Results for SOC

This course to get students to think like a sociologist; to use core concepts and theories from the field of sociology to make sense of the most pressing issues of our time: race and ethnicity; gender and sexuality; family; education; social class and economic inequality; social connectedness; social movements; and immigration. The course will draw heavily on the research and writing of Stanford's own sociologist.

Why do people behave the way they do? This is the fundamental question that drives social psychology. Through reading, lecture, and interactive discussion, students have the opportunity to explore and think critically about a variety of exciting issues including: what causes us to like, love, help, or hurt others; the effects of social influence and persuasion on individual thoughts, emotion, and behavior; and how the lessons of social psychology can be applied in contexts such as health, work, and relationships. The social forces studied in the class shape our behavior, though their operation cannot be seen directly. A central idea of this class is that awareness of these forces allows us to make choices in light of them, offering us more agency and wisdom in our everyday lives.

It was never imagined "when the U.S. was founded" that the rich would be so rich and the poor so poor. It was never imagined "when the U.S. was founded" that opportunities to get ahead would depend so profoundly on one's family circumstances and other starting conditions. How could this have happened in the "land of opportunity?" What are the effects of such profound inequality? And what, if anything, should be done about it?

This course examines music¿its production, its consumption, and it contested role in society¿from a distinctly sociological lens. Why do we prefer certain songs, artists, and musical genres over others? How do we ¿use¿ music to signal group membership and create social categories like class, race, ethnicity, and gender? How does music perpetuate, but also challenge, broader inequalities? Why do some songs become hits? What effects are technology and digital media having on the ways we experience and think about music? Course readings and lectures will explore the various answers to these questions by introducing students to key sociological concepts and ideas. Class time will be spent moving between core theories, listening sessions, discussion of current musical events, and an interrogation of students¿ own musical experiences. Students will undertake a number of short research and writing assignments that call on them to make sociological sense of music in their own lives, in the lives of others, and in society at large.

This course uses the tools of social science to help understand debates and puzzles from contemporary sports, and in doing so shows how sports and other contests provide many telling examples of enduring social dynamics and larger social trends. We also consider how sport serves as the entry point for many larger debates about the morality and ethics raised by ongoing social change.

In this class we will read the literature on voting and elections. We will cover some literature on voting rights in the US. The class will have a field component, as students will not only be obligated to register to vote (if they are eligible), but also go out into the field, in groups, to register voters and talk to them about some local issue or candidate. Learn to understand the election system through participation! Each student will pick a local issue or candidate, and then the students will go out, in teams, to canvass around that local issue or candidate and learn about what their fellow citizens have to say about their chosen issue. Students will present a post-mortem about their chosen candidate or issue after the November elections are over.

The large-scale digitization of social life is providing new opportunities and research directions for social scientists. In this course, we will discuss how social scientists, and sociologists in particular, are using advances in computational techniques to further our knowledge of society. Some of the topics we will survey include online experiments, massive online social networks, large-scale text analysis, and geographical information systems. Students will learn principles of research design in addition to fundamental programming and data analysis techniques. By the end of the course they should be able to produce computational social science research of their own.

An overview of the major forms of inequality in American society, their causes and consequences. Special attention will devoted to to public policy associated with inequality.

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.

The seminar introduces students to major themes connected to the immigrant experience, including identity, education, assimilation, transnationalism, political membership, and intergroup relations. There will also be some attention given to research methodology. The seminar addresses these themes through reading ethnographies that document the everyday experience of immigrants and immigrant communities, broadly defined, in the United States. The course readings primarily come from more contemporary ethnographic research, but it will also include a sampling of ethnographies that examine the experience of previous waves of immigrants. Student participation will include in-class discussions of readings, short written responses to readings, and a final paper in which students draw on original ethnographic research that they conduct during the quarter. By the end of the quarter, students will be able to identify the social, political, and economic forces that shape the immigrant experience. More importantly, students will understand HOW these forces enter the immigrant experience in everyday life.

Preference to freshmen. Seminar discussion of how various institutions in U.S. society employ racial categories, and how race is studied and conceptualized across disciplines. Course introduces perspectives from demography, history, law, genetics, sociology, psychology, and medicine. Students will read original social science research, learn to collect and analyze data from in-depth interviews, and use library resources to conduct legal/archival case studies.

Over the past few decades, social movements have increasingly relied on social movement participants leveraging internet technologies in mobilization, coordination, and public outreach to assist in their movement goals. How have new online tools such as social media and digital connectivity changed the processes of contemporary social movements? This course uses a sociological perspective to examine the ways social movements have adapted to online technologies to critically think about how the internet has altered traditional forms of social movement mobilization. The first half of the course is an introduction and review of traditional social movement literatures, while the second half is focused on different contemporary social movements where the internet played an important role, including the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ equality, feminism and the #MeToo movement, and most recently, the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Students will be encouraged to think about the ways in which social movement processes have been accelerated and/or changed due to the effects of online technologies.

This Introductory Seminar reviews the history of social network studies, investigates how networks have changed over the past hundred years and asks how new technologies will impact them. We will draw from scholarly publications, popular culture and personal experience as ways to approach this central aspect of the human experience.

Preference to sophomores. Historical overview of race in America, race and violence, race and socioeconomic well-being, and the future of race relations in America. Enrollment limited to 16.

Community engaged learning through applied academics encourages students tonidentify themselves as agents of social change, to use the experience of service tonaddress injustice in communities and to explore solutions to complex humanitariannissues locally. This quarter long course allows students to engage with the nonprofitnsector and partner organizations in a unique culture outside of the traditional classroom setting. We place participants at local organizations to do a quarter-long mentored project, supplemented with group reflection sessions. Through these meaningful, hands-on experiences, we hope to engage the Stanford student body in the issue of homelessness, specifically as faced by service providers.

Like the US, Israel is a nation of immigrants. Israel additionally shares with the US vast economic, ethnic/racial and gender gaps, which are shaped and are being shaped by the demographic diversity characterizing its society. The course will provide a comparative framework for analyzing social inequality in Israel. We will start by reviewing essential concepts and theories in the study of social stratification. We will then review the main cleavages characterizing Israeli society, while comparing them to gaps in other advances societies and particularly the US. We will focus on class, gender and ethnicity as the main distinctions and will examine their implications for differences in life chances in several domains across the life course. We will conclude with a discussion of possible scenarios for change, which are relevant to both Israel and the US. Throughout the course, we will study critical thinking techniques and will use them for analyzing issues that are central for the analysis of social inequality in Israel and elsewhere.

Early theorists of the welfare state described it as a reaction to the emergence of needs and interests of specific social groups during processes of economic development and change. Later theorists countered that the welfare state does not merely react to social cleavages during times of economic change but rather works to actively shape them, in line with worldviews or the interests of dominant group members. Adopting the latter approach, the goal of this course is to provide the tools and knowledge necessary for a critical evaluation of the social services provided to Israeli citizens and their impact on social and economic inequalities. The course will survey various approaches to the understanding of the goals of the welfare state. A comparative and historical account of the development of the welfare state will be presented, while highlighting recent developments, such as the increase in poverty rates and the aging of the population. During the course, we will examine the diverse needs that are served by the welfare state, as well as major dilemmas associated with the provision of services. Throughout the course, we will study critical thinking techniques and will use them for analyzing issues that are central for the development of social policies in Israel and the US.

Although most of us think that feelings are deeply personal and private experiences, this seminar explores the social side of emotion¿including how they are socially learned, shaped, regulated, and distributed in the population as well as the consequences of emotion culture, emotion norms, emotional labor, and emotional deviance for individuals and society. We will consider specific emotions ¿ including jealousy, fear, sympathy, and happiness ¿ as well as more general patterns ¿ including the commercialization of emotion and the role of emotions in politics.

Strategies of environmental movements to contain domestic and foreign corporations that are viewed as major perpetrators of rainforest devastation and the socio-economic degradation of this vast region. Topics: Origins, roles and inter-relations among corporations (zero deforestation agreements in soybean agriculture and cattle ranching), the development of environmental law and the efficacy of government and NGO movements¿ strategies, and whether this emerging economy shapes social classes, groups, tribes, family life to further embed inequality and immobility. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit.

In this course, students will use data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) to study the patterns, causes, consequences, and remedies of educational inequality in the US. SEDA is based on 200 million test score records, administrative data, and census data from every public school, school district, and community in the US. The course will include lectures, discussion, and small group research projects using SEDA and other data.

Drawing from theories and research in race/ethnicity, social psychology, inequality, and demography, and focusing on the U.S., this course examines how racial hierarchies affect immigrants¿ socioeconomic mobility and ethnic identities, and how immigrants and their descendants contribute to the reconstruction of racial and ethnic boundaries. Topics include: theories of international migration and assimilation; immigration and the labor market; racial and ethnic identities; immigrants and interracial relations; second-generation mobility and identities; transnationalism.

20th-century Korea from a comparative historical perspective. Colonialism, nationalism, development, state-society relations, democratization, and globalization with reference to the Korean experience.

