See Fall 2012 Courses here

SOCI 001-01: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Professor Sarah Stiles
MW 8:00am – 9:15am
Healy 104

Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how people interact within these contexts. (American Sociological Association, 2005)

In this course students will learn the basics of sociology through a variety of readings and film clips and "do" sociology with regular data workshops where they will test theories and recognize the social construction we all experience. By the end of the semester, students will be able to understand and explain:

Basic concepts, generalizations, theories, and methods used in the study of sociology;
The sociological focus and the influence the study of sociology has on identifying, explaining, and solving (or causing) social policy issues; and
How sociology is used in everyday life to explain the social behavior of people, and even predict what they will do.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 001-02: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Professor Sarah Stiles
MW 11:00am – 12:15pm
Car Barn 204

(See course description for SOCI 001-01)

SOCI 001-03: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Professor Howard Caro-Lopez
MW 9:30am – 10:45am
Car Barn 315

This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to the field of sociology. Through a broad overview of the discipline including an introduction to social theory, research methods and the understanding of key sociological concepts and perspectives, students will become familiar with how sociologists view society and social behavior. Sociology lends itself to the use of a ‘sociological imagination’ to understand the relationship between our everyday experiences and larger social phenomena. Students are therefore expected to participate in class discussions and engage in critical thought on the social world to understand and develop their sociological imagination. Students will also be expected to apply the concepts examined during the course to interpret their everyday experiences and connect them the social world. Coursework will consist of lectures, discussions, active class participation and a few exams.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 001-04: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Professor Howard Caro-Lopez
TR 11:00am – 12:15am
Car Barn 202

(See course description for SOCI 001-03)

SOCI 001-05: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Professor Guillermo Cantor
TR 6:30pm – 7:45pm
Car Barn 201

In this course, we will examine some of the major questions that guide sociological analysis. Students will be introduced to major sociological theories, different strategies for investigating social phenomena, and some of the controversial issues that are the focus of contemporary sociological discussion. Some of the topics to be explored include general sociological matters such as deviance, culture, and socialization; social inequalities and their interrelations with class, race, and gender; and major social institutions such as the family, religions, educational systems, and work.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 022-01: SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Professor Arthur Piszczatowski
TR 8:00am – 9:15am
Car Barn 204

Social Problems will address the inefficiencies in our modern societies to address the massive changes taking place in inequality, social organization and globalization. The class will address the creation of the virtual society and its impact on social organization, the role of the corporation and its impact on structures of inequality, and the institutions of a nation state diminishing in significance but humanity at the cusp of planning and organization from the citizen’s perspective. In addition, we will engage in research and analysis of traditional social problems and cases.

SOCI 124-01: SOCIOLOGY OF HIP-HOP: JAY-Z
Professor Michael Eric Dyson
MW 8:00am – 9:15pm
ICC 115

SOCI 131-01: POPULATION DYNAMICS
Professor Laurie Brooks
TR 12:30pm – 1:45pm
Car Barn 202

Students enrolled in Population Dynamics will become familiar with prevailing levels of fertility, mortality, marriage, and migration in each of the world's major regions; they will also learn what processes of change resulted in current levels. In addition, the course introduces multiple issues in the complex relationship between population dynamics and economic development.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 136-01: RELIGION AND SOCIETY
Professor Jose Casanova
MW 12:30pm – 1:45pm
Car Barn 204

The course will offer a comprehensive introduction to the sociology of religion. Thematically, the course will be divided into three parts. The first section will examine the two main foundations of the sociology of religion in the work of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The second section will offer a critical examination of the secularization debates which have raged within the sociology of religion since the 1960’s, paying special attention to the quarrels between the European and the American paradigms. The final section will focus on sociological studies of religion in America. We will look at “private and public religions”, at debates concerning the “wall of separation” and American “civil religion,” at the transformations of Evangelical Protestantism and the historical incorporation of Catholicism and Judaism as American religions, and at the ongoing incorporation of immigrant religions from all over the world. There will be a possibility of doing ethnographic field-work and community-based research on immigrant religious congregations in Washington D.C.

