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.

• MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: David Knight
  Info
• 3 points

The Social Animal in the Digital Age

SOCIAL ANIMAL DIGITAL AGE

This course re-examines central theories and perspectives in the social sciences from the standpoint of digital technologies. Who are we in the digital age? Is the guiding question for the course. We consider the impact of modern technology on society including, forms of interaction and communication, possibilities for problem solving, and re-configurations of social relationships and forms of authority. The course integrates traditional social science readings with contemporary perspectives emerging from scholars who looking at modern social life. The course is an introductory Sociology offering.

• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Sudhir A Venkatesh
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

ISRAELI SOC & ISR-PLS CONFLICT

The purpose of the course is to acquaint students with Israeli society through the lens of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The underlying assumption in this course is that much of the social, economic, political, and cultural processes in contemporary Israel have been shaped by the 100-year Israeli- Arab/Palestinian conflict.

• TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Yinon Cohen
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 33 Info
• 3 points

ORGANIZING INNOVATION

This course examines major innovations in organizations and asks whether innovation itself can be organized. We study a range of forms of organizing (e.g. bureaucratic, post-bureaucratic, and open architecture network forms) in a broad variety of settings: from fast food franchises to the military-entertainment complex, from airline cockpits to Wall Street trading rooms, from engineering firms to mega-churches, from scientific management at the turn of the twentieth century to collaborative filtering and open source programming at the beginning of the twenty-first. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between organizational forms and new digital technologies.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: David Stark
  CULPA: 15 Wikipedia h-index: 48 Info
• 4 points

INEQUALITY, POVERTY & MOBILITY

INEQUALITY POVERTY & MOBILITY

This is an undergraduate seminar in social stratification. The course focuses on the current American experience with socioeconomic inequality and mobility. The goals of the course are to understand how inequality is conceptualized and measured in the social sciences, to understand the structure of inequality in the contemporary U.S. to learn the principal theories and evidence for long term trends in inequality, to understand the persistence of poverty and the impact of social policies on American rates of poverty, and to understand the forces that both produce and inhibit intergenerational social mobility in the U.S. Given the nature of the subject matter, a minority of the readings will sometimes involve quantitative social science material. The course does not presume that students have advanced training in statistics, and any readings sections that contain mathematical or statistical content will be explained in class in nontechnical terms as needed. In these instances, our focus will not be on the methods, but rather on the conclusions reached by the author concerning the research question that is addressed in the text.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Thomas DiPrete
  CULPA: 7 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

HIGHER EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY

Prerequisites: (SOCI UN1000) Higher education in the U.S. is going through a period of rapid change. State support is shrinking, student debt is increasing, full-time faculty are being replaced by adjuncts, and learning outcomes are difficult to measure, at best. This class will try to makes sense of these changes. Among other questions, it will ask whether higher education is a source of social mobility or a means of class reproduction; how the college experience differs by race, class, and type of college attended; how the economics of higher education have led to more expensive college and more student loans; and how we might make college better. We will consider several different points of view on the current state of U.S. higher education: that of students who apply to and attend college, that of colleges and universities, and that of society at large. As part of this course, students will conduct research on their own universities: Columbia College or Barnard College.

• M 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 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.).

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Sudhir A Venkatesh
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

IMMIGRATION, RACE, AND ASIAN AMERICANS

IMM, RACE, ASIAN AMERICAN

Drawing from evidenced-based social science research, this course will equip students to understand how the laws and policies of America’s past continue to affect the experiences, trajectories, and perceptions of Asian Americans today. Tracing the racial mobility of Asian Americans from “unassimilable to exceptional”, we begin by studying legacies of exclusion and then examine Asian Americans’ experiences in education, affirmative action, the workplace, and the surge of anti-Asian violence during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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

Status, Evaluation, and Inequality

Status, Evaluation, Inequ

Who gets respect? On what basis? Differences in respect and esteem are a basic form of inequality, with consequences for the (re)production of other inequalities and their durability. The goal of this course is to equip you to see the throughline between status, evaluation, and inequality. Along the way, you will learn how social psychological theories at the micro-level relate to macro-level inequalities. We will tackle questions like the following: Why, and how, do status hierarchies emerge in nearly all societies and groups? How do status differences affect material inequalities like access to jobs? Why is it so hard to change inaccurate stereotypes about women or racial minorities? Will algorithms improve or exacerbate biases in our assessments of merit?

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

PROSEMINAR IN SOCIOLOGY

• M 4 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 Info
• 1 points

PROSEMINAR I

The Proseminar fulfills two separate goals within the Free-Standing Masters Program in Sociology. The first is to provide exposure, training, and support specific to the needs of Masters students preparing to move on to further graduate training or the job market. The second goal is to provide a forum for scholars and others working in qualitative reserach, public sociology, and the urban environment.

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

FIELD WORK I

This two-semester sequence supports students through the process of finding a fieldwork site, beginning the field work required to plan for and develop a Masters thesis, and the completion of their Masters thesis.

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

THESIS SEMINAR I

This seminar gives you an opportunity to do original sociological research with the support of a faculty member, a teaching assistant, and your fellow classmates.

• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 3 points

Intro Social Data Analysis I

Basic techniques for analyzing quantitative social science data. Emphasis on conceptual understanding as well as practical mastery of probability and probability distributions, inference, hypotheses testing, analysis of variance, simple regression, and multiple regression.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Bruce Western
  Wikipedia h-index: 59 Info
• 4 points

Historical Approaches in the Social Scie

Historical Aprchs Scl Scn

This course introduces students to historical approaches in sociology and political science (and some economics). In the first part, the course surveys the major theoretical approaches and methodological traditions. Examples of the former are classic comparativist work (e.g. Skocpol’s study of revolutions), historist approaches (such as Sewell’s), or the historical institutionalist tradition (Mahoney, Thelen, Wimmer, etc.). In terms of methodological approaches, we will discuss classical Millean small-N comparisons, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, process tracing, actor-centered modeling, quantitative, large-N works, and causal inference type of research designs. In the second part, major topics in macro-comparative social sciences are examined, from world systems and empire to the origins of democracy.

• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Peter Bearman
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• 4 points

Social Movements Dynamics

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS DYNAMICS

Social movements are sustained challenges against authorities that aim at reforming or revolutionizing dominant institutions, changing public opinion, or transforming personal behavior. This seminar focuses on theoretical perspectives and empirical research on the dynamics of broad-based social and political movements. The aim is to evaluate dominant conceptual models that have animated the study of social movements and contention across time and space, with an emphasis on the interplay of organizational, political and cultural processes. Emphasis is on macro- and meso-level dynamics, with little attention to the microfoundations of collective action and movement mobilization. A second objective is to gain some familiarity with common methodological approaches in social movement analysis and evaluate new theoretical and empirical directions in social movement research. Empirical cases are drawn mainly from the U.S. but you will have the opportunity to explore a wider range of cases in your independent work for the course. This elective seminar is intended for graduate students in sociology who want to gain basic familiarity with key debates and approaches in the subfield of collective action and social movements, which has grown exponentially in the wake of the 1960s protest wave that animated a paradigm shift in the field. Participants can use the course as an opportunity to develop a research proposal or field statement or to explore a theoretical or empirical puzzle by diving deeper into a single case study.

• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: David Knight
  Info
• 4 points

DESIGNS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

Required of all incoming sociology doctoral students. Prepares students who have already completed an undergraduate major or its equivalent in some social science to evaluate and undertake both systematic descriptions and sound explanations of social structures and processes.

• W 9 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Peter Bearman
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• 4 points

MPHIL THESIS WRITING SEMINAR II

MPHIL THS WRTNG SMNR II

This seminar is PART 2 for second and third year students who are writing their MPhil thesis. It will assume the form of a yearlong seminar during which students design, research, and write up their MPhil projects. These projects can be based on any kind of sociological method, quantitative or qualitative. The thesis will assume the form of an article that can be submitted to a social science journal. The seminar will help you to find an interesting question, a way to answer it, and a mode of communicating this to fellow sociologists in a way that they might find worth paying attention to. The summer break between the two semesters will allow students who don’t come to the first semester with ready-to-analyze data to gather such data (through ethnographic work, archival research, scraping the internet, combining existing survey data, etc.).

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Mario Small
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian Conf

The seminar will explore the Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Arab) conflict from the beginning of the 20th century  until today. The first part of the seminar will focus on the historical background informing the conflict and leading  to the Palestinian refugee problem and the establishment of a Jewish, but not Palestinian, state in 1948. The  second part of the seminar focuses on Palestinian-Arab citizens in Israel, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and  Gaza, the settlement project, and possible political solutions, as well as the USA's role and its impact on the  conflict, the occupation, and the current Gaza war. 

• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Yinon Cohen
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 33 Info
• 4 points

NEW DIRECTION IN ECON SOCIOLOGY

This is an advanced graduate seminar in Economic Sociology looking at new developments in this field. It addresses the disciplinary division of labor in which economists study value and sociologists study values; and it rejects the pact whereby economists study the economy and sociologists study social relations in which they are embedded.

• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: David Stark
  CULPA: 15 Wikipedia h-index: 48 Info
• 3 points

SCIENCE,KNOWLEDGE & TECHNOLOGY

How do scientific and technical experts do their work and produce the results that they do? The purpose of this course is to read and critically evaluate the canonical works in the sociology of science, knowledge, and technology and to initiate a research project. The research paper for this course can be tailored to meet the student's long term research or professional interests. The readings are organized chronologically to introduce major works and their authors, present an overview of the development of the field, the diversity of perspectives, turning points, and controversies.

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