Undergraduate Courses
SOCI 101: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
This course offers an introduction to the basic sociological concepts. Aspects of human behavior in a cultural framework are covered, including: individual and group interaction, social mobility and stratification, status and class, race and gender relations, urbanism, crime and criminology, juvenile delinquency, and social change and reform. Several sections of SOCI 101 are offered including:
SOCI 101-001 Professor Patricia Masters, MW 1:30-2:45p
SOCI 101-002 Professor Patricia Masters, MW 10:30-11:45a
SOCI 101-004 Professor Amy Best, TR 9:00-10:15a
SOCI 101-005 Professor Amber Kalb, MW 9:00-10:15a
SOCI 101-006 Professor Rutledge M Dennis, TR 1:30-2:45p
SOCI 101-DL1 Professor Perry Threlfall, Distance Learning Course
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/pmasters
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/rdenni1
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/pthrelf1
SOCI 120: GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIETY
This course will provide students with an overall understanding of the complex dimensions of globalization and many of its consequences. Globalization is the process of increasing political, economic, environmental, cultural, and social interconnections that is currently transforming our world. The goal of the course is to investigate the different dimensions of globalization and to critically examine some of the many ways each dimension is affecting our lives and the lives of those around the world. Students will gain critical knowledge of global patterns and processes; discover and analyze the global interconnectedness of our world; engage with, analyze and communicate diverse knowledge and ideas about global issues; and explore individual and collective responsibilities for global problems and issues. Several sections of SOCI 120 are offered including:
SOCI 120-001: Professor Daniel C Afzel, TR 10:30-11:45a
SOCI 120-002: Professor Rasmieyh Abdelnabi, MW 10:30-11:45a
303-001: METHODS AND LOGIC OF INQUIRTY
How do sociologists use scientific methods to research questions and issues about social life? What methods do social scientists employ? In this course, you will learn the answers to these questions and receive “hands on” training to learn the fundamentals of doing research in the social sciences. You will also be introduced to tools that will allow you to become a critical consumer of research. Topics include: research design, sampling, data collection, analysis and interpretation of results, and research reporting.
SOCI 303-001 Professor Elizangela Storelli, TR 12:00-1:15p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/estorell
SOCI 308-001: RACE/ETHNICITY CHANGING WORLD
“Race and Ethnicity in a Changing World” is an examination of --from a sociological perspective—race & ethnicity. We integrate how race and ethnicity is defined and how race and ethnicity is organized, and the consequences for our society as well in other societies around the globe. Some of the topics we will discuss this semester are: the social construction of race; the development of race & ethnic identities; how race & ethnic subcultures are formed (e.g., gamers). The course also explores the evolution of racial and ethnic attitudes from a global and historical perspective. We will examine how the changing demographic racial patterns may impact definitions of race and ethnicity and the ways in which people individually and collectively act to create their new futures.
SOCI 308-001 Professor Earl Smith, MW 1:30-2:45p
SOCI 309-001: MARRIAGE, FAMILIES, AND INTIMATE LIFE
From family-supervised courtships to hook-ups, from traditional gender roles and socialization to new concepts of what it is to be a man or a woman, no social institution has changed as rapidly and dramatically as “the family.” This course uses a sociological framework to analyze and understand the diverse forms of contemporary families--traditional marriages, cohabitation, domestic partnerships, single-parents families, stepfamilies, and gay and lesbian families. Among the many topics explored are changes in sexual mores that are reflected in new patterns of courtship and dating; the shifting roles of men who are embracing the role of nurturing father and supportive partner as women have moved into the work force; the effects of social class, race and ethnicity on families and children; and the prevalence and outcomes of divorce for couples and their children. Finally, and importantly, we look at the role of public policy in providing support to families facing the challenges of juggling work and family responsibilities.
