SOC 152: The Social Determinants of Health (SOC 252)
When we consider a person's health, we often look first to the body. But our bodies don't exist in a vacuum: how we feel, whether we get sick, even how long we live depends on many factors beyond our biology. In this course, we will shift our focus to the world our bodies inhabit, considering how our circumstances affect our health, healthcare, and well-being. We will explore the 'social determinants' of health outcomes, including neighborhoods, social networks, healthcare systems, inequalities, and power structures. We will also reflect on what it means to live a healthy life and the extent to which individuals may or may not be able to determine their own health outcomes.n nBeyond the substantive topic of health, a core component of applying the sociological lens is being able to use research to explain and analyze the social world. To build your critical analysis skills, you will read and engage with social science research and apply theoretical concepts to empirical observations. Throughout the course, we will engage with case studies, both in class and in assignments that ask you to turn your sociological lens to health disparities in the world around you. We will also brainstorm ways to build a world without health inequality.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-SI
SOC 154: The Politics of Algorithms (COMM 154, COMM 254, CSRE 154T, SOC 254C)
(Graduate students enroll in 254.
COMM 154 is offered for 5 units,
COMM 254 is offered for 4 units.) Algorithms have become central actors in today's digital world. In areas as diverse as social media, journalism, education, healthcare, and policing, computing technologies increasingly mediate communication processes. This course will provide an introduction to the social and cultural forces shaping the construction, institutionalization, and uses of algorithms. In so doing, we will explore how algorithms relate to political issues of modernization, power, and inequality. Readings will range from social scientific analyses to media coverage of ongoing controversies relating to Big Data. Students will leave the course with a better appreciation of the broader challenges associated with researching, building, and using algorithms.
Last offered: Winter 2025
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
SOC 154A: American Disaster (AMSTUD 154D, ENGLISH 154D)
How do we make sense of catastrophe? Who gets to write or make art about floods, fires, or environmental collapse? How do disaster and its depiction make visible or exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities? Beginning with the Jamestown colony and continuing to the present, this course explores the long history of disaster on the North American continent, and how it has been described by witnesses, writers, and artists. From the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic to Hurricane Katrina, the Dust Bowl to contemporary explorations of climate change, this seminar will put in conversation a wide range of primary and secondary materials. Possible texts include writings by Mike Davis, Katherine Anne Porter, Rebecca Solnit, Jesmyn Ward, and Richard Wright; films Wildlife (2018), First Reformed (2017), When the Levees Broke (2006), and Free Willy II (1995); and art by Dorothea Lange, Winslow Homer, and Richard Misrach. For the final paper, students will write a critical essay on a disaster novel, film, or other work or object of their choice, or develop their own creative piece or oral history.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
SOC 154D: Data, Algorithms, and Inequality in the Digital Age
Data and algorithms are powerful tools that help us understand the world around us. As more aspects of our lives become data-driven, from social media and GPS to surveillance and healthcare, algorithms are increasingly shaping how we communicate, navigate, and make decisions in our everyday life. However, they are not infallible; in fact, data can tell us only so much about the world around us, and algorithms can reproduce existing biases. In this course, students will learn how data can both reveal and reinforce existing social inequalities, and how data can be used critically and responsibly. Alongside readings and discussions, this class will also include hands-on workshops in R to introduce tools for analyzing and visualizing data. Students will learn both how to use data and how to question it; they will develop the skills to analyze data in R while keeping issues of power, ethics, and inequality in view. No prior programming experience is required.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3
Instructors:
Jin, O. (PI)
SOC 155: The Changing American Family (FEMGEN 155, FEMGEN 255, SOC 255)
What are the historical trajectories and consequences of marriage, divorce, and premarital cohabitation? Where have gay rights come from and what is the future of gay rights in the US? What are the gender differences in marriage, family and housework? What does it mean for the personal to be political? What are the racial differences in family life and how have those differences been politicized? How did marriage equality go from being impossible to being the law of the US? We will study social change from the perspective of public opinion, legal changes, and family politics.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Rosenfeld, M. (PI)
;
Iturrios-Fourzan, I. (TA)
SOC 156A: The Changing American City (AMSTUD 156, CSRE 156, SOC 256A, URBANST 156A)