SOCI 140-01: SOCIAL INEQUALITY
Professor William McDonald
TR 2:00pm – 3:15pm
Car Barn 204

The goals of this course are to critically examine the answers given to the following questions: Why do some people have more of the good things in life than others? Why are the poor poor? How did inequality in society begin? What does inequality look like in America? Are we a classless society? How do you recognize social class? How differently do people of different social classes experience and react to the world? What are your chances of moving up or down in the class order? Is there a ruling class in America? Is there a new class war underway in America? Do the Soviets have more or less inequality than we have? How does the international economic order affect inequality in the third world?

SOCI 144-01: RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS
Professor Leslie Hinkson
MW 9:30am – 10:45am
Car Barn 203

SOCI 145-01: FAMILY AND SOCIETY
Professor Margaret Hall
WF 9:30am – 10:45am
ICC 115

This course examines “the family” as complex sets of ideologies and social practices. We look at American families in historical perspectives, and explore cross-cultural differences in family forms. Particular attention is paid to issues such as diversity in mate selection, love, sexuality, singlehood, marriage, divorce, parenting, conflict resolution, and violence.
Families are also considered as a basic social institution, and as a widely accepted means of regulating gender relations, sexual behavior, and child care responsibilities. Some cultural ideals and social realities of family relationships and marriages are studied, as well as social class and race/ethnic group variations in families and family life cycle changes.
We will view families as critical aspects of broad social changes. What tensions exist between families and other social institutions: the economy, education, religion, and political system? Do families make way for innovations in society, or do they act largely as conservative forces? What new kinds of families have emerged? Do modern alternative families enable their members to survive, adapt, and thrive more successfully than traditional families?
Small group projects (see detailed description below) may include fieldwork in Washington D.C. Local community organizations are possible sites for research on particular aspects of family and community relations, as well as library materials.
Students are required to bring to class some historical and/or cross-cultural data on families and society. These data will be used with lectures and group projects.

SOCI 154-01: SOCIOLOGY OF THE 1 PERCENT
Professor Peter W. Cookson
WF 11:00am – 12:15pm
Walsh 390

Hardly a day passes when the 1 percent is not in the news arousing political and moral passions. Today, less than 1 percent of Americans own nearly 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. The wealthiest 400 Americans are worth roughly $1.37 trillion. This amazing concentration of wealth at the top has been accompanied by a falling middle class and a growing number of Americans living in poverty.
All of us have strong feelings about social justice and fairness and it is easy to grasp at simple solutions to complex problems. In this course, however, we move beyond moral and political posturing by examining the sociology of the 1 percent in order to understand the long-term significance of this concentration of wealth, its effect on our commonweal, and our common destiny as a people.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 148-01: BARACK OBAMA AND RACE
Professor Michael Dyson
M 11:00 am - 1:30 pm
Car Barn 203

This course will examine the social significance, political implications, cultural meanings and racial consequences of the rise, election and governing of President Barack Obama. We will examine the existential and social conditions in which Obama emerged as a figure in American life. We will also probe the political dimensions of Obama’s rise as a politician and his election and governance as president. We will also engage the cultural meanings of Obama’s political journey and personal sojourn, and explore their impact on the broader American society. Finally we will most especially grapple with the contested racial meanings and the racial consequences of Obama’s presence in American social and political life.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 161-01: GENDER ROLES
Professor Kathleen Guidroz
TR 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm
Walsh 490

This is an exciting course as we explore controversial matters deeply embedded problems in the social construction of gender! You will gain an intellectual overview of the main issues and topics relevant to the understanding gender, gender roles, and why gender stratification is a key aspect of the study of societies. This course will explore key theoretical perspectives in regards to gender and provide a framework for interpreting the power relations between men and women in the United States. During the class we will explore a plethora of gender issues and examine sociological perspectives on personal and public relations between and among women and men, with historical cross-cultural comparisons. These include institutionalized gender arrangements, sexuality, family, media, communication, education, careers, housework, parenting, violence, crime, politics, religion, sport. You should gain a firm understanding of the complexities in gender relations within society that foster inequality as well as those that support equalizing trends. We will examine feminist and masculinist social movements and patterns of feminist and patriarchal values.
You will have the opportunity to develop an accurate picture of the current trends and debates in regards to gender and the implication of that for social policy. The benefits of this course are wide-ranging. Not only will you gain a sociological understanding of gender, but also engage in critical thinking and become more aware of the social forces that shape your orientation and view of the world!

