"The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting." -Plutarch
 

The study of society including its structure and operation from the perspective of sociology. The course focuses on ways society is constructed by people and, in turn, on the ways society shapes people. This general education course supplies students with a community as well as a global, multicultural understanding of society.  

For generations, social scientists have addressed some of the fundamental questions facing human beings and society. At this point in time, there are several things that we know. We know that old age is correlated with both increased positivity and decreased processing speed. We know that simply raising the level of punishment does not necessarily lower crime rates. We know that, relative to White Americans, Black and Hispanic Americans have poorer health outcomes across a variety of conditions. But how do we know what we know? In this course, you will be introduced to the ways in which social scientists, particularly sociologists, conduct social research. This course will cover a variety of topics including the scientific method, ethics in research, the purpose of theory, conducting literature reviews, developing research questions, study design, measurement, data collection (both quantitative and qualitative), and crafting effective research proposals.

According to American author Mark Twain: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” While statistics can be misused to distort reality and support untruths, it can also be a powerful tool to increase our understanding of social phenomena. In this course, you will be introduced to the concepts and techniques used by social science researchers to conduct quantitative research on society. More specifically, you will learn how to tell a story using data drawing on both descriptive and inferential techniques. This course will cover a variety of topics including: levels of measurement, data visualization (graphs and charts), measures of central tendency and dispersion, elementary probability theory, estimation, hypothesis testing, correlations, linear regression, and statistical software.

While certainly a biological process, human aging also takes place within a social context. As such, sociologists have contributed greatly to our understanding of how social forces, institutions, and culture shape our experience of aging from birth until death. Moreover, research indicates that the aging experience is stratified across social location such as gender, race/ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. In this course, we will examine the aging process from the sociological perspective. This course will touch on a variety of topics including: demographic trends and population aging; theories of aging with a particular focus on the life course perspective; age-related changes in physical, mental, and cognitive health; social relationships and social networks among older adults; work and retirement; social policies concerning older adults; living arrangements and end-of-life care; aging experiences of racial/ethnic & sexual minorities; and global aging.

What impact does the rapidly aging population have on the global economy? What are the future implications for society given current age and sex structure in the U.S. population? How do populations change over time and is there a unified theory of said change? This course will provide answers to the aforementioned questions, and, in the process, introduce you to the field of demography, the study of human populations. Throughout the semester, we will explore how populations grow, shrink, age, and distribute themselves spatially over time. Moreover, this course will expose you to the type of data that demographers employ in their analysis of the human population and introduce you to fundamental demographic techniques such as population projection, and population pyramid construction. Lastly, this course will provide a survey of current population issues (population aging, immigration, low fertility, overpopulation) and the policies aimed at addressing said issues. Though this course will focus primarily on the U.S. context, we will spend some time discussing less developed countries and countries with unique population challenges (e.g. Italy, Japan, Russia).

Why are some social groups more susceptible to poorer health outcomes than others? In this course, we address this question by examining the extent of, patterns of, and reasons behind social inequities in health and wellbeing across the life span. This course draws on interdisciplinary perspectives including sociology, social epidemiology, psychology, health demography, feminist theory, critical studies, and health services research to provide an in-depth investigation of how health inequities across race/ethnicity, gender/sex, sexual identity, class and other social locations emerge and and are perpetuated throughout time. The focus will largely center on social and structural determinants of health. Lastly, the course will focus on health policy, and the ways that health policy shapes priorities regarding actions taken to lessen health inequities across  groups. Though the course will center on the U.S. context, we will also investigate health inequities across the globe, particularly as they compare to U.S. inequities. This course is ideal for anyone interested in research or applied careers in health and health care as well as those curious about how the social environment can influence one's health and wellbeing.