SOCI 309-001 Professor Elizangela J Storelli, TR 3:00-4:15p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/estorell
SOCI 310-001: SOCIOLOGY OF DEVIANCE
What is deviance? Who is deviant? How do definitions of deviance and characterizations of deviants change over time? How does being labeled a deviant change an individual’s perception of self? What examples can we find of groups who have successfully challenged their status as deviant and gain acceptance by conventional society? The course will examine, how tattoos became fashion statements and art; changing definitions of disability; elite deviance; theories of deviance from interpersonal to functionalist approaches.
SOCI 310-001 Professor Patricia Masters, MW 4:30-5:45p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/pmasters
SOCI 311-001: CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY THEORY
Why is it that as workers become productive, they become more impoverished? Why does growing individualism foster social solidarity? Why is conflict a positive form of social life? Should politicians embrace an ethic of responsibility or an ethic of ultimate ends? Why are the memories that shape our lives the ones most difficult to recall?
These are just some of the questions we will explore in this course, drawing on the classic writings of the founding European sociologists that retain their guiding influence to this day. Writing at a time of social turmoil comparable to our own, these thinkers explored the transformation of society and the changing relations of self to society, establishing the central themes of the discipline. This course, required of sociology majors, will improve your skills of reading, writing, and inquiry, by emphasizing the importance of research problems and the fit between ideas and methods.
SOCI 311-001: Professor Manjusha Sasidharan Nair, TR 1:30-2:45p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/mnair4
SOCI 312-001: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
Introduces ethnography, field work methods, interviewing, life histories, and other qualitative methods to generate data about cultures and sub-cultures in which various groups and classes are immersed. Students learn by applying qualitative methods to term projects, developed under guidance of instructor.
SOCI 312-001: Professor Joseph A Scimecca, TR 10:30-11:45a
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/jscimecc
SOCI 313: STATISTICS FOR THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
Statistical information is in wide circulation and used to advance and justify a broad range of political and social interests. This course provides an introduction to the use of statistics for social and behavioral science data analysis. Its goal is to help you develop statistical literacy and quantitative reasoning. You will learn to use and apply different statistical techniques as well as evaluate their merit, a condition for ethical, inquiry-based citizenry. In the process, you will become competent in the use of SPSS software—a highly marketable skill.
Several sections of SOCI 313 are offered including:
SOCI 313-001: Professor Elizangela J Storelli, MW 10:30-11:45a
SOCI 313-002: Professor Tyler Myroniuk, TR 12:00-1:15p
SOCI 313-201: Professor Elizangela J Storelli, M 12:00-1:15p (Lab for Lecture 001)
SOCI 313-202: Professor Tyler Myroniuk, T 1:30-2:45p (Lab for Lecture 002)
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/estorell
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/tmyroniu
SOCI 314-001: SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE
Just as we give little thought to the air we breathe, even though it sustains our physical being, we pay too little attention to the culture that helps shape—and is shaped by—our political, economic, and social being. Culture is centered around the deep meanings that give form to our collective lives. How does culture help ground politics, economics, and civic life; and how do they in turn help ground culture? Politics and economics are realms of compulsion; within limits of ecological constraint, culture is a realm of relative freedom. Cultural analysis cuts through to the root issues of freedom and necessity, existence and identity. Culture is of special relevance to power, economics, and civic life because it has the capacity to de-naturalize and re-envision categories of understanding them. The concept of culture is no less contested than culture itself. Does culture inhibit or enable agency? Is culture instrumental or expressive? Essential or constructed? Global or local? Repressive or emancipatory? How are the various cultural systems—religion, science, art, collective memory, popular culture, digital culture—related to each other? How are they related to structures of “rational” practice? Through readings, class discussions, and sharing the results of individual research and reflection, this course will engage those questions. Course requirements include reading seminal texts, class discussion of writing exercises based on those texts, and a five- to eight- page final paper.
