THE SOCIAL WORLD

Identification of the distinctive elements of sociological perspectives on society. Readings confront classical and contemporary approaches with key social issues that include power and authority, culture and communication, poverty and discrimination, social change, and popular uses of sociological concepts.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Gil Eyal
  CULPA: 15 h-index: 26 Info
• 3 points

THE SOCIAL WORLD - DISC

• W 2:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• F 9:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• R 2:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• R 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• R 3:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• T 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
• W 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Taylor B Alarcon
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• Instructor: Flavien Ganter
  h-index: 2 Info
• Instructor: Anna K Thieser
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• Instructor: Timothy J Ittner
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• Instructor: Dominic T Walker
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• Instructor: Arnela Colic
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• Instructor: Samaya Mansour
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• 0 points

METHODS FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH

Prerequisites: SOCI UN1000 The Social World or Instructor Permission Required for all Sociology majors. Introductory course in social scientific research methods. Provides a general overview of the ways sociologists collect information about social phenomena, focusing on how to collect data that are reliable and applicable to our research questions.

• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Gerard Torrats-Espinosa
  h-index: 6 Info
• 4 points

METHODS SOCIAL RESEARCH-DISC

Prerequisites: SOCI UN1000

Discussion section for SOCI UN3010: METHODS FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH

• M 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
• M 11:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Ixchel T Bosworth
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• Instructor: Katerine S Perez
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• 0 points

SOCIOLOGY OF WORK & GENDER

This course examines gender as a flexible but persistent boundary that continues to organize our work lives and our home lives, as well as the relationship between the two spheres. We will explore the ways in which gender affects how work is structured; the relationship between work and home; the household as a place of paid (and unpaid) labor; and how changes in the global economy affect gender and work identities.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 Info
• 3 points

GENDER AND PUBLIC HEALTH: DISPARITIES,

Gender and Public Health

This seminar provides an intensive introduction to critical thinking about gender in relation to public health. We begin with an introduction to social scientific approaches to thinking about gender in relation to health, as well as an introduction to public health as a field, and then examine diverse areas in which gendered relations of power – primarily between men and women, but also between cis- and queer individuals – shape health behaviors and health outcomes. Over the course of the semester, we engage with multiple examples of how gendered social processes, in combination with other dimensions of social stratification, shape health at the population level. Through reading, discussion, and critical analysis, the overarching goal is to help students learn to think about gender – and, by extension, about any form of social stratification – in relation to the health of populations, as opposed to individuals.We also examine how public health as a field is itself a domain in which gender is reproduced or contested.

 

Given the enormous range of outcomes and disparities on which such a class might focus, it is impossible to examine every possible gendered pattern of population health. We will focus on four (sometimes overlapping) broad areas of work in public health: child survival, sexual and reproductive health, violence, and substance use.

 

Aspiring clinicians should note that
our focus is not on gender in the context of health care
;
although we do touch on health care and gender at points over the course of the semester, our overall orientation is towards health behaviors and the social determinants of health.

• W 8:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer S Hirsch
  Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

The Politics of Work

In this class we will examine the politics, organization, and experience of work. In the first three weeks we will get our bearings and consider some basic (but difficult!) questions about work, including: What counts as work and who counts as a worker? How important are our jobs to our survival in the world, and what makes for a good or bad job? In this section you will start thinking about and analyzing your own work experiences. In weeks four and five we will read what sociology’s founders had to say about work, and consider some of the important shifts to work that accompanied industrialization. Then we will turn to 20th century transformations, including the rise of the service economy and worker-customer relations, changes in forms of managerial control and worker responses to these changes, globalization, and the proliferation of precarious work. Finally, we will turn to examining gender, class and race in labor markets and on the job, paid and unpaid reproductive labor, the construction of selves at work, and the job of fashion modeling. Throughout the course we will examine how the sociology of work is bound up with other key institutions including gender, race, class, and the family.

• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 Info
• 4 points

DEVIANCE & SOCIAL CONTROL

In this seminar. we will trace the historic shifts in causal theories of deviance and their significance for the societal response. The readings are classics of social research that have been of great historical impact. They range from the early focus on individual pathologies to sociological explanations, the most recent being attempts to understand deviance as a product of organization factors that result in harmful outcomes. Examples are Katrina, the 2008 financial crisis, and school shootings.

• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Diane Vaughan
  CULPA: 6 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Sociology of Human Rights

SOCIOLOGY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Sociology came to the study of human rights much later than law, philosophy, or political science. In this course, you’ll learn (1) what constitutes a sociology of human rights and (2) what sociology, its classics, and its diverse methods bring to the empirical study and theory of human rights. We’ll explore the history, social institutions and laws, ideas, practices, and theories of human rights. We’ll become familiar with the social actors, social structures, and relationships involved in practices such as violation, claims-making, advocacy, and protection. We’ll consider how social, cultural, political, and economic forces affect human rights issues. We’ll learn about the questions sociologists ask, starting with the most basic (but far from simple) question, “what is a human right?” We’ll tackle key debates in the field, considering – for instance – whether human rights are universal and how human rights relate to cultural norms/values, national sovereignty, and national security. Finally, we’ll apply the concepts we’ve learned to a wide range of issues (ex: how racial, ethnic, gender, and other social inequalities relate to human rights), rights (ex: LGBTQ rights, the rights of laborers, the rights of refugees), and cases (ex: enslavement, the separation of children from their families, circumcision, sterilization, the use of torture). We’ll consider human rights cases in the United States and across the globe, and how events and actions in one place relate to human rights violations in another.

• F 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Rosemary McGunnigle-Gonzales
  Info
• 4 points

SEMINAR - PROBLEMS OF LAW & SOCIETY

SEM-PROBLEMS OF LAW & SOC

This course addresses basic contemporary social issues from several angles of vision: from the perspective of scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, and judges. Through the use of case studies, students will examine the nature of theories, evidence, facts, proof, and argument as found in the work of scientists and scholars who have engaged the substantive issues presented in the course.

• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Jonathan Cole
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 34 Info
• 4 points

The News: The Profession of Journalism G

The News: Journalism Digi

This course examines the profession of journalism in modern society.. The social role of the Press has changed with the advent of digital technologies and the democratization of the production, distribution and consumption of authoritative information. The course looks closely at the practice of newsmaking by examining the people and organizations who interact with one another to create and share news content. Newsmaking is viewed as meaningful collective interaction—that is, a behavior that is the sum of the engagement of multiple social actors, each of whom is motivated by assumptions, norms, and aspirations regarding the value of information and the role of the Press in society.

Themes for the course include: (1) how journalists think and work (2) the ways that digital technologies has challenged the Qield of professional journalism and redeQined the role of the “journalist” and “reporter” (3) the evolution of journalism since the Industrial Revolution, with a particular focus on social media and digital transmission of news content (4) the social assumptions and infrastructure that lies behind modern newsmaking (5) the conQlicts, disruptions and tensions that emerge in social organization when new and/or competing technologies are introduced. Substantive topics include, “fake news,” “misinformation,” the challenges of Qirst-hand reporting, the newsroom as an ecosystem, and the rise of social media.

Students will read a variety of texts, including: historical studies of journalism: accounts and memoirs of professional journalists; scientiQic research examining the impact of modern digital media; and news articles and contemporary forms of reportage (tweets, podcasts, etc.).

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Sudhir A Venkatesh
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SOCIAL&POLIT DEVELOPMENT IN CONTEMP CHIN

• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Yao Lu
  h-index: 25 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR

Prerequisites: required methods and theory courses for the major, and the instructors permission. Students wishing to qualify for departmental honors must take W3996y. Students carry out individual research projects and write a senior thesis under the supervision of the instructor and with class discussion. Written and oral progress reports.

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: James Chu
  h-index: 18 Info
• 3-4 points

INDIVIDUAL STUDY I

Prerequisites: open only to qualified majors in the department; the director of undergraduate studies permission is required. An opportunity for research under the direction of an individual faculty member. Students intending to write a year-long senior thesis should plan to register for C3996 in the spring semester of their senior year and are strongly advised to consult the undergraduate studies as they plan their programs.

• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• Instructor: Tey Meadow
  h-index: 8 Info
• Instructor: Jonathan Cole
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 34 Info
• 1-6 points

WORKSHP ON WEALTH & INEQUALITY

This Workshop is linked to the Workshop on Wealth - Inequality Meetings. This is meant for graduate students, however, if you are an advanced undergraduate student you can email the professor for permission to enroll.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Marissa Thompson
  Info
• 1 points

EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY

The goal of the course is to introduce students to foundational texts, theories, and research in the field of sociology of education. In particular, we will focus on the role of schooling in social stratification and social reproduction in the United States.