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 161-02: GENDER ROLES
Professor Kathleen Guidroz
TR 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm
Car Barn 209

(See course description from SOCI 161-01)

SOCI 164-01: JAPANESE SOCIETY
Professor Anne Imamura
W 6:30pm – 9:00pm
White Gravenor 311

This course examines major principles of social organization in Japan and contrasts them with the United States. The course begins with an overview of social structure, norms and values then focuses more closely on family, gender, education, community, current social problems and social change. The purpose is to enable the student to better understand Japanese society through a process of comparative analysis.

SOCI 168-01: CBL: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: LEADING SOCIAL CHANGE
Professor Sarah Stiles
TR 3:30pm – 4:45pm, White-Gravenor 206
W 3:30pm – 6:15pm, Car Barn 301

In this course we will examine the rise of social entrepreneurship and the social movement it has come to represent in contemporary society as people across the globe achieve new ways to effect positive social change. The course will cover examples of social entrepreneurship and the qualities of the social entrepreneur as well as what makes a successful organization. On Tuesdays we discuss the reading -- theory and case studies, on Thursdays students meet a social entrepreneur or other expert in the field and have the opportunity for in depth conversation. Most importantly, students form small groups and partner with an organization to work on a socially entrepreneurial project that will further the organization’s mission of social improvement.

Credits: 4
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 173-01: FOOD, FARMS, & SOCIETY
Professor Kathleen Guidroz
MW 5:00pm – 6:15 pm
Car Barn 205

Food, its production and consumption, is at the very core of our existence and inherently cultural, political and social. It is amongst our biggest industries; our most frequently indulged pleasure; a central ingredient in the social construction of identity and community; and also the object of major concern for disease, the environment, and world hunger.
This stimulating course will give you an intellectual overview of the main issues and topics relevant to studying the cultural, political, economic and social forces that shape our social appetite. Our scholarly journey through the world of food will explore methodologies and theories applicable to the analysis of food as we critically examine the following questions:
How can food have different meanings and uses for different people? How do such factors as gender, ethnicity, class, religious beliefs, the media, and corporate capitalism affect the foods we choose to eat (and those we choose to avoid) and the manner in which we consume them?
How does food function both to foster community feeling and drive wedges among people? What are some prevailing academic theories that help us identify and understand more nuanced meanings of food?

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 196-01: COMPARATIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT
Professor William Daddio
MW 3:30pm – 4:45pm
Reiss 112

The purpose of this course is to present and selected law enforcement systems nation-states and international police organizations develop and use to control crime and criminals within and across national borders. The course will use a global comparative approach to the law enforcement systems countries develop to counter crime and its impact. Many nation-states have standardized their laws, a globalization to some extent. Law enforcement systems still vary greatly. Some differences are due to the system of law they enforce, but most differences are cultural. Those differences cause problems in dealing with global crime issues. Students will learn about the different law enforcement systems to better appreciate possible outcomes in countering transnational crime. The course topics will include:
Discussion of the types of legal systems: common law, civil law, religious law, customary law
Present law enforcement systems from select countries including U.S., France, Saudi Arabia, and the United Nations
Compare the different law enforcement systems
Discuss trends for the future

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 197-01: TRANSNATIONAL CRIME
Professor William Daddio
MW 5:00pm – 6:15pm
Reiss 112

This course focuses on transnational crime from a sociology and criminology perspective. Sociology is the study of human social interaction and structure in groups. Sociologists examine systematically the ways people behave and arrange themselves in groups. Why people behave and organize the ways they do. By systematically observing and analyzing the group interactions and the group structures, sociologists can describe, explain, and interpret the group behavior patterns, and explain the influences of the social structure on that behavior. Sociology’s structure/functional, interaction, and critical theories have been very useful in understanding social issues, and have been very influential in deciding social policy issues: sometimes beneficially, sometimes not so well.