SOCI 314-001: Professor Mark D Jacobs, T 1:30-4:10p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/mjacobs
SOCI 320-001: SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND GLOBALIZATION
The process of globalization is widely recognized as profoundly reshaping social structure—the rules, practices and institutions of society—and transforming the lives of practically everyone across the globe. In its current phase, globalization is described as the process of increasing political, economic, environmental, cultural, and social interconnections that is currently transforming our world. At the same time, not everyone experiences globalization in the same way. For some, it expands opportunities and enhances prosperity while others experience poverty and hopelessness. This course focuses on the impacts of globalization on various social structures including the economy, the nation-state, and the family structure. Sub-topics include global economic disparity, migration, environmental deterioration and gender. We will also explore the nature and process of changes in human society, considering the impact of globalization on social movements and vice versa.
SOCI 320-001: Professor Emily McDonald, MW 3:00-4:15p
SOCI 326-001: CONFLICT, VIOLENCE, AND PEACE
Violence is a major issue of our time, and fighting violence of all kinds is a priority task of a public sociology – from domestic violence and sexual assault to community and police violence and war. Violence, Peace and Conflict explores the idea that the social construction of violence can be replaced with the structuring of nonviolence; it emphasizes the sociology of violence, and of peace and conflict but will draw upon a variety of disciplines, to examine these crucial issues from a scholarly point of view relevant to burning issues. The course will offer a variety of perspectives; it will be critical and anti-violent, but nonpartisan, and will encourage vigorous debate about the problems it raises.
SOCI 326-001: Professor Lester Kurtz, MW 3:00-4:15p
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/lkurtz
SOCI 330-001: US IMMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRATION
Immigration is again making headlines in the news, stirring heated debates about the costs and benefits of immigration and raising concerns about the changing demographics of U.S. society. Particularly with the liberalization of the 1965 immigration law, the United States has become one of the most diverse societies in the world. Post-1960s immigrants and their children, just like their earlier European immigrant counterparts, are leaving an indelible mark on the economic, social, political, and cultural landscape of our nation. As the United States continues to diversify its population through immigration, a key challenge for any multi-ethnic/-racial society is how to successfully integrate new immigrants and their children. In light of the global and domestic forces that are spurring international migration, it is critical to go beyond narrow discussions of the costs/benefits of immigration and seek a more comprehensive understanding of the multiple facets of immigration.
SOCI 330-001: Professor Dae Young Kim, TR 3:00-4:15p
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/dkio
SOCI 332-001: THE URBAN WORLD
In this course, we will examine the urban world through an exploration of concepts from urban sociology, as well as other areas of study including urban studies, geography, ethnic studies, and more. This course asks, what is a city? How are cities distinct from other organizations of space? How have social relations shaped cities? Course content and activities center the city as a site of social, cultural, and political economic development and change. In addition to the study of a variety of American and international cities, we will examine the city of Washington, D.C. through research projects. We will pay particular attention to: 1) post-World War II changes in American cities, 2) urban communities, 3) urban social movements, and 4) the city’s role in transnational networks, migrations, and globalization.
SOCI 332-001: Professor Amaka Okechukwu, TR 1:30-2:45p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/aokechuk
SOCI 352-001: SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
Sociology offers a variety of tools to address a wide range of social problems, from ways to analyze their origins and consequences, to best practices for mobilizing for change. As an example of how public sociology can contribute to solutions, this course focuses on the effort to replace the current failed economic paradigm based on GDP growth and resulting in injustice and climate change, with a new one based on happiness and wellbeing that promotes justice and sustainability. It explores grassroots transnational mobilization of people power to envision and implement a new economic paradigm, on the one hand, with the involvement of high-level United Nations-related institutions, on the other.
