141 - 150 of 255 results for: SOC

(Graduate students register for 241.) Debate format involving Stanford and guest faculty. Forms of inequality including racial, ethnic, and gender stratification; possible policy interventions. Topics such as welfare reform, immigration policy, affirmative action, discrimination in labor markets, sources of income inequality, the duty of rich nations to help poor nations, and causes of gender inequality.

How characteristics of workplaces, such as hiring practices, workforce diversity, organizational policies and legal mandates, produce variation in inequality. Examines the sources, extent, and consequences of workplace inequality across gender, racial and ethnic lines. Topics include earnings, social status, geographical location, and opportunities for people in the workforce.

(Graduate students register for 245.) Race and ethnic relations in the U.S. and elsewhere. The processes that render ethnic and racial boundary markers, such as skin color, language, and culture, salient in interaction situations. Why only some groups become targets of ethnic attacks. The social dynamics of ethnic hostility and ethnic/racial protest movements.

Causes and consequences of racial and ethnic conflict, including nationalist movements, ethnic genocide, civil war, ethnic separatism, politics, indigenous peoples' movements, and minority rights movements around the world.

(Graduate students register for 249.) Recent research and theory on the urban underclass, including evidence on the concentration of African Americans in urban ghettos, and the debate surrounding the causes of poverty in urban settings. Ethnic/racial conflict, residential segregation, and changes in the family structure of the urban poor.

How race informs the theories and research within political sociology. The state's role in creation and maintenance of racial categories, the ways in which racial identity motivates political actors, how race is used to legitimate policy decisions, comparisons across racial groups. Emphasis on understanding the ways race operates in the political arena.

(Graduate students register for 251 and 5 units. Undergraduates register for 151 and 4 units.) Comparative analysis of historical, contemporary, and anticipated demographic change. Draws on case studies from around the world to explore the relationship between social structure and population dynamics. Introduces demographic measures, concepts and theory. Course combines lecture and seminar-style discussion.

Our social and physical environments are widely recognized as playing a central role in shaping patterns of health and disease within and across populations. Across disciplines, a key question has been: How does the social environment ¿gets under the skin to influence health? In this course, we will explore how social scientists, epidemiologists, public health experts, and physicians tackle this question. Reflecting both qualitative and quantitative approaches, we will draw on literatures in social science, public health, and medicine to understand the processes through which our environments shape health outcomes. We will examine a number of key social determinants of health, wellness and illness. These determinants include socioeconomic status, gender. race/ethnicity, religious affiliation, neighborhoods, environments, social relationships, and health care. We will also discuss a host of mechanisms through which these factors are hypothesized to influence health, such as stress, lifestyle, and access to health resources. An overall theme will be how contextual factors that adversely affect health are inequitably distributed and thereby fuel health disparities. Through all of this, we will assess the promise of public policy, planning and research for generating more equitable health outcomes across society.

This seminar introduces students to the key literature, questions, and debates about the modern welfare state. Emergence, growth, and purported demise of the welfare state. American welfare state in comparative perspective. Social and political factors affecting state development including political parties, labor markets, gender, demographic change, and immigration.