The purpose of this course is to present current transnational crime behavior and explain national law enforcement agencies and international police organizations response to control transnational crime. The course will discuss: human trafficking, money laundering, trafficking in illegal items (drugs, weapons, antiquities, flora and fauna, body parts), and other transnational crimes. All definitions of crimes are social constructs, and are severely influenced by cultural and social forces. Some countries have similar laws, but many do not. In one country a deviant behavior is labeled a crime, and in another country the behavior is legal. One country’s criminal may be another country’s law-abiding citizen. Different crimes and different priorities compound the responds to transnational crime control. Those differences cause problems in dealing with global crime issues. The course objectives are:

• Present current transnational crime operations
• Explain the role of international organizations and crime control
• Analyze the issue in controlling transnational crime
• Present the trends in transnational crime and control

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 201-01: METHODS OF SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Professor Leslie Hinkson
MW 12:30pm – 1:45pm
Car Barn 203

SOCI 202-01: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Professor Becky Hsu
MW 8:00am – 9:15am
Walsh 391

This course is an introduction to sociological theory, encompassing both the “classical” sociological works of Durkheim, Marx, Simmel, and Weber, who merged empirical and normative interests in their arguments about social change during the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as contemporary theoretical developments.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Sociology Majors and Minors only

SOCI 205-01: SOCIAL JUSTICE ANALYSIS: THEORY AND PRACTICE
Professor C. Margaret Hall
WF 8:00am – 9:15am
ICC 105

This 4-credit course is required for the Sociology Majors’ Concentration in Social Justice. It is also open to students as an elective, with the prerequisite of Introduction to Sociology (SOCI 001).
Community-based learning, a course-based pedagogy, involves student work with disadvantaged and underserved individuals or groups that is structured to meet community-defined needs.
“CBL: Social Justice Analysis: Theory and Practice” is a synthesis of social theories which describe/explain social justice, and community work that applies principles of social justice to improve the common good. Required readings are a foundation for class lectures and discussions, as well as the specific social justice community contributions made by students during the semester.
Students are expected to complete four hours of community work (not including travel time) in each of ten weeks during the Spring Semester. They will coordinate their efforts with staff from the GU Center for Social Justice, so that they further develop ongoing partnerships with DC community agencies.

SOCI 209-01: THE CITY/URBAN STUDIES
Professor Brian McCabe
MW 9:30 am – 10:45 am
Walsh 390

This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of cities and urban life. Cities are socially and politically contested spaces, and researchers have sought for more than a century to understand the process of urban development and the consequence of urban life. Some argue that cities represent the crowning achievement of modernity; others suggest that cities are isolating and alienating, fostering anomie, rather than social cohesion. The course integrates work by urban planners, architects, political scientists, geographers and sociologists to provide a comprehensive set of tools to understand and analyze modern urban life. It begins with an analysis of the dynamics of capitalist urbanization in the early twentieth century and examines the widespread suburbanization that followed the Second World War. It investigates the rise of the urban ghetto in the post-War city and the subsequent efforts to reimagine the American urban landscape. Although the course focuses primarily on the United States, we will also discuss the rise of global cities, mega-cities and slums in the Global South.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None

SOCI 220-01: CBL: GLOBAL INEQUALITIES/SOCIAL JUSTICE
Professor Becky Hsu
TR 8:00am – 9:15am
Car Barn 302A

Global inequalities refer to the systematic differences in the distribution of socially valued attributes such as education, income, information, health, and influence between people living in different areas of the globe. We will begin by discussing the systemic causes of global inequalities. Then, for the bulk of the course, we will read on topics centered on manifestations of inequality and approaches to addressing them: modern slavery, health disparities, sex trafficking, labor and sweatshops, poverty, human rights, and disaster relief. Our readings will be about what it feels like to experience these inequalities as well as analyses of current efforts to alleviate the inequalities. At the same time, each student will be interning at an organization seeking to address global inequalities.

SOCI 257-01: BRAZILIAN SOCIETY
Professor Timothy Wickham-Crowley
TR 2:00pm – 3:15pm
Walsh 391