Social, cultural, political, economic, and international factors affecting the development and consolidation of democracy in historical and comparative perspective. Individual country experiences with democracy, democratization, and regime performance. Emphasis is on global third wave of democratization beginning in the mid-1970s, the recent global recession of democracy (including the rise of illiberal populist parties and movements), and the contemporary challenges and prospects for democratic change.

Causes, effects, and solutions to various forms of corruption in business and politics in both developing regions (e.g. Asia, E. Europe) and developed ones (the US and the EU).

(Graduate students register for 214.) The sociological approach to production, distribution, consumption, and markets, emphasizing the impact of norms, power, social structure, and institutions on the economy. Comparison of classic and contemporary approaches to the economy among the social science disciplines. Topics: consumption, labor markets, organization of professions such as law and medicine, the economic role of informal networks, industrial organization, including the structure and history of the computer and popular music industries, business alliances, capitalism in non-Western societies, and the transition from state socialism in E. Europe and China.

(Graduate students register for 217A.) The transformation of Chinese society from the 1949 revolution to the eve of China's reforms in 1978: creation of a socialist economy, reorganization of rural society and urban workplaces, emergence of new inequalities of power and opportunity, and new forms of social conflict during Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966-69 and its aftermath.

Why social movements arise, who participates in them, the obstacles they face, the tactics they choose, and how to gauge movement success or failure. Theory and empirical research. Application of concepts and methods to social movements such as civil rights, environmental justice, antiglobalization, and anti-war.

The demographic, economic, political, and cultural roots of social change in the 60s; its legacy in the present U.S.

Why do some people have better ideas than others? Why are some more likely to be bullied in school, get a job, or catch a disease? Why do some innovations, apps, rumors, or revolutions spread like a wildfire, while others never get off the ground? Why are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Spotify so good at recommending people, news, pictures, or songs we might know or like? What do a power outage, the collapse of the Roman Empire, a human stroke, and the Financial Crisis of 2008 have in common? What explains the success of Silicon Valley? And why are there only six (or less) people between us and any other human on this planet? While these questions may seem totally unrelated to each other on first glance, they can all be explored with the help of a single, yet powerful framework: social network analysis. In this class, you will learn to see the world as a web of relations: not only are people, ideas/concepts and things all increasingly connected to each other; the pattern of these relations can tell us a great deal about many phenomena in our social world that defy traditional explanations. At the end of this class, you will not only see networks everywhere; you will have taken a big step toward connecting some of the dots in (y)our world: this is the power of thinking in relations.

In this class we will learn about Israel's unique demographic structure and we will compare it to the US and other countries. Reading materials include general theories as well as research published in scholarly journals. In the first half of this class we will review basic demographic concepts (mortality, fertility and migration), and we will apply them to the Israeli context, with comparisons between different social groups in Israel and with comparison to the US. We will also review basic demographic theories (theories of population change) and apply them to different countries. nnIn the second half of the class we will focus on demography of the family. We will ask how fertility, marriage and divorce differ for different population groups in Israel and the US, and we will tie family processes to current theories of gender and family change. We will also learn how demographic processes may be related to the reproduction of poverty, and inequality.

(Graduate students register for 220.) Forming ties, developing norms, status, conformity, deviance, social exchange, power, and coalition formation; important traditions of research have developed from the basic theories of these processes. Emphasis is on understanding basic theories and drawing out their implications for change in a broad range of situations, families, work groups, and friendship groups.

What does mass incarceration have in common with ICE detention? What role do little-known legal doctrines from the previous century play in making courts inaccessible to survivors of sexual assault and trans people fighting discrimination? In this class we will answer those questions by examining how the seemingly objective nature of the law makes it a potent social tool to promote the interests of the powerful at the expense of the powerless while appearing neutral. This obfuscating power of the law has long been used to reinforce and perpetuate forms of social inequality. In this class we will analyze a few notable examples of such usage of the law and their role as pillars of current social inequality: We will examine how the high burden of proof courts have placed on complainants claiming gender discrimination has blocked most targets of such discrimination from seeking legal remedy; We will examine how redlining and mass incarceration have resulted in the current rates of racial inequality; and how immigration law has resulted in a seemingly objective yet deeply racist system of detention by ICE.

Poverty rates in Israel are high and have been relatively stable in recent decades, with about one fifth of all households (and a third of all children) living below the poverty line. In this class we will learn about poverty and inequality in Israel and we will compare with the US and other countries.nnIn the first few weeks of this class we will review basic theories of poverty and inequality and we will discuss how theories regarding poverty have changed over the years, from the "culture of poverty" to theories of welfare state regimes. We will also learn about various ways of measuring poverty, material hardship, and inequality, and we will review the methods and data used.nnIn the remaining weeks of the class we will turn to substantive topics such as gender, immigration, ethnicity/nationality, welfare policy, age, and health. Within each topic we will survey the debates within contemporary scholarship and we will compare Israel and the US. Examination of these issues will introduce students to some of the challenges that Israeli society faces today.

Families are changing: Non-marital partnerships such as cohabitation are becoming more common, marriage is delayed and fertility is declining. In this class we will learn about how families are changing in Israel and we will compare with the US and other countries. Reading materials include general theories as well as research published in scholarly journals. nnAfter reviewing general theories and major scholarly debates concerning issues of family change, we will turn to specific family processes and compare Israel, the US and other countries. We will ask how family transitions may differ for different population groups and at different stages of the life course, and we will tie family processes to current theories of gender. nnWe will cover a wide range of topics, from marriage and marital dissolution to cohabitation, LAT and remarriage. We will also discuss changes in women's labor force participation and how it bears on fertility, parenthood and household division of labor. Within each substantive topic we will survey the debates within contemporary scholarship and we will compare Israel and the US

How do we balance norms of inclusion and respect with norms of free speech? This seminar course utilizes readings from sociology, political science, and legal/ethical reasoning to elucidate the larger structures and ideals that are at stake in the debates over what kind of speech is tolerable, or more normatively speaking, desirable, at colleges and universities. The expected learning outcomes are: a greater understanding of the free speech's role in American society and democracy, how America's position on free speech compares to other countries, and how speech restriction and liberties can reveal larger patterns in social structure and agency. Finally, key skills students will develop are learning how to identify common ethical frameworks that academic and popular authors use and how to analyze the origins of and changes in social institutions and social structures.

Gender and Technology historicizes the process through which technical skills and modern-day American computing technologies have been imbued with masculinist associations. We explore how social processes link technical expertise to gendered domains, and how ideas about gender are shaped in turn by the resulting technologies. Students explore how American gender roles from the 19th century to the present¿as they intersect with race, class, and sexuality¿are constructed with and through technologies in order to better understand the masculinist defaults of the tech industry in the Silicon Valley.

The central goal of this course is to promote an academic debate and knowledge exchange about social inequalities and poverty in Latin America, with an emphasis on Brazil, analyzing their impact on the scope of politics, the design of social policies and the interests of society. It is based on an analysis of Angus Deaton's work (Nobel Prize in Economics, 2015), that develops an economic-historical study and points out the great economic and social transformations that affect the process of evolution of social and health inequalities. Thus, what is proposed here is an analysis of the mutation of inequalities throughout the history of humanity. Deaton's relevant contribution is his approach to the process of overcoming inequalities and poverty over the last three centuries. His work demonstrates that, although the advances in terms of economic growth and quality of life have been extraordinary, there are inequalities between different regions and countries around the world. From this contextualization, the aim of this course is to discuss a contemporary approach to social development centered on the ideas of Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics, 1998), with a focus on capabilities. Sen's innovative perspective establishes that development should be centered on individuals¿ freedom of choice.

(Graduate students register for 226.) Theory, methods, and research. Concepts such as density, homogeneity, and centrality; applications to substantive areas. The impact of social network structure on individuals and groups in areas such as communities, neighborhoods, families, work life, and innovations.

All societies have had some notion of what makes for a good life. The scientific study of wellbeing, however, is relatively new. As our capacity to collect data about people grows, our understanding of who is well and who is not is also rapidly evolving. Today, we understand wellbeing as having many dimensions, encompassing happiness, purpose, pleasure, health, income, social connection, and inclusion. What determines how individuals fare in these domains of life? How can we improve our collective and individual wellbeing? In this course, we will learn how our ability to pursue wellbeing is shaped by social factors, such as inequality, social networks, culture, government, and markets. We will draw on empirical research and case studies in sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics. This course largely focuses on the US, but we will also discuss research from other countries in order to develop an appreciation for the role of social context in shaping wellbeing. Class discussions and assignments will focus on applying insights from academic scholarship to understand current social problems, including the COVID-19 epidemic and its consequences for society.

Recent events have directed attention to the vastly different workplace experiences individuals encounter based on their gender. But just how does gender structure employment outcomes and experiences? This course will examine the ways in which gender comes to be embedded in organizations and conceptions of work and skill, as well as how gender interacts with other identities, like race, class, and sexuality, to create inequality in the workplace. We will discuss the role of discrimination, bias, and harassment as well as occupational segregation and devaluation in producing unequal outcomes among people of diverse genders. By the end of this course, students will be able to think critically about how gender impacts labor market outcomes as well as develop their own ideas for spaces for further research as well as intervention.