 

This course is organized by broad topic and theme. We will begin with a discussion of the purpose of schooling before moving into a discussion of some theoretical perspectives on the role of schooling in our society. Next, we will discuss inequality in schooling across multiple socio-demographic categories, including social class, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and religion (in addition to inequality at the intersection of multiple social categories). By the end of this course, you should have a strong foundation in research on education’s role in society.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Marissa Thompson
  Info
• 3 points

THE SOCIOLOGY OF PUNISHMENT

This graduate seminar mixes sociological and historical accounts in order to explore thesocial determinants and consequences of the U.S. criminal justice system. The class casts awide net – exploring classical texts as well as contemporary scholarship from a range ofsociological traditions. We begin by discussing classical texts in order to understand the theoretical traditions thatunderlie the most interesting contemporary work on the sociology of punishment. Buildingon the work of Marxist criminologists like Rusche and Kirchheimer, we explore therelationship between the U.S. criminal justice system and the market. To what extent can weunderstand the penal field as autonomous from economic relationships? To what extent doeconomic forces or logics determine criminological thinking and practice? Building onDurkheim, we explore how punishment is both reflective of social values and constitutive ofsocial solidarity, and investigate the symbolic consequences (intended and unintended) ofcontemporary punishment regimes. Building on readings from Foucault, we explorepunishment and its relationship to the emergence of new forms of bureaucratic anddisciplinary power. Finally, with Goffman, we explore the interactive context of the prisonas relatively autonomous from the external forces that bring it into being. With the classical theorists behind us, we turn to a history of the present. What is the age atwhich we are living today? What are the economic, political, and symbolic causes andconsequences of mass incarceration? To what extent can we understand mass incarceration,and more recent reform efforts, as reflective or constitutive of new forms of power incontemporary society?Finally, we conclude by asking what the future might hold. After four decades of explosivegrowth, the U.S. incarceration rate has been declining slowly for the last several years. Crimerates have declined steadily for the last quarter century. At the same time, Black LivesMatter has put renewed focus on the ways in which the state continues to exert violence inpoor communities of color. How should we understand the current period of reform. What are its social and political possibilities and limitations? What would a just justice systemeven entail?

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 points

Israel and the Palestinians

The seminar will examine the main political, economic, and social processes that have been shaping contemporary Israel. The underlying assumption in this seminar is that much of these processes have been shaped by the 100-year Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict. The first part of the course will accordingly focus on the historical background informing the conflict and leading to the Palestinian refugee problem and establishment of a Jewish, but not Palestinian, state in 1948.  The second part of the seminar focuses on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (and Gaza) and the settlement project, as well as on USA's role and its impact on the conflict, the occupation, and Israel. These topics did not get much academic attention until recently, but as researchers began to realize that the Occupation and the West Bank settlements are among the most permanent institutions in Israel, they have come under the scrutiny of academic research. 

The third part the seminar will concentrate on the development of the conflict after the establishment of Israel and its effects on sociological processes and institutions in contemporary Israel.  Analyzing patterns of continuity and change in the past seven decades, we will discuss immigration and emigration patterns, as well as issue relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and politics, and the Israeli military.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Yinon Cohen
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 33 Info
• 4 points

FREEDOM:PERSONAL, POL

Course description:
 The concept of freedom is analytically complex and has
a long and varied intellectual history. This course will focus on the
concept as it emerged in the modern period (roughly since the seventeenth
century in Europe) and focus in particular on three aspects of freedom.
Though the primary interest of the seminar will be on political and
academic freedom, it will be useful to begin with a very brief discussion
of the most abstract dimension of freedom by asking what notion of freedom
might individual human subjects be said to possess given the determinism
that seems to be everywhere indicated by the comprehensive explanatory
power of modern science.

NOTE: 
This is a graduate seminar. If undergraduate seniors wish to enroll they
should seek permission from the professors. The fourteen weeks of the
course will consist of a combination of 1) lectures by the instructors
followed by discussions, 2) discussions with guest visitors who are
distinguished scholars in the field and whose work will be pre-circulated
to the seminar, and 3) presentations by students on the readings on the
syllabus.


Requirements:
 Strictly regular attendance, prior reading of weekly texts,
and a term paper at the end of term of roughly 20-25 pages.

• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• 4 points

METHODS WORKSHOP

Introducing students to a series of methods, methodological discussions, and questions relevant to the focus of the Masters program: urban sociology and the public interest. Three methodological perspectives will frame discussions: analytical sociology, small-n methods, and actor-network theory.

• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Ryan Hagen
  Info
• 4 points

PROSEMINAR II

• F 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 1 points

FIELD WORK II

• F 8:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 1 points

THESIS SEMINAR II

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 3 points

INTRO SOCIAL DATA ANLYS II LAB

• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Mireia Triguero Roura
  Info
• 0 points

Intro Social Data Analysis II

Corequisites: SOCI G4076 This course examines quantitative methods used in sociology. Students will need to have completed SOCI GR4074 before enrolling. The approach taken in this class is highly applied with an emphasis on developing practical skills for data analysis. We begin with a focus on linear models, discussing the regression model as a tool for data description and causal analysis. We then introduce generalized linear models and conclude by reviewing some special applied including weighting and missing data. Data analysis for the course will be conducted in Stata which is available for download from the department of Sociology.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Gerard Torrats-Espinosa
  h-index: 6 Info
• 4 points