This course is intended to provide a general, sociological approach to the cultural and social structures of contemporary Brazil. Brazil merits special sociological study since it is (by far) the largest “Catholic” nation in the world. Its population (5th largest on earth) exhibits a very rich regional and ethnic diversity, the latter encompassing various European, African, indigenous, and Asian peoples. It is also the largest speaking any of the Romance languages (here Portuguese). Its income and wealth distributions reach (or nearly so) the very highest levels of inequality found in the world, including huge disparities among the racial groups. And it has one of the largest economies in the world.
We will consider Brazil via a number of issues and topics familiar to anyone who has taken an introductory sociology course, but obviously with a different national focus. After initial brief coverage of Brazil’s geography and history, we will consider the following Brazilian topics: population and patterns of demographic change, including family planning; cultural institutions such as the family (with attention to norms and ethnic intermarriage patterns), religions (including the African-derived and the Protestant), the economy (including foreign influences and recent restructuring), politics (including recent democratization and related matters); education and its inequalities; the mass media; sports; cultural norms and values, and deviance from those norms; patterns of crime and of criminal justice. In considering social organization, we will consider patterns of face-to-face social relationships (including networks and clientelism) and of regional and urban-rural residence, after which we will study patterns of inequality--including a good deal of attention to class and mobility, to gender, and to racial & ethnic relations (especially the last). Finally we will consider Brazilian movements for social and political change.

SOCI 258-01: INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN LATIN AMERICA
Professor Howard Caro-Lopez
MW 3:30pm – 4:45pm
Walsh 490

The Spanish speaking countries of the Americas, along with Brazil, that make up the Latin American region constitute a historically dynamic set of communities. From the emergence of large-scale, organized pre-Columbian societies, to being the first region of the world to face foreign colonization, to becoming among the first independent republics in the world, Latin America has played a pivotal role in world history. Yet despite its proximity to and parallel historical development alongside the United States, we have and continue to observe profound differences in human development and social inequality vis-à-vis the United States- inequalities that not only affect the quality of life of hundreds of millions of people, but whose impact is also felt in the U.S. How can we understand why issues such as poverty, wide income inequality and social exclusion are endemic to many parts of Latin America? Why these problems are more profound in Latin America than in the United States and Europe, despite an abundance of natural resources and human capital and a long history of political independence? What possibilities exist for social change that will alleviate or eliminate these different forms of inequality in the region?
This course seeks to provide a series of perspectives that attempt to understand the nature and reasons Latin American countries continue to cope with different and profound forms of social inequality, a central concept of sociological inquiry. The course will focus on both the region as a whole, as well as individual countries, in order to examine the different forms of inequality that affect the people of Latin America and the social problems that result from these different forms of inequality. At the regional level we will look at the issues of economic development and democratization, and the extent to which colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, warfare and population dynamics have generally led to significant social exclusion. Country-level studies will focus on the different forms of social inequality that exist in the region, including class, gender and racial disparities that exacerbate social exclusion limit the region’s human development. Finally the course will examine what efforts are made by governments, civil society groups and popular movements to address these different forms of social inequality throughout the region.

SOCI 304-01: SOCIOLOGY SENIOR SEMINAR
Professor William McDonald
TR 9:30am – 10:45am
New South M34C

The Senior Seminar is a “capstone” experience in which each senior sociology major (here or in SOCI 438) devotes an entire semester to a research project of one’s own choice and produce a high quality research paper (some people call a “thesis”). Since each thesis topic varies from the next, the course cannot be described to you via its substantive contents. We will instead focus on the “how’s” of getting to that end rather than the “what’s” of your own thesis topics.

And yet the course is not just about writing a thesis. Rather, it is a review and synthesis of much of the Sociological theory and methodology that you have learned in earlier courses. The pedagogy of this course is about relearning, reviewing and extending the knowledge and analytic skills that you have already begun to develop. It is not about a student learning a new subject area not studied previously; indeed, any topic that you pursue, research, and write up for this course must be an extension of a subject matter you have formally studied in one or more previous courses.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Sociology Majors only

SOCI 305-01: CBL: SOCIOLOGY SENIOR SEMINAR
Professor Brian McCabe
MW 11:00am – 12:15pm
Walsh 491A

The community-based learning senior seminar is intended for Sociology majors completing the concentration in Social Justice Analysis. It focuses on both research and writing skills, enabling students to complete their senior thesis over the course of the semester. The course is run as a workshop, with students sharing drafts of their writing each week. Their colleagues will be invited to offer constructive criticism, with the goal of improving our skills as writers, researchers and thinkers. As the capstone course for the Social Justice Analysis concentration, this senior seminar is an opportunity for students to develop a research question, collect original data, and compose a final thesis. The readings are intended to guide the research process as both “how to” guides and useful exemplars of good research.