Data science and machine learning have rapidly gained recognition within the social sciences because they offer powerful new ways to ask questions about social and cultural issues. This course will examine how data science has revolutionized how social scientists study culture by providing new tools to analyze patterns in text data in different contexts and at different scales. More specifically, we will explore how these tools can be used to mine the meaning of text from sources such as posts on social media, transcripts of political debates, books, press releases, and more. This is a hands-on, interactive course culminating in a social data science project designed by the student or a team of up to four students. Most class sessions will be taught interactively using Jupyter Notebooks. Students will follow along with workshop-style lectures by using and modifying the provided Python code in real time to analyze data and visualize results. The course will cover such topics as gender and racial/ethnic stereotypes, workplace discrimination, climate change, and lifestyles. Students will learn to explore text data with techniques such as word embeddings, topic models, and sentiment analysis, to visualize their results, and to scrape the web (where and when appropriate). Students will gain experience with base Python and tools from libraries useful for data science such as Empath, Gensim, NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, and spaCy.

(Graduate students register for EDUC 212 or SOC 229X). Combination of social science and historical perspectives trace the major developments, contexts, tensions, challenges, and policy issues of urban education.

The effects of schools and schooling on individuals, the stratification system, and society. Education as socializing individuals and as legitimizing social institutions. The social and individual factors affecting the expansion of schooling, individual educational attainment, and the organizational structure of schooling.

This course takes a problem-solving focus. Our main goal is to learn to design research-based interventions to improve diversity, equity and inclusion outcomes in organizations. U.S. society has become increasingly more diverse, and yet our organizations do not reflect that diversity. Further, even successful efforts to improve diversity are often not accompanied by a plan to create truly inclusive organizations that support a diverse workforce or student body. We will begin by comparing explanations for the lack of diversity and inclusion in modern organizations. We will then examine research that illustrates the cost to individuals and organizations for failing to leverage the diverse talent in our society. Guest speakers will share their challenges and successes in increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the organizations where they work. Then, it will be your turn. Working in teams you will design your own research-based intervention to promote DEI at the organizational, team, and individual level and present your intervention to the class. Along the way, you will also learn effective strategies for navigating non-inclusive organizations and for being an effective change agent in your own environment.

How do we make sense of a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected, and where social problems like climate change, democratization, human rights, and economic stability are increasingly global in their scope? How have international institutions attempted to regulate these processes and maintain social order? Why have recent social and political movements in an increasing number of countries targeted globalization as a source of their society¿s problems? In this course, we will explore how globalization is as an economic, political, and cultural process that shapes major social problems in today¿s world. To do so, we will draw on a range of theories and interdisciplinary research in economics, political science, and sociology.

This course introduces students to theories and perspectives from the social sciences relevant to an understanding of the role of education in relation to structures of gender differentiation, hierarchy, and power. It familiarizes students with and enables them to critically evaluate research on the status of children, adolescents, and young adults around the world and their participation patterns in various sectors of society, particularly in education. Students have the opportunity to gain research skills by designing research proposals or to develop action plans on topics of their choosing related to gender and education from global and/or comparative perspectives.

How people meet, who they date, and when they settle down have all changed dramatically in recent decades. This course will provide students with a thorough overview of demographic, sociological, and historical perspectives on sex, relationships, and family in the United States. Students will become familiar with the empirical patterns and trends, political and cultural debates, and policy issues concerning historical and modern romantic and sexual relationships, as well as the major theories and research methods used in the sociological study of relationships. Throughout the course, we will explore how changes in modern relationships may affect broader patterns of social inequality and family structure. Additionally, we will examine how the mate selection process intersects with various aspects of gender, sexuality, class, race, and technology.

Over the last three decades, inequality in America has increased substantially. Why has this happened, and what can be done about it? The course will begin by surveying the basic features of poverty, inequality, and economic mobility in the 21st century. From here we will discuss issues related to discrimination, education and schools, criminal justice, and the changing nature of the family as forces that shape inequality. We will also focus on the main social policy options for addressing inequality in the United States, including income support for the poor, taxing higher incomes, efforts to encourage philanthropy, and other institutional reforms.

How does social welfare policy contribute to social (in)justice? Why does discrimination based on race face heightened scrutiny in court compared to gender? Does inequality cause crime? This course explores the intersection between sociology and the law with a focus on inequality. We will address the question: how does the law create and respond to inequality between people and groups? We will learn some legal doctrine throughout but we will prioritize examining a sociological theory of law and justice. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach using a variety of materials including judicial opinions, scholarly papers, and newspaper articles.

(Graduate students register for 236) This course explores major issues and debates in the sociology of law. Topics include historical perspectives on the origins of law; rationality and legal sanctions; normative decision making and morality; cognitive decision making; crime and deviance, with particular attention to the problem of mass incarceration; the "law in action" versus the "law on the books;" organizational responses to law, particularly in the context of sexual harassment and discrimination in education and employment; the roles of lawyers, judges, and juries; and law and social change with particular emphasis on the American civil rights movement. Special Instructions: Students are expected to attend a weekly TA-led discussion section in addition to lecture. Sections will be scheduled after the start of term at times when all students can attend. Paper requirements are flexible. Cross listed with the Law School (LAW 7511). See "Special Instructions" in course description above. Elements Used in Grading: Class participation, paper proposal, three short papers and a final paper (see syllabus for details).

Absolute world poverty has declined considerably in the last twenty years, but elites have gained disproportionately from the growth of the global economy, leading to serious concerns about inequality in several countries, as well as in global policy circles. This discussion-based seminar explores how global capitalism affects worldwide inequality. Topics include the evolution, causes, and structure of global inequality, the links between inequality and human development, and potential solutions to global inequality.

A course devoted to understanding how people are faring as the country's health and economic crisis unfolds. The premise of the course is that, as important and valuable as surveys are, it's a capital mistake to presume that we know what needs to be asked and that fixed-response answers adequately convey the depth of what's happening. We introduce a new type of qualitative method that allows for discovery by capturing the voices of the people, learn what they're thinking and fearing, and understand the decisions they're making. Students are trained in immersive interviewing by completing actual interviews, coding and analyzing their field notes, and then writing reports describing what's happening across the country. These reports will be designed to find out who's hurting, why they're hurting, and how we can better respond to the crisis. Students interested should submit the following application: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfdOZsnpOCg4zTRbVny0ikxpZEd1AFEEJh3K9KjvINyfbWMGw/viewformnnThe course is open to students who have taken it in earlier quarters, with repeating students allowed to omit the training sessions and, in lieu of those sessions, complete additional field work and writing. Field work will include unique interviews with new participants each lab period, along with corresponding coding, analyses, and reports.

What does public interest technology look like in practice? Each week, a guest speaker will present a case study of their work to improve government and public systems through innovative methods, data-driven efforts, emerging technology, and human-centered design. Students will reflect on the practicalities, ethics, and best practices of public interest technology work.

Male, female, woman, man, feminine, masculine. We all know what gender is, right? In this course, we will critically examine the idea of gender from a sociological perspective. For the first few weeks, we will tackle the big question 'What is gender?' To do this, we will begin by interrogating taken-for-granted ideas about the biological underpinnings of gender. We then dive into sociological conceptions of gender. In the latter portion of the course we will examine the ways gender operates and produces inequality within a variety of societal institutions, including the media, the family, the workplace, and the legal system. This class will expose you to some of the methods social scientists use to study gender and help you think critically about common sense understandings of gender through a look at both popular journalism and rigorous academic research. The emphasis of this class is to leave you with a long-lasting understanding of why the study of social problems, and especially those related to gender, matter.

(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.

How different disciplines approach topics and issues central to the study of ethnic and race relations in the U.S. and elsewhere. Lectures by senior faculty affiliated with CSRE. Discussions led by CSRE teaching fellows. Includes an optional Haas Center for Public Service certified Community Engaged Learning section. In accordance with Stanford virtual learning policies implemented for the Spring Quarter, all community engagement activities for this section will be conducted virtually. Please sign up for section 2 #33285 with Kendra, A. if you are interested in participating in virtual community engagement.

(Graduate students register for 247.) How have the definitions, categories, and consequences of race and ethnicity differed across time and place? This course offers a historical and sociological survey of racialized divisions around the globe. Case studies include: affirmative action policies, policies of segregation and ghettoization, countries with genocidal pasts, invisible minorities, and countries that refuse to count their citizens by race at all.

(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.

(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.

How are contemporary U.S. social movements shaped by the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality? This course explores the emergence, dynamics, tactics, and targets of social movements. Readings include empirical and theoretical social movement texts, including deep dives into Black, White, and Chicana feminisms; the KKK; and queer/LGBT movements. We will explore how social movement emergence and persistence is related to participants¿ identities and experiences with inequality; how the dynamics, targets, and tactics of mobilized participants are shaped by race, class, gender, and/or sexuality; and how social movement scholars have addressed the intersectional nature of inequality, identity, and community.

