illness across the lifespan. The course will consider the origins and impacts of the women’s health movement in the United States (US) and globally; investigate the social basis of health outcomes, engage critically with how other socially meaningful forms of difference, such as race and class interact with gender to shape experiences of health and illness; explore differences in how the reproductive health of men and women is constructed and controlled; consider questions of social justice in relation to the health experiences of queer, intersex, and transgender individuals; and, engage with recent policy debates related to biomedical and health research.
Technology is an integral part of society: from the wheel, to the cotton gin, to the modern computer. Technology is everywhere and humans have always used technology to shape society and vice versa. How do people relate to technology? How has our culture been affected by technology? How has technology itself been shaped by societal norms, and values? This course gives an overview of the growing and important field of the Sociology of Technology. In this course we will explore the different ways that technology has affected our society through a sociological lens. We will examine how physical material combines with culture to create the distinct aspects of our society. Students may not receive credit for this course and for Sociology 392 'Technology, Work, Love, and Life in 2020.
SOCIOL 401-1 Statistical Analysis of Social Data: Applied Regression Methods I
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, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity.
SOCIOL 406-3 Contemporary Theory in Sociological Analysis: Modernity
Modernity has become a contested term. This class investigates how various thinkers have conceived of what it means to be “modern" or "post-modern," critiques of modernity that have profoundly shaped our images of it, and skeptics who challenge the idea of modernity. It also includes sections that investigate in detail what I call "mechanisms" of modernity: procedures, devices, approaches or strategies that people adopt or promulgate in their efforts to be rational, manage uncertainty and conflict, or attain efficiency in various institutional arenas.
In this seminar, we will consider how one formulates research questions and puts evidence together in order to investigate specific instances of the culture-society interaction and, from doing so, to assess cultural theory. The course is for students who (1) have a background in cultural sociology (usually by having taken SOC 420), and (2) have a research project involving culture, one that is either already underway or in the planning stages. All participants must be actively engaged in a piece of cultural research (dissertation proposal, second-year paper, etc.), at least for the duration of the course itself. The goal is to create a productive interplay between research activities and methodological awareness.
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 while gaining hands-on experience with network data and software. As such, the course is designed to be (roughly) equal parts theory and methods. Students will leave the course with the ability to understand and apply SNA in a variety of contexts.
This graduate-level course requires having already completed "Case Study and Small-N Research." The course provides an introduction to the logic and use of set-theoretic methods, including but not exclusively Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The material is equally divided between set-theoretic methods for medium/large N research and case study/small N research. The requirements for the class are: (1) a paper in which students analyze data using QCA; (2) a final exam; and (3) active participation in classroom discussions of the readings. At the end of the class, students will know how to use QCA and other set-theoretic methods in their own work.
This seminar focuses on the anatomy of articles in professional journals of sociology. In doing so, the seminar examines the different ways of "framing" a research question, the art of organizing a review of the literature, and the mechanics of good academic writing. The seminar is designed primarily as a forum for the advanced graduate student who has written a paper that s/he seeks to develop into a manuscript appropriate for submission to a referred sociology journal. During the quarter, seminar participants will revise their papers into article-form on the basis of a series of assignments and exercises structured not only to assist in the revision of the papers on hand, but also to provide preparation for article writing in sociology more generally.
Introduction to the department, faculty, and adjunct faculty. Faculty discuss their research and teaching interests. Mandatory two-quarter weekly seminar for first-year study.