After decades of decline, U.S. cities today are undergoing major transformations. Young professionals are flocking to cities instead of fleeing to the suburbs. Massive increases in immigration have transformed the racial and ethnic diversity of cities and their neighborhoods. Public housing projects that once defined the inner city are disappearing, and crime rates have fallen dramatically. Do these changes signal the end of residential segregation and urban inequality? Who do these changes benefit? This course will explore these issues and strategies to address them through readings and discussion, analyzing a changing neighborhood in a major city in the Bay Area in groups (which will include at least one site visit), and studying a changing neighborhood or city of their choice for their final project. The course does not have pre-requisites.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Hwang, J. (PI)
;
Gao, M. (TA)
SOC 160: Formal Organizations (SOC 260)
(Graduate students register for 260.) Organizations are ubiquitous: they educate us, manage our finances, and structure our daily routines; they also distribute resources, status, and opportunities among social groups. This course will explore the role of formal organizations in contemporary social life, and their consequences for individuals. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and empirical research in the social sciences, we will examine several topics, including: the origins of organizations, how decisions are made, why some organizations live while others perish, incentives and employment relationships, social networks, and what kinds of organizational policies promote diversity. The course will draw on many substantive examples from the real world to illustrate these theoretical models.
Last offered: Autumn 2024
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
SOC 167A: Asia-Pacific Transformation (INTLPOL 244D, SOC 267A)
Post-WW II transformation in the Asia-Pacific region, with focus on the ascent of Japan, the development of newly industrialized capitalist countries (S. Korea and Taiwan), the emergence of socialist states (China and N. Korea), and the changing relationship between the U.S. and these countries.
Last offered: Winter 2024
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
SOC 168A: Race, Nature, and the City (CSRE 168, EARTHSYS 169, URBANST 168)
This course provides an introduction to the study of race and place within urban political ecology (UPE). Geographer Natasha Cornea defines UPE as a 'conceptual approach that understands urbanization to be a political, economic, social, and ecological process, one that often results in highly uneven and inequitable landscapes' in and beyond cities. The primary focus will be cities in the Americas, but we will draw on insights from scholars studying the mutually constitutive nature of race and place in other regions. In line with critical theories that frame intersectional experiences of race, the course readings also take into account class, gender, sexuality, and nation.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
SOC 169B: Race and Ethnicity in Urban California: Research Seminar (AMSTUD 169B, CSRE 260B, URBANST 169B)
This course is part of an ongoing research project that examines the consequences of social, demographic, economic, and political changes in ethnic and race relations in in urban California. Students taking this course will construct will investigate a particular issue, place, policy, or event of special interest and write a 15-20-page paper. Through individualized research projects, our aim is to understand how and why policies and practices developed that isolated and marginalized communities of color leading to environmental racism, housing inequality, public health crises, socioeconomic (im)mobility, over-policing, and underserving, and (un)fair representation in city politics and governments. We will also focus on solutions. We look at the creative, challenging, and diverse ways grassroots organizers, academics, and governments at every level can work in partnership to reshape policy and rectify injustice in a variety of urban and suburban environments in California. Each paper sh
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This course is part of an ongoing research project that examines the consequences of social, demographic, economic, and political changes in ethnic and race relations in in urban California. Students taking this course will construct will investigate a particular issue, place, policy, or event of special interest and write a 15-20-page paper. Through individualized research projects, our aim is to understand how and why policies and practices developed that isolated and marginalized communities of color leading to environmental racism, housing inequality, public health crises, socioeconomic (im)mobility, over-policing, and underserving, and (un)fair representation in city politics and governments. We will also focus on solutions. We look at the creative, challenging, and diverse ways grassroots organizers, academics, and governments at every level can work in partnership to reshape policy and rectify injustice in a variety of urban and suburban environments in California. Each paper should conclude with ideas about how to make constructive change. This course has been designated as a Cardinal Course by the Haas Center for Public Service. Cardinal Courses apply classroom knowledge to pressing social and environmental problems through reciprocal community partnerships. The units received through this course can be used towards the 12-unit requirement for the Cardinal Service transcript notation.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI