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.

Please note you must also register for a discussion section to take this course.

• TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Marissa Thompson
  Info
• 4 points

AI in Society

AI in Society takes a social science approach to understanding the rise of AI and its uses in various educational, cultural, and work settings. The course will train students in how to critically engage with AI in these settings through a variety of means, including by conducting interviews with workers experiencing AI-driven workplace changes, auditing algorithmic systems for bias, and analyzing AI representations in popular culture. Assessments include a closed-notes midterm exam and a creative final project involving an original audit study. Students with any level of technical experience are encouraged to enroll.

• TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Gil Eyal
  CULPA: 15 h-index: 26 Info
• 4 points

Gender, Sexuality, and Health: Social Sc

Gender and sexuality are fundamental to how we understand ourselves as individuals – but have you thought about them as kinds of social inequality, similar to race, class, or disability? In this course, students will learn about gender and sexuality as elements of social context which are fundamental to our social worlds, as aspects of social organization, as key forms of inequality (heterosexuality/homosexuality, cis/trans or nonbinary, men/women), and as forces that shape health. Developing skills to analyze how gender and sexuality shape health includes mastering some key concepts at the intersection of social science, gender and sexuality studies, and health sciences as well as learning some content about social aspects of a range of health problems.

This course, which has no prerequisites, may be of particular interest to students majoring in sociology, anthropology, or gender and sexuality studies, as well as to students interested in health science careers (note, our engagement with questions about inequality and social structure speak to topics on the MCAT).  A key element of course design is that all graded writing is done *during* class time (of course with appropriate disability accommodations), both with the goal of structuring AI-free writing and helping students manage their workload.

• TR 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer S Hirsch
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SOCIAL THEORY

Prerequisites: Sophomore standing. Required for all sociology majors. Prerequisite: at least one sociology course of the instructor's permission. Theoretical accounts of the rise and transformations of modern society in the19th and 20th centuries. Theories studied include those of Adam Smith, Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Max Weber, Roberto Michels. Selected topics: individual, society, and polity; economy, class, and status: organization and ideology; religion and society; moral and instrumental action.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Gil Eyal
  CULPA: 15 h-index: 26 Info
• 4 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

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 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 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 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 Info
• 4 points

Power, Technology, and the Future of Wor

Power, Tech, & Fut. Work

The increasingly rapid development of technologies including artificial intelligence has raised fear of widespread automation. These fears are not new – rather, they have emerged frequently in the past during periods of economic slowdown and technological growth. This course will examine the relationship between work, power, and technology. It will discuss how, and how much new technologies are changing the way people work, if these changes in technology will lead to a replacement of workers or a change in the types and standards of available work. We will look at the potentials and limits of technology in the workplace, with a particular focus on power: understanding why technologies are designed, who they are used by, and for what purposes. We will put these technological developments in the context of long term changes in the American and global economy, and look at what the future may hold, and how we can imagine new futures for ourselves.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Katy Habr
  Info
• 4 points

Social Stratification Among Asian Americ

Social Stratification Asi

This seminar examines social stratification through the lens of Asian American experiences. Social stratification refers to the unequal distribution of valued resources, such as income, wealth, education, and power, and the processes by which these resources are allocated across individuals, groups, and generations.

We will explore how the broader patterns of inequality and mobility in the United States intersect with the histories and social positions of Asian Americans. Topics include income and wealth inequality, educational attainment and occupational mobility, immigration and inter-generational mobility, racialization and stereotypes (e.g., the “model minority" and “perpetual foreigner" narratives), gender and family dynamics, neighborhood segregation, and political and civic incorporation. We will also consider how globalization, transnational migration, and the future of work shape opportunities and constraints for different Asian American communities.

• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Xi Song
  Info
• 4 points

Senior Thesis Seminar II

This seminar is a continuation of the course from last semester (SOCI3988). It will culminate in you completing your thesis. Whereas last semester you concentrated on posing interesting, important, and feasible research questions, as well as how to conduct data collection, this semester you will learn how: to troubleshoot challenges and ethical issues in collecting data (i.e. data collection), translate your data into findings and conclusions (i.e. data analysis), orient your findings in an existing conversation (i.e. revising a literature review and introduction/hook), and write to persuade your audience and readers of your argument (i.e. write persuasively). 

Instructor permission is required to join the course. Please note this course is the second part in a two part sequence, you must first take SOCI 3988 before you can enroll in SOCI 3989.

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

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 1 points

Workshop in Gender and Sexuality II

Work Gender and Sexuality

The Gender/Sexuality Workshop is a forum for Ph.D. students interested in social science topics broadly related to gender and sexuality. In particular, it will provide an opportunity for students share and refine their own works in progress by getting feedback from other students in the workshop. The workshop is geared towards students conducting empirical work, from ethnographies and interview-based projects to archival research to other kinds of critical quantitative work that attempts to theorize gender/sexuality. We will take an expansive view of gender and sexuality as a mode of classifying people and a structure that organizes social life, including work that uses gender/sexuality as a lens to interrogate other social structures such as empire, capitalism, science and knowledge, states and governance, and more. The G/S Workshop will meet biweekly (every other week) over the course of Spring 2025.

• Instructor: Tara Gonsalves
  Info
• 2 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.

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

Markets and Morality

Markets are inescapably entangled with questions of right and wrong. What counts as a fair price or a fair wage? Should people be able to sell their organs? Do companies have a responsibility to make sure algorithmic decisions don’t perpetuate racism and misogyny? Even when market exchange seems coldly rational, it still embodies normative ideas about the right ways to value objects and people and to determine who gets what. In this seminar, we will study markets as social institutions permeated with moral meaning. We will explore how powerful actors work to institutionalize certain understandings of good and bad; unpack how particular moral visions materially benefit some groups of people more so than others; examine the ways people draw on notions of fairness to justify and contest the market’s distribution of resources and opportunities; and consider who has agency to build markets according to different normative ideals. Most course readings are empirical research, so we will also critically discuss how social scientists use data and methods to build evidence about the way the world works.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Barbara J Kiviat
  Info
• 3 points

CREATIVITY/TECH:WAR & COMMERCE

This course examines the ways that technological shifts have catalyzed innovation and social change in human societies. The focus is on the social basis for creativity. Analysis centers on the conflicts, disruptions and tensions that emerge in society when new and/or competing technologies are introduced. Students will explore two substantive spheres of social life. The first is war. Throughout recorded history, participants have sought to garner competitive advantages in battle via technological innovation. We look at several moments in which the development of a particular innovation helped bring about massive societal change. The second focus is on commerce. The class will examine the impact of digital technologies on those who work in creative industries undergoing transformation via technology and diffusion of tech-inspired ideas. The learning objectives for students are: • To situate technology within a wider social and historical context. • To consider creativity as a social activity, not only as individual aptitude. • To place the contemporary period of so-called “fast paced technological progress” within a sociological framework of change and innovation.

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

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

PROSEMINAR II

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

FIELD WORK II

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

THESIS SEMINAR II

• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 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

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 2:10 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
• Instructor: Mario Small
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 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

Inequality in High-skilled Labor Markets

Inqulity Hgh-skilled Labr

The course focuses on the U.S. labor market but will also draw research from other settings. The readings are organized by topic and highlight the extent and urgency of the issue and along the lines of gender, race/ethnicity, nativity, and class. Topics include the patterns and trends of inequality among highly-educated workers, and underlying demand and supply-side mechanisms that explain the observed patterns. Attention will be paid to student pathways through higher education to the labor market, including the school-to-work transition process. The course will also cover topics of intergenerational and intragenerational mobility processes among highly-educated workers.

• R 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Yao Lu
  h-index: 25 Info
• 4 points

ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY

• M 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Joshua Whitford
  h-index: 14 Info
• 3 points