EXPERIMENTAL METHODS FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH

An experiment is a data collection strategy that involves randomization and control. Combined, these features allow for the unbiased estimation of causal effects in a sample. The goal of this course is to introduce you to the logic but especially practice of experiments. This course has two parts. The first part is an introduction to experimental logic and design, principally through exemplary experimental studies. You will apply this knowledge in the second part of the course, which is a practicum. You will design, carry out, and analyze an online experiment on a topic of your choice. This course is strictly limited to doctoral students in Sociology and related disciplines. In addition, only students who have taken at least an introductory statistics course (through linear regression) are eligible to enroll.

• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: James Chu
  h-index: 18 Info
• 4 points

Reckoning with Asian America

It took the mass murder of six Asian women in Atlanta on March 16, 2021 to draw national attention to what Asian Americans have been warning about since the wake of Covid-19: a surge in anti-Asian violence and hate. Since the onset of the coronavirus, 1 in 8 Asian American adults experienced a hate incident, and 1 in 7 Asian American women worry all the time about being victimized, reflecting an under-recognized legacy of anti-Asian violence, bigotry, misogyny, and discrimination in the United States that dates back more than 150 years. Drawing on research and readings from the social sciences, this course links the past to the present in order to understand this legacy, and how it continues to affect Asian Americans today.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer Lee
  CULPA: 2 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

The course is designed to introduce PhD students in Sociology to the basic techniques for collecting, interpreting, analyzing, and reporting interview and observational data. The readings and practical exercises we will do together are designed to expand your technical skillset, inspire your thinking, to show you the importance of working collaboratively with intellectual peers, and to give you experiential knowledge of various kinds of fieldwork.

Mostly, though, students will learn how to conduct indictive field-based analyses. There are many versions of this model, including Florian Znaniecki’s “analytic induction,” Barney Glaser and Anselm Straus’ “grounded theory,” John Stuart Mill’s system of inductive logic, the Bayesian approach to inference in statistics, and much of what computationally-intensive researchers refer to as data mining. This course will expose students to ways of thinking about their research shared by many of these different inductive perspectives. Remember, though, that all of these formulations of analytic work are ideal types. The actual field, and actual field workers, are often far more complex.

For that reason, this course focuses not merely on theory, but also, and fundamentally, on practice. While some skills like producing a code book or formulating a hypothesis can be developed through reading and reflection, the field demands more nuanced skillsets that can only be attained by trial and error. How do you get an honest answer to a painful or embarrassing question? How do we know that the researcher interviewed enough people? Or spent enough time in the field? Or asked the right questions? Or did not distort the truth? My hope is that by the end of class you will have done enough fieldwork to have arrived at a good set of answers, and to begin developing the ability to communicate your answers to others.

A note on intellectual parentage: The particular approach to training in this course is based on a qualitative bootcamp developed by Mario Small for Harvard’s Ph.d cohorts. Other methods courses focus on particular technical skills rather than analytic frames, or merely on empirical work itself, rather than secondary literature on method. This is one way to think through analytic training. We will try it out together.

• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Tey Meadow
  h-index: 8 Info
• 4 points

MPHIL THESIS WRITING SEMINAR

MPHIL THESIS WRITING SMR

• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Mario Small
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

ISRAELI SOCIETY - SPEC TOPICS

• M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Yinon Cohen
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 33 Info
• 3 points

Globalization and Diffusion

This course introduces students to the literature on globalization and the diffusion of culture and institutions. It covers literatures in sociology and political science as well as some anthropology and history. This course will not discuss economic, financial, or migratory globalization in depth. In the first part, we will survey the major theories of the global diffusion of culture and institutions: world polity theory, global field theory, the policy diffusion literature, etc. In the second part, we discuss select topics, such as the role of local power relations in diffusion processes or the consequences of diffusion for patterns of cultural similarity and difference across the world.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Andreas Wimmer
  Wikipedia h-index: 41 Info
• 4 points

ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURE

• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Diane Vaughan
  CULPA: 6 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

INDIVIDL STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY I

Prerequisites: the director of graduate studies permission if taking more than 3 points of study with any one faculty member. Individual writing on a topic agreed upon by the supervising faculty member.

• Instructor: Mario Small
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• Instructor: Yinon Cohen
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 33 Info
• Instructor: Ryan Hagen
  Info
• Instructor: Tey Meadow
  h-index: 8 Info
• Instructor: Peter Bearman
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• Instructor: Gil Eyal
  CULPA: 15 h-index: 26 Info
• Instructor: Diane Vaughan
  CULPA: 6 Wikipedia Info
• 1-6 points