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.

Family change from historical, social, demographic, and legal perspectives. Extramarital cohabitation, divorce, later marriage, interracial marriage, and same-sex cohabitation. The emergence of same-sex marriage as a political issue. Are recent changes in the American family really as dramatic as they seem? Theories about what causes family systems to change.

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.

There are growing worries that new technologies may eliminate work, increase inequality, and create a large dependent class subsisting on transfers. But can technology instead be turned against itself and used to end poverty? This class explores the sources of domestic poverty and then examines how new technologies might be developed to eliminate poverty completely. We first survey existing poverty-reducing products and then attempt to imagine new products that might end poverty by equalizing access to information, reducing transaction costs, or equalizing access to training. In a follow-up class in the spring quarter, students who choose to continue will select the most promising ideas, continue to develop them, and begin the design task within Stanford¿s new Poverty and Technology Lab.

Will robots, automation, and technology eliminate work and create a large poverty-sticken dependent class? Or will they eliminate poverty, free us from the tyranny of work, and usher in a new society defined by leisure and creative pursuits? This two-quarter class is dedicated to exploring new theories about poverty while at the same time incubating applied technology solutions. The first quarter is devoted to examining the theory of technology-based solutions to poverty, and the second quarter is devoted to planning a viable technology-based product that will reduce poverty. This product may then be built in a follow-up Using Tech for Good (Computer Science 50) class in the first quarter of 2018 (but class participants are not required to take that follow-up class). The course is premised on the view that innovative solutions to poverty will be based on new conversations and an authentic collaboration between Silicon Valley and leaders from education, government, and low-income communities

(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. This course will explore the role of formal organizations in contemporary social life, and their consequences for individuals. Drawing on a range of research in the social sciences and examples from the real world, we will examine several topics, including: the origins of organizations, how decisions are made in organizations, why some organizations survive while others die, incentives and employment relationships, how social networks shape social stratification, and what kinds of organizational policies promote diversity.

Social and political forces that shape market outcomes. The emergence and creation of markets, how markets go wrong, and the roles of government and society in structuring market exchange. Applied topics include development, inequality, globalization, and economic meltdown. Preference to Sociology majors and Sociology coterm students.

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.

How can emerging technologies and human-centered design be used to help people going through problems with housing, medical care, and debt? In this class, we will work with local partners to develop new tech and design prototypes to address poverty-related problems. We will explore new digital solutions, as well as how to use emerging technologies like AI and blockchain. At the same time, we will explore policy and legal reforms that could address root causes of the problems.nStudents will work in small, interdisciplinary teams with partners organizations in law, medicine, and policy. They will do design research in the field, propose new solutions and test them, and develop new initiatives that will be piloted. The goal is to incubate promising, feasible public interest technology and design projects.nThe class will be run in parallel to similar classes in Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia. Students will have the chance to learn about similar innovation efforts in other countries, and will be challenged to think about how their own projects could be replicated and scaled

We learn how to apply analytical tools from the social sciences to organizations, and study how to design effective organizations and projects within and across institutional settings. A variety of organizations are included and how they deal with strategy changes and accountability. The theme for this year's class is on accountability of non-profit organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, The International Rescue Committee and The Red Cross. Recommended: FINANCE 377, MS&E 180, SOC 160, ECON 149, or MGTECON 330.

"Intersectionality" is so popular, it's almost impossible to avoid: it was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2017, it was painted on signs at the Women's Marches, and it guides modern day social movement organizers. But what does intersectionality mean? What can intersectionality offer And what does it mean for research and social movements to be truly intersectional? The aim of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the concept of intersectionality. First, we will delve into the works (chiefly from Black feminist scholars) that provide the foundation for today's concept of intersectionality. We will then explore, compare, and critique sociological research that applies (or fails to apply) an intersectional lens to its objects of study. Finally, we will investigate the use of intersectionality in social movements and outside academia. Throughout the course, we will prioritize reading, evaluating, and questioning sociological theory and research.

(Graduate students register for 270). Sociologists seek to understand how society works, specifically: how social life is organized, changed, and maintained. Sociological theory provides hypotheses for explaining social life. All empirical research in sociology is enriched by, and has some basis in, sociological theories. This course introduces students to the earliest sociological theories and the thinkers who developed them. Specifically, we will discuss the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. We will compare and contrast how they thought about important modern-day social realities such as capitalism, racism, crime, religion, and social cohesion. We will consider how these early theories and thinkers influence the way sociologists think about and study the social world today.

This course introduces students to computational social science from a sociological perspective, grounding popular computational methods such as text mining and network analysis in sociological theory. While the course is open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students from any discipline, the materials will be primarily sourced from sociology. Students with no prior computer science experience will find this course a menu of potential methodologies for future research, while students with some programming experience or with a pre-existing research question can use this course to advance their research projects. By framing these methods in sociological theory, students will gain a more critical understanding of why scientists select these methods and how computational methods impact society.

This course examines the ways in which higher education structures and policies interact with gender, gender identity, and other characteristics in the United States, around the world, and over time. Attention is paid to how changes in those structures and policies relate to access to, experiences in, and outcomes of higher education by gender. Students can expect to gain an understanding of theories and perspectives from the social sciences relevant to an understanding of the role of higher education in relation to structures of gender differentiation and hierarchy. Topics include undergraduate and graduate education; identity and sexuality; gender and science; gender and faculty; and feminist scholarship and pedagogy.

Today we interact with our friends and enemies, our team partners and romantic partners, and our organizations and societies, all through computational systems. How do we design these social computing systems to be effective and responsible? This course covers design patterns for social computing systems and the foundational ideas that underpin them. Students will engage in the creation of new computationally-mediated social environments. Course available for 3-4 units; students enrolling in the 4-unit option will conduct deeper engagement with the topic via additional readings and discussions.

How do neighborhoods come to be? How and why do they change? What is the role of power, money, race, immigration, segregation, culture, government, and other forces? In this course, students will interrogate these questions using literatures from sociology, geography, and political science, along with archival, observational, interview, and cartographic (GIS) methods. Students will work in small groups to create content (e.g., images, audio, and video) for a self-guided ¿neighborhood tour,¿ which will be added to a mobile app and/or website.

Why do some songs become popular, but not others? Why are music genres that were wildly popular in the 1950s no longer popular today? Trends and fads and can be found nearly everywhere in our daily lives movie tropes, skirt lengths, styles of shoes, internet memes, hot stock-picks all of these go in and out of fashion. But, why should they? Did something change? And if so¿what? This course seeks to understand how and why things become (un)popular. The course begins with early 20th century theories on the massification and commodification of culture and traces development of this literature over time. Topics covered include propaganda, social influence, and significant responses to questions such as: What constitutes high/low culture? Does popular culture manifest--"from the bottom-up", for the people by the people--or is popular culture dictated--"from the top down", by elites and commercial interests? To what extent do social networks (and the status and power of the people within them) influence these relationships? How is popular culture received, interpreted, and used? Today, the media landscape looks significantly different than it did in the early 20th century, and in the final portion of the course we will consider the extent to which new technologies, media platforms, hyper-focused advertising, and cluster-based similarity algorithms have impacted the way we think about and answer these questions. In the final portion of the course, we will critically examine active and ongoing debates in the literature related to this question and produce a final paper that contributes to the discussion. No final exam.

This course is about the distribution of power in contemporary democratic societies, and especially in the US: who governs? Is there a ``power elite,'' whose preferences dominate public policy making? Or, does policy reflect a wide range of interests? What is the relationship between income and power? What are the political consequences of increasing income inequality? How do income differences across racial and ethnic groups affect the quality of their representation? What are effective remedies for unequal influence? Finally, which institutions move democratic practice furthest towards full democratic equality? This course will address these questions, focusing first on local distributions of power, and then considering the implications of inequality in state and national politics. nStudents will have the opportunity to study income inequality using income and labor force surveys in a mid-term assignment. Then, in a final paper, students will conduct an empirical examination of the implications of income inequality for American democracy.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the way crime has been defined and punished in the United States. Recent social movements such as the Movement for Black Lives have drawn attention to the problem of mass incarceration and officer-involved shootings of people of color. These movements have underscored the centrality of the criminal justice system in defining citizenship, race, and democracy in America. How did our country get here? This course provides a social scientific perspective on America¿s past and present approach to crime and punishment. Readings and discussions focus on racism in policing, court processing, and incarceration; the social construction of crime and violence; punishment among the privileged; the collateral consequences of punishment in poor communities of color; and normative debates about social justice, racial justice, and reforming the criminal justice system. Students will learn to gather their own knowledge and contribute to normative debates through a field report assignment and an op-ed writing assignment.

