Sociology (SOCI)
Description: Introduction to the sociological study of human behavior, especially social organization, culture, and the social institutions that comprise society. Attention to social change, differentiation and inequality, and other social issues.
This course is a prerequisite for: SOCI 355
Description: Introduction to Social Network Analysis (SNA). Learn to identify key concepts and contributions made by prominent SNA scholars. Use network analysis to graph and interpret empirical patterns. Assess network theories in light of empirical network data. Apply the SNA methods introduced to a range of real-world data sources.
Description: Interdisciplinary study of the natural environment, social environment, human heritage, arts and humanities of the Great Plains.
Description: Treatment of the principal "problem" areas in contemporary society. Analysis of processes of disorganization in society, with attention to contrasting processes by which social structures are formed and perpetuated.
This course is a prerequisite for: SOCI 355
Prerequisites: Admission to the University Honors Program or by invitation.
University Honors Seminar 189H is required of all students in the University Honors Program.
Description: Topics vary.
Description: Topics vary.
Description: Examination of how gender matters in the social world, with a focus on gender and diversity in the US. Introduction to sociological theories about gender and related research. Considers how lifelong gender socialization, social institutions, norms, laws, and cultural practices create gendered effects for individuals, communities, and groups in every aspect of life.
Prerequisites: Sociology Major OR Sociology Minor OR Sophomore, Junior or Senior Standing
Description: Introduction to the techniques of collecting and analyzing data and techniques of research reporting. Emphasis on interpretation and evaluation of sociological research.
This course is a prerequisite for: SOCI 489
Prerequisites: Sociology Major OR Sociology Minor OR Sophomore, Junior or Senior Standing
Description: Practical exercises in the actual conduct of sociological research projects. Emphasis on training and development of skills, techniques, and methods of data analysis, and interpretation of findings in light of sociological theories.
Description: Examines the social construction of crime and deviance. Deals with defining and measuring crime/crime trends. Introduces historical and contemporary criminological theories. Emphasizes inequality in the risks of and responses to crime and deviance.
Description: Overview of sociological theories and research on the experiences of different racial, religious, and ethnic groups. Concepts of race and ethnicity, including their social construction. Historical and contemporary racial and ethnic relations and patterns of inequality. Intersections of race, social institutions, and social policies.
Description: Overview of the sociological study of families. Family and marriage patterns over time. Socialization, economic exchange, and social support functions of family roles. The effect of the economy, public policy, and other social institutions on families. Emphasis on gender, sexuality, social class, and racial/ethnic diversity in U.S families.
Prerequisites: Open to second semester freshmen and above.
Description: The rural environment and its people; its groups and associations; and its social institutions.
Description: Introduction to the sociological approach to understanding health and medicine. The relationship between social conditions and physical and mental health. Differences in health across social groups. Medical care and health care policies.
Description: Introduction to the study of the biological, economic, political-historical, and cultural bases of war and group conflict.
Prerequisites: Sophomore, Junior, or Senior standing.
Description: Historical and contemporary patterns of drug use. Analysis of the antecedents and consequences of various forms of drug abuse. Examination of the types and effectiveness of legal responses to specific classes of drugs including; prohibition, decriminalization, and legalization. Prevention and treatment approaches to drug use.
Description: Research methods organized around an applied research project. Conduct research in an applied setting, preparation of interview schedules, problem definition, review of research techniques, and research design and measurement.
This course is a prerequisite for: SOCI 310B
Prerequisites: 6 hours of SOCI, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: Nature and extent of juvenile delinquency, considered in relation to the role of adolescents in modern society. Includes a review of the methods used to study delinquency, theories of delinquency, social influences on delinquent behavior, and the nature of the juvenile justice system.
Prerequisites: 6 hours of SOCI, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: Social, cultural, political, and economic aspects of sport as a social institution. Gender, race, and social class issues related to sport.
Prerequisites: 6 hours of SOCI, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: In-depth examination of select contemporary issues confronting families and family research. Adolescent pregnancy, union formation, parenting, work-family, divorce and family instability, and family violence. Topics vary by instructor.
Description: Practical experience in analyzing public opinion data and writing about the results for a range of audiences. Review and discuss work conducted by leading research and policy centers. Design, plan, and carry out research projects, reporting results in policy-oriented briefs.
Prerequisites: 6 hours of SOCI, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: Analysis of social structures and social processes that contribute to, maintain, or change social inequalities across social categories such as gender and race.
Prerequisites: 6 hrs sociology, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: Examines the effects of geographic settings on social interactions, behaviors, and attitudes, causes and consequences of disparities. Focus on how existing social, economic, political, and cultural systems shape these dynamics.
Prerequisites: 6 hours of SOCI, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: Role of humans in the ecosystem, especially the interaction of human societies with the natural environment, including other species and other human societies. Theories of the sociocultural causes of environmentally-related problems and the policies designed to deal with these problems.
Prerequisites: Sophomore, Junior or Senior standing
Description: Examines a variety of religions around the world, emphasizing interaction between people from diverse religious backgrounds in an increasingly multicultural and globally interconnected world. Integrates the study of global religious diversity into Sociology by applying sociological theories to the course topic.
Prerequisites: 6 hrs sociology or related social sciences
Description: Social and cultural bases of health care and health professions. Organization, distribution, and delivery of health care. Institution and profession of medicine and health-allied fields. Critical evaluation of medical care system and health policy.