SOCI 352-001: Professor Lester Kurtz, MW 12:00-1:15p
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/lkurtz
SOCI 355-001: SOCIAL INEQUALITY
In this course, we will identify and examine structures of social inequality in the United States, through sociological research on race, class, gender, and sexuality. We will encounter key sociological concepts and frameworks used to define and understand social hierarchies and study how inequality is reproduced through American institutions and culture. We will also review how citizens, activists, and politicians have aimed to combat social inequality through social movements, policy, and cultural transformation. We will attend to social stratification in the areas of the labor market, criminal justice system, education system, the family, neighborhoods and communities, and more.
SOCI 355-001: Professor Amaka Okechukwu, TR 10:30-11:45a
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/aokechuk
SOCI 360-001: YOUTH CULTURE AND SOCIETY
This course examines the changing nature of childhood in twenty-first century America, Among the topics we will cover are the following: changes in the position and roles of children over time—from the productive role of the colonial child to the consumer role of today’s child; the influence of peer cultures from kindergarten through adolescence; the impact of technology and popular culture on children and youth; the emergence of children as “consumers” rather “producers”; the diminishing involvement of children in the natural world and “nature deficit disorder”; and the impact of social class position on children in an increasingly competitive world.
SOCI 360-001: Professor Patricia Masters, T 4:30-7:10p
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/pmasters
SOCI 377-001: ART AND SOCIETY
What is art? Is it part of everyday life, or something apart? Is it just a business, or an expression of the transcendent? Is it liberating or mystifying? What does art mean? What makes art good? Is artistic genius natural? Is artistic taste? How is art affected by the media age? How do revolutions in art come about?
These are among the questions we will explore together in this course. Along the way, we will read texts by scholars of communication, philosophy, art history, literary criticism, and anthropology, as well as sociology. We will examine processes of producing, distributing, consuming, and judging art in its societal contexts. We will attend films, musical performances, and museum exhibitions. In reflecting on art and society, we will also be reflecting on ourselves.
This course has been approved as a "synthesis course," which satisfies one of the general education requirements for graduation. It also counts towards the major in Film and Video Studies.
SOCI 377-001: Professor Mark D Jacobs, TR 4:30-5:45p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/mjacobs
SOCI 395-004: BIG DATA, TECHNOLOGIES & SOCIETY
We are living amidst a data revolution. Data, traditionally viewed as a scarce commodity, jealously guarded and expensively traded, now – in part due to radical technological developments and political lobbying – flows as a deep and wide torrent at relatively low-cost, supported by robust infrastructures. Much of it is increasingly open and accessible. Beyond and through the ubiquitous smartphone and “internet of things” that allow for the networking of the self within a planetary mesh of perception and response, radical technological developments are redesigning everyday life. Whether we are conscious of it or not, networked digital technology has become the dominant mode through which we experience the everyday. Witness augmented reality (providing an interactive overlay of the world); digital fabrication (forging a new political economy of matter); cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and, likely more enduring, the blockchain (or the “programmable trust infrastructure” beyond it that has spawned such tools as “distributed applications,” “smart contracts,” and “autonomous organizations”); automation (and the annihilation of work and vast increase in precarious labor); machine learning (the algorithmic production of knowledge); and artificial intelligence (in some cases, eclipsing human discretion). Increasingly, these data-laden technologies, and the data they collect and produce, shape the rhythms of our (“networked”) communities, (“smart”) cities, education, work, play, and knowledge of the world, as well as our sense of time, place, and self within it. In fact, they are changing the way we think – and the ways we now attempt to make sense of the world.
Managing flows of “Big Data” – a buzzword that simply denotes the extremely high volume, velocity, and variety (and, increasingly, veracity) of contemporary data production – has stressed conventional techniques (of applying structure to it by storing it in the linked cells of a relational database) to the breaking point. The new way of handling such massive amount of data is to look for patterns in previously unstructured data (say, from large bodies of text to real-time video feeds). Here, the patterns themselves begin to suggest the questions that might be asked of them. Big Data and new data analytics are disruptive innovations which are reconfiguring in many instances how research is conducted in widely varying contexts. While the main hype has focused on tracking and targeting consumers, a new crop of social entrepreneurs and activists see opportunities to improve the state of the world by making sense of the current-day data deluge. And while they may employ similar tools on the backend, their motivation stems from a desire to help alleviate some of the world's most pressing problems; poverty, inequality; disease, ecological harm, war and famine. Practitioners in fields such as public health and humanitarian relief view big data as a critical driver of empirically based problem-solving.
