Sociology

Students will be introduced to the practice of doing ethnographic fieldwork in the local community and to the reflective process of writing ethnography. Students will select a local field site within reach of their daily lives, engage in fieldwork and participant observation, write field notes, experiment with interpreting their data and discover their research question. In the readings and in class discussions we will talk about social explanation and interpretation, and focus on field notes and the process of writing ethnography. Field notes will be turned in weekly. A final paper based on field research is due at the end of the semester.

Using detailed studies of four major centers (San Antonio, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York), this course will analyze the historical and contemporary experience of several Spanish-speaking populations. Discussion will focus on two questions: (a) Are there common experiences or characteristics that justify the categorization of these varied groups under a single ethnicity? and (b) What racial, class, and gender divisions exist within these groups? Two lectures, one preceptorial.

By using examples from the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, this course employs a comparative approach to investigating religion as a source of strength among immigrants -- including exiles and refugees -- as they undertake perilous journeys. Key questions addressed include: How does religion transform (and how is it transformed by) the immigrant experience? How is religion used to combat stereotypes? Are there differences between the ways men and women or dominant groups and racial minorities understand religion? Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This required gateway course will consider how Latinos are transforming the United States even as they embrace a racialized pan-ethnic identity. Readings expose students to the demographic underpinnings of the dramatic growth and historically unprecedented geographic dispersal, the ethical dilemmas posed by undocumented immigration, the historical and contemporary trends in social, economic, and political participation, and the hybrid cultural imprints forged in musical, literary, and artistic work. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Classical and contemporary theories of organizations as collective tools, as cultural systems, and as actors in changing environments. Research on problems of innovation and survival, authority, and control in business firms, public bureaucracies, and voluntary associations. Special emphasis on the historical development of managerial ideologies in the U.S. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An introduction to the study of communications media. Topics include: growth and impact of literacy, printing, telecommunications, and broadcasting; communications and the modern state (for example, secrecy, surveillance, intelligence); organization, control, and effects of the media; cross-national differences in communications policy and institutions; impact of computers and electronic communication. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The course offers a sociological account of production, consumption, distribution, and transfer of assets. Examining different sectors of the economy from corporations and finance to households, immigrants, welfare, and illegal markets, we explore how in all areas of economic life people are creating, maintaining, symbolizing, and transforming meaningful social relations. Economic life, from this perspective, is as social as religion, family, or education. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course surveys recurring, high-profile issues in technology policy and law. Each session will explore a challenging topic, including consumer privacy, data security, electronic surveillance, net neutrality, online speech, algorithmic fairness, cryptocurrencies, election security, and offensive operations. The seminar will also cover foundational technical concepts that affect policy and law, including internet architecture, cryptography, systems security, privacy science, and artificial intelligence. Materials and discussion will draw extensively from current events and primary sources.

An introduction to theories of symbolism, ideology, and belief. Approaches to the analysis and comparison of cultural patterns. Emphasis on the social sources of new idea systems, the role of ideology in social movements, and the social effects of cultural change. Comparisons of competing idea systems in contemporary culture. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Sociological investigations of religion in the United States since 1950. Patterns and variations in religious organization and expression. Social scientific methods of conducting research on religion, including surveys, interviews, and participant observation. Topics include demographics of religious involvement, trends, individual religious orientations, ethnicity and religion, and religious diversity. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course uses "the sociological imagination" to explore the role and meaning of medicine in modern U.S. society. Topics include sociocultural definitions of health and illness, the sick role, the doctor-patient relationship, the social determinants of health, the role of medicine in keeping society healthy, the education and socialization of health care professionals, and the social control function of medicine. Consideration of current bioethical dilemmas from a sociological perspective. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Introduction to the sociology, history, and politics of health care. Topics include the social response to disease (including epidemics); the development and organization of the medical profession, hospitals, public health, and health insurance; and the contemporary politics of health policy in comparative perspective. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The subject matter of this course varies from year to year. Typical topics are sociology of the environment and sociology of law. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An introduction to basic concepts in probability and statistics with applications to social science research. We cover descriptive statistics, sampling distributions, statistical inference (including point estimation, confidence intervals and tests of hypotheses), the comparison of two or more groups, linear regression, and designs for causal inference. Throughout the course we use the open-source statistical package R to illustrate and apply the techniques. The course is intended to prepare students to take Advanced Social Statistics the following term.

Advanced seminars bring students into spaces of collaborative exploration after pursuing their individual paths of study in American studies, Asian American/diasporic studies, and/or Latino studies. To students culminating programs of study toward one or more of the certificates offered by the Effron Center for the Study of America, advanced seminars offer the important opportunity to integrate their cumulative knowledge.

Special Topics in Institutions and Networks will house courses related to communications, media influence and information networks, international organizations and global governance, law and legal systems, political systems and social networks.

Rigorous introduction to inferential statistics focusing on probability theory as a means to understand the Central Limit Theorem. Course goes on to cover Stata and such topics as descriptive statistics and visualization of data, classical statistical inference, basic non-parametric tests, analysis of variance, correlation, and the basics of multiple regressions. First in a two-course sequence for Sociology graduate students.

The origins of sociology, with a particular emphasis on the major works of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

Systematic treatment of the main concepts of sociology and the major tendencies of contemporary sociological theory.

Systematic study of research methods in social science, with emphasis on empirical procedures.

In-depth coverage of the multiple regression models, including the theory underlying it, methods and software used to estimate it, methods to diagnose and correct problems, and methods to extend it. Topics include: maximum likelihood estimation, bootstrapping and robust estimation, diagnosing and correcting for multi-collinearity, non-normal, heteroscedastic, and auto-correlated errors, and handling non-continuous outcomes and hierarchical data. The second in a two-course sequence.

Preparation of research papers based on field observation, laboratory experiments, survey procedures, and secondary analysis of existing data banks.

This course is concerned with the professional obligations of social science researchers. Topics covered include teaching and mentoring relationships, human subjects protections, professional codes of ethics, data management, peer review, collaboration, scientific misconduct (fraud, fabrication and plagiarism), conflicts of interest, and scientific agenda-setting. The course is intended for graduate students in Sociology and the Office of Population Research.

This course introduces sociology graduate students to the discipline of sociology and to departmental faculty. Each week members of the faculty lecture about their subfield of sociology; students are provided with required readings in advance of each meeting. Student work is evaluated by class participation and attendance.

The focus of the course is recent developments in statistical methods used in human quantitative genetics. We begin with traditional kinship-based approaches and move to molecular genetics approaches. Topics include gene discovery, calculation of heritability of traits using genetic markers, genetic correlation of traits, population stratification, prediction, ancestry, family-based models. Additional, optional modules that we may cover include: methods to detect selection, genes and social networks, the promise and pitfalls of Mendelian randomization, models to detect variance-regulating loci, and gene-by-environment interactions.