Description: Introduction to sociological theories written by key classical and contemporary social theorists. Emphasis on how sociologists try to understand and make predictions about the social world. Analysis of a range of issues, such as how social contexts shape people's identities, how people form connections with one another, and inequalities related to race, class, and gender.
Prerequisites: 6 hours of SOCI and/or BIOS, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: Ethical decision making in research. Comprehensive review of the responsible conduct of research. Identify, define, and analyze ethical issues in the conduct of human subject research. Study civic responsibility and stewardship in the context of the responsible conduct of research. Examine emergent areas of human subjects in an increasingly interdisciplinary research environment.
Prerequisites: 6 hours of SOCI, or Sophomore standing, or Junior standing or Senior standing.
Description: Introduction to the sociological study of mass media, including the social construction of gender, race, class, and politics. Explores audience interaction with media texts. Emphasis on analytical skills for media literacy.
Prerequisites: sophomore, junior, or senior standing
Description: Explores the relationship between people's complex/intersectional identities and social group dynamics, including social conflict.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing, or Sociology Major.
Description: Topics vary.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Internship and professional experience at government agencies, private, non-profit, or other organizations.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent reading or research under direction of a faculty member.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent research under the direction of a faculty member.
Description: Systematic review and application of qualitative research methods, including participant observation, unstructured interviewing, audiovisual techniques and personal document analysis; data collection and interpretation emphasized as well as different theoretical assumptions underlying their various approaches.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing
Requires advanced permission before registering for the course.
Description: Examination of theoretical and empirical approaches to sexual identities, differences, practices and desires. Focus on power, social control and morality.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing
Description: Examination of how religion is used to shape, maintain, and transform gender and sexuality in the U.S. and beyond. Focus on the intersection of religion, gender, and sexuality from a feminist/queer theoretical perspective.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing
Description: Introduction to the theoretical, methodological and substantive underpinnings of social network analysis. Focuses on the theoretical/conceptual ideas at the heart of the network approach, how to analyze and interpret network data, and how to apply network ideas and methods to social problems.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Analysis of the structure and effects of the media of mass communication.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Personality and the sociocultural environment.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Social origins of mental health and illness; social distribution of mental health by race, class, and gender; social construction of mental health; mental health care systems.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Historical and cross-cultural approach to population issues by linking changes in fertility and mortality to social institutions. Focuses on the link between population processes and such issues as gender roles, the role of the family, the Third World, and poverty and inequality.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Sociological perspectives on marriage and different family types. Focuses on formation and organization of families, and issues confronting families. Emphasizes contemporary research and theory.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Consideration of sources and nature of religion, drawing on contributions of anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and others. Emphasis on interaction of religion and society.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Contribution of social inequality to health outcomes; Intersection of individual and social factors through which racial, economic, and gender differences in health emerge.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Survey of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers whose ideas have had a strong impact on the development of contemporary sociology and sociological theories. Emphasis on the work of such persons as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, George Herbert Mead, and Georg Simmel.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Analysis of education as a social institution and its relationship to other institutions, e.g., economy, polity, religion, and the family. Emphasizes the role of the educational institution as an agent of stability and change. Emphasis on research and policy evaluation.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior Standing, or Sociology Major
Description: Basic issues related to the design and analysis of sample surveys. The basics of questionnaire construction, sampling, data collection, analysis and data presentation.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing
Open to advanced students planning careers in the professions in which knowledge of human behavior and society is important (e.g., helping professions, medicine, law, ministry, education, etc.).
Description: Interdisciplinary approach to the study of human sexuality in terms of the psychological, social, cultural, anthropological, legal, historical, and physical characteristics of individual sexuality and sex in society.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing
Description: Explores conformity and deviance within and across social groups by examining theory and empirical research. It reviews current thinking on the nature (and sources) of social control that is exerted by group. Topics include: Socialization into the norms and narratives that define groups, benefits/disadvantages of group membership, and (threat of) sanctions, including exclusion from the group.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Structured inequalities, including social class, race/ethnicity, gender and age stratification. The intersections of these as institutionalized inequalities examined for their causes and effects on individuals and groups. Emphasis on the role of social power, economic resources and occupational structures in the nature of inequality and social mobility in the United States.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Systematic examination of racial, ethnic, and other minority groups. History and present status of such groups, the origins of prejudice and discrimination, and the application of social science knowledge toward the elimination of minority group problems.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing, or Sociology Major
Description: Sociological perspectives on leadership and its multiple dimensions related to individuals, group dynamics, social structures, and contextual factors.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
Description: Application of sociological analysis to the problem of power; power structures and elite formation as they relate to democratic society and political extremism.
Prerequisites: 9 hours of SOCI, or Senior standing.
SOCI 200 is strongly recommended.
Description: Evaluation and application of scholarly theory and research on gender in societal context. The nature and effects of sex stratification, gendered culture, institutionalized sexism, feminist theory and sociology of knowledge.
A capstone course that satisfies the research experience requirement for Sociology majors. Students are expected to write an original research paper.
Description: A research experience focusing on developing a research question, identifying or collecting appropriate data, analyzing data, and writing an original research paper.
Description: Topics vary.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent research leading to a thesis.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent research leading to a thesis.