In this course, we not only explore the new technologies, relations, and practices emerging in the course of this data revolution, but also examine how the availability of Big Data, coupled with new data analytics, challenges established epistemologies (or theories of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, that distinguish justified belief from opinion) across the sciences, social sciences and humanities. We assess the extent to which they are engendering paradigm shifts across multiple disciplines. We explore new forms of empiricism that declare “the end of theory,” the creation of data-driven rather than knowledge-driven science, and the development of digital humanities and computational social sciences that propose radically different ways to make sense of culture, history, economy and society. Students will critically engage the epistemological implications of this unfolding data revolution, and survey the rapid changes in research practices presently taking place. We review emerging epistemological positions, including social science research approaches that emphasize a more situated, reflexive and contextually nuanced epistemology. In addition to highly engaging and accessible readings, students also will meet guest lecturers throughout the course who are working with Big Data in innovative ways across a variety of applied settings to shape our futures. Learn how to meaningfully participate in this process – enroll now!
SOCI 395-004: Professor John Dale, MW 12:00-1:15p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/jdale
SOCI 395-005: RACE/GENDER/CLASS/SPORTS
This course employs a sociological perspective to interrogate the long, arduous, and challenging relationship that marginalized athletes face in their attempt to play individual and team sports in America. Using an intersectional framework, this course examines the experiences of African American athletes, women, sexual minorities and others at the high school, college and professional levels and reveals the ways in which race, class, and gender shape athletic opportunities and reinforce (or not) existing inequalities.
SOCI 395-005: Professor Earl Smith, T 4:30-7:10p
SOCI 395-006: POLICING BLACK BODIES
Policing Black Bodies interrogates the myriad ways in which Black Bodies are policed both literally and symbolically. Harnessing the theoretical lenses of intersectionality and color blind racism, this course provides students with a framework for connecting every kind of policing from the incarceration of more than a million black bodies on any given day in the United States to the exploitation of these Black bodies through prison industries, to the role that riots play as a form of organized protest, to the school to prison pipeline and the policing of both women’s bodies and trans bodies.
SOCI 395-006: Professor Angela Hattery, TR 3:00-4:15p
Faculty Bio: https://wmst.gmu.edu/people/ahattery
SOCI 395-007: FEMINIST APPROACH TO SOCIAL RESEARCH
This class will provide an introduction to feminist approaches to social research. Students will collect, analyze, and write-up research data as you examine many of the central methodological issues and questions raised by feminist scholars. These include feminist critiques of positivism, feminist standpoint theory, social action research models, and feminist engagements with ethical concerns in doing research with human subjects. We emphasize a learning-by-doing approach to prepare students to conduct research.
This course is designated as an RS level course and its development is being supported by OSCAR, Mason’s Students as Scholars Program (Oscar.gmu.edu). This means that you will not only be learning about feminist approaches to social research, but you will be doing original feminist research. You will design and conduct your own research project to answer your own research question and will share the results of your research in the Gender Research Conference as well as another scholarly venue.
SOCI 395-007: Professor Angela Hattery, T 4:30-7:10p
Faculty Bio: https://wmst.gmu.edu/people/ahattery
SOCI 412-002: CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Presents for analysis and discussion the significant theorists and themes in contemporary sociological theory. Designed to enhance student's skills in reading and analyzing primary texts and to encourage reflection on contemporary social reality. Fulfills writing intensive requirement.
Prerequisite: SOCI 311 or permission of instructor.