This course is an exploration. Most generally, its aim is to identify distinguishing features of good diverse communities and articulate them well enough to offer principles or guidelines for how to design and manage such communities - all with a particular focus on educational communities like schools, universities, academic disciplines, etc., but with the hope that such principles might generalize to other kinds of organizations and the broader society. The readings range from those on the origins of human communities and social identities to those on intergroup trust building. They also aim to embed our discussions in the major diversity issues of the day, or example, what's in the news about campus life. nnnThus the course has a practical purpose: to develop testable ideas for improving the comfort level, fairness and goodness-for-all of identity diverse communities--especially in educational settings. nnnThe course also has a basic science purpose: to explore the psychological significance of community. Is there a psychological need for community? Is there something about a need for community that can't be reduced to other needs, for example, for a gender, racial or sexual-orientation identity? How strong is the need for community against other needs? What kinds of human groupings can satisfy it? In meeting this need, can membership in one community substitute for membership in others? What do people need from communities in order to thrive in them? Do strong diverse communities dampen intergroup biases? Can strong community loyalty mitigate identity tensions within communities? nnnSuch questions, the hope is, will help us develop a more systematic understanding of the challenges and opportunities inherent in diverse human communities.

Formulating a research question, developing hypotheses, probability and non-probability sampling, developing valid and reliable measures, qualitative and quantitative data, choosing research design and data collection methods, challenges of making causal inference, and criteria for evaluating the quality of social research. Emphasis is on how social research is done, rather than application of different methods. Limited enrollment; preference to Sociology and Urban Studies majors, and Sociology coterms.

Preference to Sociology majors and minors. Enrollment for non-sociologists will open two weeks after winter enrollment begins. Methods for analyzing and evaluating quantitative data in sociological research. Students will be taught how to run and interpret multivariate regressions, how to test hypotheses, and how to read and critique published data analyses.

From your daily cup(s) of coffee to the ¿War on Drugs,¿ drugs touch the lives of most people. Yet, how societies deal with drug use and abuse change throughout time. In this course, we will look at drug use and abuse through a sociological lens, exploring how micro (personal), meso (interactional), and macro (structural) level forces underpin the meanings, experiences, and policies associated with drug use and abuse in the United States. Beyond this, we will examine how these forces contribute to persistent systems of inequality among different groups. This will not serve as a ¿how to¿ course, but one in which you will be asked to critically examine the role of drugs and their effects on society. By the end of this course, students should be able to:

We are in a moment of great national attention and debate over the role of police in society, with some calling for greater funding and resources to support community policing efforts and others calling for the abolition of the institution in its entirety. In its current form, policing has infused a surprisingly wide variety of other social institutions, ranging from healthcare to education to technology. This course examines the social underpinnings of historical and modern-day policing. We will critically analyze the trends in policing practices in the US through time, and ask how - and to what effect - police have become enmeshed in the social fabric of American life. This class will expose you to some of the methods social scientists use to investigate society's most pressing issues and help you think critically about policing in America through reading, discussing, and critiquing both popular journalism and rigorous academic research. I hope this course challenges you to consider the implications of course content beyond the confines of the classroom, leaves you with novel ways of thinking about society, and helps you become a more aware, informed, and active citizen for your future. An additional goal is to help you build proficiency in your analytical skills. With the final project, you will have the opportunity to become a creator of knowledge by collecting and analyzing your own data.

Despite gains in recent years, women remain dramatically underrepresented in virtually all realms of the American political system. In this course, students will become familiar with the empirical patterns and trends, social and cultural debates, and policy issues concerning the role of gender in American politics. We will examine the gender gap in voting patterns and mass political participation, as well as strategies for increasing women¿s representation. Students will come to understand the effects of women¿s lack of parity, including policy attitudes, processes, and outcomes. Furthermore, we will explore gender inequality in politics through an intersectional lens of race, class, age, education, and sexuality.

TRIGGER WARNING: Over the past several years the issue of campus sexual assault and harassment has exploded into the public discourse. Multiple studies have reinforced the finding that between 20-25% of college women (and a similar proportion of students identifying as transgender and gender-nonconforming, as well as approximately 10% of male students) experience sexual assault carried out through force or while the victim was incapacitated during their time in college. Fraternities have been found to be associated with an increased risk of female sexual assault on campus. Vulnerable students and those from marginalized groups are often found to be at increased risk. This is also a significant problem in k12 education. Sexual harassment rates are even higher. Survivors have come forward across the country with harrowing stories of assault followed by what they describe as an insensitive or indifferent response from college administrators. These survivors have launched one of the most successful, and surprising, social movements in recent memory. As a result, the federal government under President Obama stepped up its civil rights enforcement in this area, with over 300 colleges and universities under investigation for allegedly mishandling student sexual assault complaints as of the end of that administration. At the same time, the Obama administration's heightened response led to a series of high-profile lawsuits by accused students who assert that they were falsely accused or subjected to mishandled investigations that lacked sufficient due process protections. The one thing that survivors and accused students appear to agree on is that colleges are not handling these matters appropriately and appeared to be more concerned with protection the institutional brand than with stopping rape or protecting student rights. Colleges have meanwhile complained of being whipsawed between survivors, accused students, interest groups, and enforcement authorities. In an about-face that many found shocking, the Trump Administration rescinded all of the Obama-era guidance on the subject of sexual harassment and has promulgated new proposed regulations that would offer significantly greater protection to accused students and to institutions and commensurately less protection to survivors. An increasingly partisan Congress has been unable to pass legislation addressing the issue. It is unclear whether or to what extent the incoming Biden Administration will move to withdraw or amend the DeVos regulations. Meanwhile in schools have moved toward adopting an uneven patchwork of policies in which some schools cover conduct (for example, off campus conduct) that DeVos excluded from the purview of Title IX under the ambit of "supplemental" conduct policies and procedures setting up policy confusion and inequalities for students of different schools.This course focuses on the legal, policy, and political issues surrounding sexual assault and harassment on college campuses. Each week we will read, dissect, compare and critique a set of readings that include social science, history, literature, legal, policy, journalism, and narrative explorations of the topic of campus sexual assault. We will explore the history of gender-based violence and the efforts to implement legal protections for survivors in the educational context. We will also study the basic legal frameworks governing campus assault, focusing on the relevant federal laws such as Title IX and the Clery Act. We will critically explore the ways that responses to this violence have varied by the race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics of parties and institutions. We will hear from guest speakers who are actively involved in shaping policy and advocating in this area, including lawyers, activists, journalists, and policymakers. This year we will also host special guest speaker Chanel Miller, author of the bestselling memoir Know My Name. The subject matter of this course is sensitive, and students are expected to treat the material with maturity. Much of the reading and subject matter may be upsetting and/or triggering for students who identify as survivors. There is no therapeutic component for this course, although supportive campus resources and Title IX staff are available for those who need them.Elements used in grading: Grades will be based on class attendance, class participation, and a research paper or project and class presentation Enrollment is by INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION. Access the consent form here https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/20-21-Spr-One-in-Five-The-Law-Politics-and-Policy-of-Campus-Sexual-Assault-LAW-7065-FEMGEN-143-SOC-188-Michele-Landis-Dauber-Emma-Tsurkov-Consent-Form-1.docx or email etsurkov@stanford.edu to request a form via email. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the class is full. Demand for the class is high and participation is capped at 18. The class usually fills quickly, so make sure to apply early. Cross-listed with the Law School ( LAW 7065 and with Sociology ( SOC 188).

In the contemporary United States, supposedly race-neutral immigration laws have racially-unequal consequences. Immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and the Middle East are central to ongoing debates about who's includable, and who's excludable, from American society. These present-day dynamics mirror the historical forms of exclusion imposed on immigrants from places as diverse as China, Eastern Europe, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and much of Africa. These groups' varied experiences of exclusion underscore the long-time encoding of race into U.S. immigration policy and practice. Readings and discussions center on how immigration law has become racialized in its construction and in its enforcement over the last 150 years.

Prior arrangement required.

This course helps students make the transition from Stanford to careers with social impact. Perhaps you want to help lead an advocacy organization¿s issue campaigns, develop sustainable transportation policies for a city or contribute to growing a social enterprise. You will learn from alumni speakers working social impact fields, identify jobs that align with your interests and skills, build a personal network for your eventual job search, and become job-search ready through resume, cover letter and interviewing preparation. Through a variety of exercises, you will clarify and articulate your skills and the value you can bring to an organization. You will conduct informational interviews with people working in your fields of interest, to both learn more about relevant and make valuable connections. The teaching team includes a lead instructor with decades of experience in the social sector, the heads of public service career advising at the Haas Center and BEAM career educators.

Work on a project of student's choice under supervision of a faculty member. Prior arrangement required.

Work in an apprentice-like relationship with faculty on an on-going research project. Prior arrangement required.

Prior arrangement required.

Computational sociology research working with faculty on an on-going technical research project. Applications for position reviewed on a rolling basis.

Work on an honors thesis project under faculty supervision (see description of honors program). Must be arranged early in the year of graduation or before.

Required of all juniors in Sociology who plan to write an honors thesis. Students write a research prospectus and grant proposal, which may be submitted for funding. Research proposal in final assignment may be carried out in Spring or Summer Quarter; consent required for Autumn Quarter research.

This course focuses on the sociological research and writing process and fulfills the Writing In the Major (WIM) requirement for Sociology majors. Students will write a substantial paper based on the research project developed in 202 or a project developed during the course. Students in the honors program or co-terms in the research track may incorporate their paper into their thesis. Sociology majors who are seniors may take Soc 204 as their sole WIM class, as a substitute for Soc 202, with no prerequisites required. The class is designed to support students as they complete an original research project during the quarter or a piece of a larger honors or master's thesis

In this course, students will use data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) to study the patterns, causes, consequences, and remedies of educational inequality in the US. SEDA is based on 200 million test score records, administrative data, and census data from every public school, school district, and community in the US. The course will include lectures, discussion, and small group research projects using SEDA and other data.

Strategies of environmental movements to contain domestic and foreign corporations that are viewed as major perpetrators of rainforest devastation and the socio-economic degradation of this vast region. Topics: Origins, roles and inter-relations among corporations (zero deforestation agreements in soybean agriculture and cattle ranching), the development of environmental law and the efficacy of government and NGO movements¿ strategies, and whether this emerging economy shapes social classes, groups, tribes, family life to further embed inequality and immobility. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit.

20th-century Korea from a comparative historical perspective. Colonialism, nationalism, development, state-society relations, democratization, and globalization with reference to the Korean experience.

(Graduate students register for 214.) The sociological approach to production, distribution, consumption, and markets, emphasizing the impact of norms, power, social structure, and institutions on the economy. Comparison of classic and contemporary approaches to the economy among the social science disciplines. Topics: consumption, labor markets, organization of professions such as law and medicine, the economic role of informal networks, industrial organization, including the structure and history of the computer and popular music industries, business alliances, capitalism in non-Western societies, and the transition from state socialism in E. Europe and China.

(Graduate students register for 217A.) The transformation of Chinese society from the 1949 revolution to the eve of China's reforms in 1978: creation of a socialist economy, reorganization of rural society and urban workplaces, emergence of new inequalities of power and opportunity, and new forms of social conflict during Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966-69 and its aftermath.

(Doctoral students register for 317B.) This seminar surveys the major turning points that have shaped China's evolution since 1949. The topics covered include the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the political and economic turning point of the early 1980s, the political crisis of 1989, the restructuring of the state sector since the 1990s, and the patterns of protest that have accompanied the rapid social changes over the past three decades. We will conclude the course with current debates about China's future.

Why social movements arise, who participates in them, the obstacles they face, the tactics they choose, and how to gauge movement success or failure. Theory and empirical research. Application of concepts and methods to social movements such as civil rights, environmental justice, antiglobalization, and anti-war.

The demographic, economic, political, and cultural roots of social change in the 60s; its legacy in the present U.S.

(Graduate students register for 220.) Forming ties, developing norms, status, conformity, deviance, social exchange, power, and coalition formation; important traditions of research have developed from the basic theories of these processes. Emphasis is on understanding basic theories and drawing out their implications for change in a broad range of situations, families, work groups, and friendship groups.

Families are changing: Non-marital partnerships such as cohabitation are becoming more common, marriage is delayed and fertility is declining. In this class we will learn about how families are changing in Israel and we will compare with the US and other countries. Reading materials include general theories as well as research published in scholarly journals. nnAfter reviewing general theories and major scholarly debates concerning issues of family change, we will turn to specific family processes and compare Israel, the US and other countries. We will ask how family transitions may differ for different population groups and at different stages of the life course, and we will tie family processes to current theories of gender. nnWe will cover a wide range of topics, from marriage and marital dissolution to cohabitation, LAT and remarriage. We will also discuss changes in women's labor force participation and how it bears on fertility, parenthood and household division of labor. Within each substantive topic we will survey the debates within contemporary scholarship and we will compare Israel and the US

Conversations, social relationships and social networks are the core features of social life. In this course we explore how conversations, relationships, and social networks not only have their own unique and independent characteristics, but how they shape one another and come to characterize many of the settings we enter and live in. As such, students will be introduced to theories and research methodologies concerning social interaction, social relationships, and social networks, as well as descriptions of how these research strands interrelate to form a larger relational sociology that can be employed to characterize a variety of social phenomenon. This course is suitable to advanced undergraduates and doctoral students.

The central goal of this course is to promote an academic debate and knowledge exchange about social inequalities and poverty in Latin America, with an emphasis on Brazil, analyzing their impact on the scope of politics, the design of social policies and the interests of society. It is based on an analysis of Angus Deaton's work (Nobel Prize in Economics, 2015), that develops an economic-historical study and points out the great economic and social transformations that affect the process of evolution of social and health inequalities. Thus, what is proposed here is an analysis of the mutation of inequalities throughout the history of humanity. Deaton's relevant contribution is his approach to the process of overcoming inequalities and poverty over the last three centuries. His work demonstrates that, although the advances in terms of economic growth and quality of life have been extraordinary, there are inequalities between different regions and countries around the world. From this contextualization, the aim of this course is to discuss a contemporary approach to social development centered on the ideas of Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics, 1998), with a focus on capabilities. Sen's innovative perspective establishes that development should be centered on individuals¿ freedom of choice.

(Graduate students register for 226.) Theory, methods, and research. Concepts such as density, homogeneity, and centrality; applications to substantive areas. The impact of social network structure on individuals and groups in areas such as communities, neighborhoods, families, work life, and innovations.

(Graduate students register for EDUC 212 or SOC 229X). Combination of social science and historical perspectives trace the major developments, contexts, tensions, challenges, and policy issues of urban education.

The effects of schools and schooling on individuals, the stratification system, and society. Education as socializing individuals and as legitimizing social institutions. The social and individual factors affecting the expansion of schooling, individual educational attainment, and the organizational structure of schooling.

Theoretical perspectives and empirical studies on the structural and cultural sources of educational expansion and differentiation, and on the cultural and structural consequences of educational institutionalization. Research topics: education and nation building; education, mobility, and equality; education, international organizations, and world culture.

This course will focus on social science engagement with developments in genetic research, focusing on two key issues. First, social scientists are trying to figure out how genetic data can be used to help them better understand phenomena they have been long endeavoring to understand. Second, social scientists try to improve understanding of how social environments moderate, amplify, or attenuate genetic influences on outcomes.

This course takes a problem-solving focus. Our main goal is to learn to design research-based interventions to improve diversity, equity and inclusion outcomes in organizations. U.S. society has become increasingly more diverse, and yet our organizations do not reflect that diversity. Further, even successful efforts to improve diversity are often not accompanied by a plan to create truly inclusive organizations that support a diverse workforce or student body. We will begin by comparing explanations for the lack of diversity and inclusion in modern organizations. We will then examine research that illustrates the cost to individuals and organizations for failing to leverage the diverse talent in our society. Guest speakers will share their challenges and successes in increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the organizations where they work. Then, it will be your turn. Working in teams you will design your own research-based intervention to promote DEI at the organizational, team, and individual level and present your intervention to the class. Along the way, you will also learn effective strategies for navigating non-inclusive organizations and for being an effective change agent in your own environment.

Over the last three decades, inequality in America has increased substantially. Why has this happened, and what can be done about it? The course will begin by surveying the basic features of poverty, inequality, and economic mobility in the 21st century. From here we will discuss issues related to discrimination, education and schools, criminal justice, and the changing nature of the family as forces that shape inequality. We will also focus on the main social policy options for addressing inequality in the United States, including income support for the poor, taxing higher incomes, efforts to encourage philanthropy, and other institutional reforms.

(Graduate students register for 236) This course explores major issues and debates in the sociology of law. Topics include historical perspectives on the origins of law; rationality and legal sanctions; normative decision making and morality; cognitive decision making; crime and deviance, with particular attention to the problem of mass incarceration; the "law in action" versus the "law on the books;" organizational responses to law, particularly in the context of sexual harassment and discrimination in education and employment; the roles of lawyers, judges, and juries; and law and social change with particular emphasis on the American civil rights movement. Special Instructions: Students are expected to attend a weekly TA-led discussion section in addition to lecture. Sections will be scheduled after the start of term at times when all students can attend. Paper requirements are flexible. Cross listed with the Law School (LAW 7511). See "Special Instructions" in course description above. Elements Used in Grading: Class participation, paper proposal, three short papers and a final paper (see syllabus for details).

Introducing market dynamics in education remains a highly controversial policy issue. In this course we will discuss the main ideas supporting the market approach in education and the key arguments against these policies; we will also review some of the evidence concerning the effects of market policies in education such as privatization, vouchers, and school choice; and finally, we will study several issues related to market oriented reforms, such as performance accountability, school segregation, and peer effects in education.

A course devoted to understanding how people are faring as the country's health and economic crisis unfolds. The premise of the course is that, as important and valuable as surveys are, it's a capital mistake to presume that we know what needs to be asked and that fixed-response answers adequately convey the depth of what's happening. We introduce a new type of qualitative method that allows for discovery by capturing the voices of the people, learn what they're thinking and fearing, and understand the decisions they're making. Students are trained in immersive interviewing by completing actual interviews, coding and analyzing their field notes, and then writing reports describing what's happening across the country. These reports will be designed to find out who's hurting, why they're hurting, and how we can better respond to the crisis. Students interested should submit the following application: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfdOZsnpOCg4zTRbVny0ikxpZEd1AFEEJh3K9KjvINyfbWMGw/viewformnnThe course is open to students who have taken it in earlier quarters, with repeating students allowed to omit the training sessions and, in lieu of those sessions, complete additional field work and writing. Field work will include unique interviews with new participants each lab period, along with corresponding coding, analyses, and reports.