SOCI 412-002: Professor Joseph Scimecca, TR 3:00-4:15p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/jscimecc
SOCI 416-001: INTERNSHIP IN SOCIOLOGY
Intended to promote learning in application of sociological knowledge, and build skills in different work settings. Students work in approved setting as applied sociologists.
SOCI 416-001: Professor Dae Young Kim, TBA
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/dkio
SOCI 480-001: HONORS SEMINAR IN SOCIOLOGY I
Develop research proposals and an appropriate bibliography for honors thesis under the guidance of a sociology faculty member.
SOCI 480-001: Professor Dae Young Kim, TBA
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/dkio
SOCI 481-001: HONORS SEMINAR IN SOCIOLOGY II
Develop research proposals and an appropriate bibliography for honors thesis under the guidance of a sociology faculty member.
SOCI 481-001: Professor Dae Young Kim, TBA
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/dkio
SOCI 485-002: SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS/PRACTICE
This capstone experience class will provide an introduction to the practicalities of conducting original sociological research. Students will collect, analyze, and write-up research data to answer questions about the social world. This class will emphasize a learning-by-doing approach to prepare students to conduct research. This course is designated as an RS level course and its development is being supported by OSCAR, Mason’s Students as Scholars Program (oscar.gmu.edu). This means that students will be doing original sociological research. Students will design and conduct their own research project to answer their own research questions and will share the results of their research with the Sociology faculty at the end of the semester.
SOCI 485-001: Professor Elizangela J Storelli, M 1:30-4:10p
https://soan.gmu.edu/people/estorell
Graduate Courses*
SOCI 516-001: INTERNSHIP IN SOCIOLOGY*
Learning experience in the application of sociological knowledge and skills in different work settings. Students work in approved setting as applied sociologists.
SOCI 516-001: Professor Dae Young Kim, TBA
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/dkio
SOCI 614-001: SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE*
Just as we give little thought to the air we breathe, even though it sustains our physical being, we pay too little attention to the culture that helps shape—and is shaped by—our political, economic, and social being. Culture is centered around the deep meanings that give form to our collective lives. How does culture help ground politics, economics, and civic life; and how do they in turn help ground culture? Politics and economics are realms of compulsion; within limits of ecological constraint, culture is a realm of relative freedom. Cultural analysis cuts through to the root issues of freedom and necessity, existence and identity. Culture is of special relevance to power, economics, and civic life because it has the capacity to de-naturalize and re-envision categories of understanding them. The concept of culture is no less contested than culture itself. Does culture inhibit or enable agency? Is culture instrumental or expressive? Essential or constructed? Global or local? Repressive or emancipatory? How are the various cultural systems—religion, science, art, collective memory, popular culture, digital culture—related to each other? How are they related to structures of “rational” practice? Through readings, class discussions, and sharing the results of individual research and reflection, this course will engage those questions. Course requirements include reading seminal texts, class discussion of writing exercises based on those texts, and a five- to eight- page final paper.
SOCI 614-001: Professor Mark D Jacobs, T 1:30-4:10p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/mjacobs
SOCI 624-001: INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AGE/GLOBALIZATION*
More than 300 million people have been on the move globally in recent years. Push/pull factors, including demand for skilled and unskilled laborers, declining fertility rates in the global North as well economic, political, and environmental crises in the global South, are contributing to increased flows of people across national borders. As many advanced industrialized countries undergo significant demographic changes through immigration, they are not only confronted with the challenges of integrating new immigrants and their children but also negotiating the meanings of citizenship and national identity. From the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe to rising number of apprehensions and deportations in the United States to growing anti-immigrant sentiment and nativism in the global North, international migration is at the forefront of impassioned public debate and policy. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted nature of international migration, this course takes a more global and comparative approach to the study of migration.
This course has several objectives. It will help students to gain familiarity with theoretical, empirical, and policy-related issues pertaining to international migration. Second, we will consider case studies of immigrant communities and their adaptation patterns in different national contexts. Third, the course will strive to generate research topics on international migration for possible Master’s and doctoral theses. The class also takes a practical learning approach to methods, encouraging a variety of methodological approaches to the study of international migration.