What does public interest technology look like in practice? Each week, a guest speaker will present a case study of their work to improve government and public systems through innovative methods, data-driven efforts, emerging technology, and human-centered design. Students will reflect on the practicalities, ethics, and best practices of public interest technology work.

Male, female, woman, man, feminine, masculine. We all know what gender is, right? In this course, we will critically examine the idea of gender from a sociological perspective. For the first few weeks, we will tackle the big question 'What is gender?' To do this, we will begin by interrogating taken-for-granted ideas about the biological underpinnings of gender. We then dive into sociological conceptions of gender. In the latter portion of the course we will examine the ways gender operates and produces inequality within a variety of societal institutions, including the media, the family, the workplace, and the legal system. This class will expose you to some of the methods social scientists use to study gender and help you think critically about common sense understandings of gender through a look at both popular journalism and rigorous academic research. The emphasis of this class is to leave you with a long-lasting understanding of why the study of social problems, and especially those related to gender, matter.

(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.

This course provides graduate students with a survey introduction to influential ethnographic and interview-based sociological research on race, crime, and justice. Recent social movements such as the Movement for Black Lives have drawn attention to the problem of mass criminalization in the U.S. These movements have underscored the centrality of the criminal legal system in defining race in America. Each week, students will read ethnographic books and journal articles on the role of race and racism in different dimensions of the criminal legal process from policing to court processing to incarceration written in the early twentieth century to the present. In addition to gaining foundational knowledge on the key debates within the sociological and criminological literature, students will also gain important insight into the most rigorous qualitative social science methods for studying these topics, and how these methods have changed over time.

(Graduate students register for 247.) How have the definitions, categories, and consequences of race and ethnicity differed across time and place? This course offers a historical and sociological survey of racialized divisions around the globe. Case studies include: affirmative action policies, policies of segregation and ghettoization, countries with genocidal pasts, invisible minorities, and countries that refuse to count their citizens by race at all.

(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.

(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.

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.

Family change from historical, social, demographic, and legal perspectives. Extramarital cohabitation, divorce, later marriage, interracial marriage, and same-sex cohabitation. The emergence of same-sex marriage as a political issue. Are recent changes in the American family really as dramatic as they seem? Theories about what causes family systems to change.

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.

This course surveys quantitative methods to make causal inferences in the absence of randomized experiment including the use of natural and quasi-experiments, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, fixed effects estimators, and difference-in-differences. We emphasize the proper interpretation of these research designs and critical engagement with their key assumptions for applied researchers. Prerequisites: Prior training in multivariate regression (e.g., ECON 102B or the permission of the instructor).

This course focuses on the skills needed to conduct theoretically-informed and policy-relevant descriptive social science. Students read recent examples of rigorous descriptive quantitative research that exemplifies the use of data to describe important phenomena related to educational and social inequality. The course will help develop skills necessary to conceptualize, operationalize, and communicate descriptive research, including techniques related to measurement and measurement error, data harmonization, data reduction, and visualization. Students develop a descriptive project during the course. Prerequisite: satisfactory completion of a course in multivariate regression.

(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. This course will explore the role of formal organizations in contemporary social life, and their consequences for individuals. Drawing on a range of research in the social sciences and examples from the real world, we will examine several topics, including: the origins of organizations, how decisions are made in organizations, why some organizations survive while others die, incentives and employment relationships, how social networks shape social stratification, and what kinds of organizational policies promote diversity.

Social and political forces that shape market outcomes. The emergence and creation of markets, how markets go wrong, and the roles of government and society in structuring market exchange. Applied topics include development, inequality, globalization, and economic meltdown. Preference to Sociology majors and Sociology coterm students.

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.

We learn how to apply analytical tools from the social sciences to organizations, and study how to design effective organizations and projects within and across institutional settings. A variety of organizations are included and how they deal with strategy changes and accountability. The theme for this year's class is on accountability of non-profit organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, The International Rescue Committee and The Red Cross. Recommended: FINANCE 377, MS&E 180, SOC 160, ECON 149, or MGTECON 330.

(Graduate students register for 270). Sociologists seek to understand how society works, specifically: how social life is organized, changed, and maintained. Sociological theory provides hypotheses for explaining social life. All empirical research in sociology is enriched by, and has some basis in, sociological theories. This course introduces students to the earliest sociological theories and the thinkers who developed them. Specifically, we will discuss the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. We will compare and contrast how they thought about important modern-day social realities such as capitalism, racism, crime, religion, and social cohesion. We will consider how these early theories and thinkers influence the way sociologists think about and study the social world today.

This course examines the ways in which higher education structures and policies interact with gender, gender identity, and other characteristics in the United States, around the world, and over time. Attention is paid to how changes in those structures and policies relate to access to, experiences in, and outcomes of higher education by gender. Students can expect to gain an understanding of theories and perspectives from the social sciences relevant to an understanding of the role of higher education in relation to structures of gender differentiation and hierarchy. Topics include undergraduate and graduate education; identity and sexuality; gender and science; gender and faculty; and feminist scholarship and pedagogy.

Today we interact with our friends and enemies, our team partners and romantic partners, and our organizations and societies, all through computational systems. How do we design these social computing systems to be effective and responsible? This course covers design patterns for social computing systems and the foundational ideas that underpin them. Students will engage in the creation of new computationally-mediated social environments. Course available for 3-4 units; students enrolling in the 4-unit option will conduct deeper engagement with the topic via additional readings and discussions.

How do neighborhoods come to be? How and why do they change? What is the role of power, money, race, immigration, segregation, culture, government, and other forces? In this course, students will interrogate these questions using literatures from sociology, geography, and political science, along with archival, observational, interview, and cartographic (GIS) methods. Students will work in small groups to create content (e.g., images, audio, and video) for a self-guided ¿neighborhood tour,¿ which will be added to a mobile app and/or website.

With a vast amount of data now collected on our online and offline actions -- from what we buy, to where we travel, to who we interact with -- we have an unprecedented opportunity to study complex social systems. This opportunity, however, comes with scientific, engineering, and ethical challenges. In this hands-on course, we develop ideas from computer science and statistics to address problems in sociology, economics, political science, and beyond. We cover techniques for collecting and parsing data, methods for large-scale machine learning, and principles for effectively communicating results. To see how these techniques are applied in practice, we discuss recent research findings in a variety of areas. Prerequisites: introductory course in applied statistics, and experience coding in R, Python, or another high-level language.

Human decision making is increasingly being displaced by predictive algorithms. Judges sentence defendants based on statistical risk scores; regulators take enforcement actions based on predicted violations; advertisers target materials based on demographic attributes; and employers evaluate applicants and employees based on machine-learned models. One concern with the rise of such algorithmic decision making is that it may replicate or exacerbate human bias. Course surveys the legal and ethical principles for assessing the equity of algorithms, describes statistical techniques for designing fairer systems, and considers how anti-discrimination law and the design of algorithms may need to evolve to account for machine bias. Concepts will be developed in part through guided in-class coding exercises. Admission by consent of instructor and limited to 20 students. To enroll complete course application by March 15 at: https://5harad.com/mse330/. Grading based on: response papers, class participation, and a final project.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the way crime has been defined and punished in the United States. Recent social movements such as the Movement for Black Lives have drawn attention to the problem of mass incarceration and officer-involved shootings of people of color. These movements have underscored the centrality of the criminal justice system in defining citizenship, race, and democracy in America. How did our country get here? This course provides a social scientific perspective on America¿s past and present approach to crime and punishment. Readings and discussions focus on racism in policing, court processing, and incarceration; the social construction of crime and violence; punishment among the privileged; the collateral consequences of punishment in poor communities of color; and normative debates about social justice, racial justice, and reforming the criminal justice system. Students will learn to gather their own knowledge and contribute to normative debates through a field report assignment and an op-ed writing assignment.

Formulating a research question, developing hypotheses, probability and non-probability sampling, developing valid and reliable measures, qualitative and quantitative data, choosing research design and data collection methods, challenges of making causal inference, and criteria for evaluating the quality of social research. Emphasis is on how social research is done, rather than application of different methods. Limited enrollment; preference to Sociology and Urban Studies majors, and Sociology coterms.

Preference to Sociology majors and minors. Enrollment for non-sociologists will open two weeks after winter enrollment begins. Methods for analyzing and evaluating quantitative data in sociological research. Students will be taught how to run and interpret multivariate regressions, how to test hypotheses, and how to read and critique published data analyses.