SOCI 624-001: Professor Dae Young Kim, R 7:20 -10:00p
https://soan.gmu.edu/people/dkio
SOCI 633-001: WOMEN AND GLOBAL ISSUES*
Specialized inquiry of topics of contemporary sociological research and scholarship. Content varies. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different.
SOCI 633-001: Professor Yevette Richards Jordan, T 4:30 -7:10p
SOCI 633-002: FEMINIST RESEARCH PRACTICES*
This class will provide an introduction to feminist approaches to social research. Students will collect, analyze, and write-up research data as you examine many of the central methodological issues and questions raised by feminist scholars. These include feminist critiques of positivism, feminist standpoint theory, social action research models, and feminist engagements with ethical concerns in doing research with human subjects. We emphasize a learning-by-doing approach to prepare students to conduct research.
This course is designated as an RS level course and its development is being supported by OSCAR, Mason’s Students as Scholars Program (Oscar.gmu.edu). This means that you will not only be learning about feminist approaches to social research, but you will be doing original feminist research. You will design and conduct your own research project to answer your own research question and will share the results of your research in the Gender Research Conference as well as another scholarly venue.
SOCI 633-002: Professor Angela J Hattery, T 4:30 -7:10p
Faculty Bio: https://wmst.gmu.edu/people/ahattery
636-001: STATISTICAL REASONING*
Intermediate treatment of quantitative analytic techniques used in sociology. Topics include sampling, inference, hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, and bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. The course has three foci: 1) understanding how results are obtained and disseminated in academic and non-academic research; 2) learning to conduct quantitative analyses using statistical software (Stata); and 3) preparing students for advanced quantitative analysis courses in sociology and other disciplines.
SOCI 636-001: Professor Tyler Myroniuk, R 4:30-7:10p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/tmyroniu
SOCI 670-001: NEW MEDIA AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY*
In this class students will examine the Internet and other new forms of communication and information technology from a sociological perspective. This examination will take a particular focus on inequality and the manner in which technologies mitigate or exacerbate—transform or reproduce—existing and new forms of inequality. The semester will begin with a critical reading and discussion of The Internet and Social Inequalities (Witte and Mannon, 2010), particularly with an eye to theoretical and empirical sociological aspects of the relationship between technology and inequality. The second part of the semester will focus on Rainie and Wellman’s book, Networked, The New Social Operating System (2012), which focuses on digital social networks as an increasingly important organizing framework in contemporary society. The final third of the semester will emphasize the empirical study of such networks and the extent to which they challenge or recreate structures of inequality. Primary reading for this section will come from Hansen, Schneiderman, and Smith, Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World (2011). Students will be evaluated on their participation in class discussion, including co-leading a discussion segment in the final third of the semester. Students will also be evaluated on a written project with an oral class presentation. The project/presentation may be of several types including but not limited to: 1) a literature review using new sources to engage or elaborate upon the arguments raised in the readings, 2) an empirical paper using data from the Pew Internet & American Life project to consider particular aspects of the relationship between the Internet (or related technologies) and inequality, 3) an empirical study of digital social networks using NodeXL. These projects should be in-depth and specific enough so that they could serve as the basis for a Master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation proposal.
SOCI 670-001: Professor James Witte, W 7:20 -10:00p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/jwitte
SOCI 712-002: CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY*
This seminar presents for analysis and discussion some of the key texts, central themes and epistemological approaches in contemporary social theory. Topics include the problems of democracy and the public sphere, work and social reproduction in an age of precarity, social inequality and misrecognition, biopolitics, and the rise of network society, to name a few. The course also investigates and problematizes sociological knowledge in its relationship to its potential audiences, as well as to social actors directly engaged in addressing the issues it identifies and thematizes. Critical, feminist and southern epistemologies enlarge the range of possible reflection on the traditions of disciplinary thinking.
SOCI 712-001: Professor Nancy W Hanrahan, W 4:30-7:10p
Faculty Bio: http://soan.gmu.edu/people/nhanraha
SOCI 803-001: INSTITUTIONS AND INEQUALITY*
This is a core course in the Sociology Ph.D. program for graduate students who are concentrating their area of study in “Institutions and Inequality.” The concept of an “institution” is central to the discipline. Yet, it has been so diversely (under)specified, both within Sociology and other disciplines, that it remains notoriously ambiguous. This condition presents students of institutions with both challenges and opportunities for empirical research and theoretical elaboration. In this course, we will examine theories of, and empirical research on, institutional organization, process, and practice (i.e., aspects of social order and reproduction), as well as emergence, diffusion, isomorphism, change, and collapse (or de-institutionalization).
Institutional theories (and the various “institutionalisms” they promote) differently direct our attention to the political, economic, cultural, and organizational contexts that shape social life. As we examine these institutionally relevant contexts, we also will situate institutional analysis within related studies of key sociological concepts: inequality; social structure; agency (and social power); the social “self;” culture; collective memory; consciousness and imagination, social organizations; social space; and social networks; among others. Throughout the course, we will assess a wide array of research on particular social institutions – including polity/states, economy/markets, society/civil society, corporations, law, social movements, families, education/universities, religion, science, professions, global financial institutions, (I)NGOs, human rights – and the impact that globalization (and attendant issues of temporality and spatiality) has had on many of these institutions (and vice-versa). Our readings deliberately include wide-ranging methods and strategies of research – quantitative, qualitative, critical, comparative, and historical – the scope of which span the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of analysis, and explore local, national, transnational, and global scales of action and institutional reach. Careful attention to these empirical works (including their research designs and strategies) will afford us the opportunity to, in turn, critically engage, and/or productively elaborate, the institutional theories we have been discussing – and hopefully spawn interesting and innovative ideas for your own research, or other projects.
SOCI 803-001: Professor John Dale, M 4:30-7:10p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/jdale
SOCI 850-001: SOCIOLOGY OF DEVLOPMENT*
Sociology of Development as a disciplinary field rose to prominence after World War II as an integral part of a developmental regime that aimed at the reconstruction of societies torn by the misery of war and the impact of colonization. The Washington Consensus and its aftermath diminished the significance of this field, while critical perspectives such as the world systems theory were ill-equipped to analyze the transnational connections forged by neoliberal globalization. There is a renewed interest in the sociology of development currently, prompted by the numerous movements and counter-movements that constitute globalization and the failure of the market interventions to “develop” societies. The crystallization of this trend was the establishment of a Sociology of Development section of the American Sociological Association in 2011. In this course, we will examine this re-emergence of a Sociology of Development in the twenty-first century. What is the subject matter of this disciplinary area and how well can it represent the myriad of issues at work in the global South? How effectively can it survive/counter the critiques, specifically from the standpoint of the global South that has plagued development studies in general? What possibilities does it offer to sociologists to pose new questions that stand at the intersection of globalization, political economy, political sociology and development? This class is a must for those graduate students interested in societal transformations in the global South.
SOCI 857-001: Professor Manjusha Sasidharan Nair, T 4:30-7:10p
Faculty Bio: https://soan.gmu.edu/people/mnair4
* These are graduate courses, but advanced undergraduates may enroll with the permission of the instructor. Please pick up a “Graduate Course for Undergraduate Credit” form on the “For Students” bulletin board outside of Robinson B310 and have it signed by the professor and Dr. Amy Best, the Chair, before taking it to the Registrar’s Office to enroll in the course. (You can arrange for Dr. Best’s signature through Farhana Islam in Robinson B305.) The form can also be found at: http://registrar.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/GCUC.pdf.
November 03, 2017