Digital communications (including social media) are the largest data sets of our time, and most of it is text. Social scientists need to be able to digest small and big data sets alike, process it and extract psychological insight. This applied and project-focused course introduces students to a Python codebase developed to facilitate text analysis in the social sciences (see dlatk.wwbp.org -- knowledge of Python is helpful but not required). The goal is to practice these methods in guided tutorials and project-based work so that the students can apply them to their own research contexts and be prepared to write up the results for publication. The course will provide best practices, as well as access to and familiarity with a Linux-based server environment to process text, including the extraction of words and phrases, topics and psychological dictionaries. We will also practice the use of machine learning based on text data for psychological assessment, and the further statistical analysis of language variables in R. Familiarity with Python is helpful but not required. Basic familiarity with R is expected. The ability to wrangle data into a spreadsheet-like format is expected. A basic introduction to SQL will be given in the course. Familiarity with SSH and basic Linux is helpful but not required. Understanding of regression is expected.

In the contemporary United States, supposedly race-neutral immigration laws have racially-unequal consequences. Immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and the Middle East are central to ongoing debates about who's includable, and who's excludable, from American society. These present-day dynamics mirror the historical forms of exclusion imposed on immigrants from places as diverse as China, Eastern Europe, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and much of Africa. These groups' varied experiences of exclusion underscore the long-time encoding of race into U.S. immigration policy and practice. Readings and discussions center on how immigration law has become racialized in its construction and in its enforcement over the last 150 years.

Prior arrangement required

Work on a project of student's choice under supervision of a faculty member. Prior arrangement required

Work in an apprentice-like relationship with faculty on an on-going research project. Prior arrangement required

This course examines the expansion, impact, and organization of higher education across the world. This course engages students with sociological theory and comparative research on global and national sources of influence on higher education developments, e.g. admissions criteria, curricular content, governance structure.. At the end of the course students should be able to compare and contrast developments across countries.

Where do individuals' political attitudes and behaviors come from, and how can they be changed? In this class we will read and discuss cutting-edge research from social psychology, sociology, and political science on topics such as polarization, persuasion, elitism, social activism, and racial resentment. A central idea of the class is that social and psychological factors powerfully influence political views, and research in this area can help to understand our often confusing political landscape. Additionally, understanding the causal architecture of political attitudes and behavior is essential for taking effective political action, especially in this time of deep and growing political divides. Enrollment is permission by instructor only: please email: willer@stanford.edu

Note: for first-year Sociology Doctoral Students only. This class will prepare you to teach Stanford students in your role as a TA or instructor. It rests on the idea that teaching is both an art to learn and cultivate, and a source of great joy and personal meaning during your graduate career and beyond. The course's main goal is to help you become an effective instructor in your day-to-day teaching, covering skills such as how to deliver a powerful lecture, lead an engaging discussion section, build an inclusive classroom, describe your personal pedagogy to others, juggle teaching logistics and competing demands, and make the best use of technology and campus resources. You will also discover that teaching is, above all, a deeply personal process that should take into account the different backgrounds, stories, and learning styles of both students and instructors to enable students to flourish academically and personally. Throughout this class, we will explore different philosophies and ways of teaching so that you can cultivate and employ your own, personalized pedagogy. It is my hope that you will use this course as a springboard to embark on your own teaching journey. With a growth mindset and the right tools in our hands, we can begin to both transform and be transformed by our students: this is the art and joy of teaching.

Social life would be unimaginable without play and games. Students will be introduced to social theories of play and games; the history of games and their variation; readings concerned with how play and games affect interaction and socialization; how race and gender are enacted in and through play and games; how play and games relate to creativity and innovation; and how games can be designed for engrossment and the accomplishment of various tasks and learning goals. Course intended mainly for doctoral students, though master¿s and undergraduate students are welcome. This is a new course, so please expect collaboration with instructor and other students to shape the course content.

Social scientists can benefit greatly from utilizing new data sources like electronic administration records or digital communications, but they require tools and techniques to make sense of their scope and complexity. This course offers the opportunity to understand and apply popular data science techniques regarding data visualization, data reduction and data analysis.

Quantitative data require considerable work before they are ready to be analyzed: they are often messy, incomplete and potentially biased. This course is designed to help you thoughtfully collect, manage, clean and represent data so it can offer substantive information researchers can act upon. In our weekly sessions you will take a critical and reflective approach to these tasks and learn the technical skills needed to get your data into shape. Education and social science datasets will be our focus.

This course centers on the question of how you can use various data science techniques to understand social phenomena. Applied to education and social science topics, the course will introduce you to supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms, new data, and provide you the skills to thoughtfully evaluate and assess machine learning performance and implications.

This course will introduce students to the logic, design, and implementation of experiments for social science research. We will begin by developing an understanding of how experimental research designs can address some of the central threats to causal identification, such as selection and omitted variables bias. Students will then engage with scholarship that has utilized experimental research designs to produce theoretical insights about topics ranging from social stratification to the dynamics of cultural markets to political mobilization. This course will also cover techniques for analyzing experimental data, strategies for dealing with noncompliance, and combining experiments with other methods of inquiry. The course will culminate with students developing an experimental research design proposal related to their own scholarly interests. While a basic understanding of statistics is necessary for this course, the emphasis will be on research design.

For first-year Sociology doctoral students only, Introduction and orientation to the field of Sociology. May be repeat for credit

For graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Topics: models of fertility behavior, migration models, stable population theory, life table analysis, data sources, and measurement problems. How population behavior affects social processes, and how social processes influence population dynamics. Recommended: sociological research methods; basic regression analysis and log linear models.

The nation as a form of collective identity in the modern era. Major works in the study of nations and nationalism from comparative perspectives with focus on Europe and E. Asia.

Theory and research on the relationship between social structure and politics. Social foundations of political order, the generation and transformation of ideologies and political identities, social origins of revolutionary movements, and social consequences of political revolution. Prerequisite: doctoral student.

Analysis of quantitative and longitudinal data on national educational systems and political structures. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

The careers of individuals are shaped by their movement within and between organizations, whether those be established employers or entrepreneurial ventures. Conversely, organizations of all sizes are shaped by the flows of individuals through them as individuals construct careers by pursuing different opportunities. This course will examine sociological and economic theory and research on this mutually constitutive relationship. Possible topics include inequality and attainment processes, internal labor markets, mobility dynamics, individual and organizational learning, ecological influences, gender and racial segregation, discrimination, and entrepreneurship as a career process

Classical and contemporary literature covering the sociological approach to markets and the economy, and comparing it to other disciplines. Topics: consumption, labor, professions, industrial organization, and the varieties of capitalism; historical and comparative perspectives on market and non-market provision of goods and services, and on transitions among economic systems. The relative impact of culture, institutions, norms, social networks, technology, and material conditions. Prerequisite: doctoral student status or consent of instructor. Please note: Lecture and discussion section are both required

Theory, methods, and research in the sociology of the economy and of formal organizations, through presentations of ongoing work by students, faculty, and guest speakers, and discussion of recent literature and controversies. May be repeated for credit. Restricted to Sociology doctoral students; others by consent of instructor.

Theory and research on macro-historical changes of sociological significance such as the rise of capitalism, the causes and consequences of revolutions, and the formation of the modern nation state and global world system. Methodological issues in historical and comparative sociology.

(Doctoral students register for 317B.) This seminar surveys the major turning points that have shaped China's evolution since 1949. The topics covered include the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the political and economic turning point of the early 1980s, the political crisis of 1989, the restructuring of the state sector since the 1990s, and the patterns of protest that have accompanied the rapid social changes over the past three decades. We will conclude the course with current debates about China's future.

Yearlong workshop where doctoral students are encouraged to collaborate with peers and faculty who share an interest in employing computational techniques in the pursuit of researching social network dynamics, text analysis, histories, and theories of action that help explain social phenomena. Students present their own research and provide helpful feedback on others' work. Presentations may concern dissertation proposals, grants, article submissions, book proposals, datasets, methodologies and other texts. Repeatable for credit.

Topics: causes, dynamics, and outcomes of social movements; organizational dimensions of collective action; and causes and consequences of individual activism.

This course offers an introduction to the practice and politics of ethnographic fieldwork. It provides a "how to" of ethnographic research, in which students will conduct an ethnographic project of their own, complemented by weekly readings and discussions. In the process, we will discuss the theory and epistemology of fieldwork, along with the practicalities and politics of fieldwork in different domains. We will examine different stages of ethnographic research (entering the field, conducting and recording fieldwork, exiting the field and writing it up), different methods (observations, interviews, "going along"), as well as distinct styles of ethnographic work (virtual ethnography, organizational ethnography, narrative ethnography, etc.). The course will serve as a participative workshop for students to exchange field notes, share practical advice, and consolidate their research interests. Prerequisite: Must be Communication student, or obtain approval from instructor.

Major theoretical perspectives, and their assumptions and problems, in interpersonal processes and social psychology. Techniques of investigation and methodological issues. Perspectives: symbolic interaction, social structure and personality, and cognitive and group processes.

Over the past several decades nonprofit organizations have become increasingly central entities in society, and with this growing status and importance their roles are increasingly complex.We consider the social, political and economic dynamics of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, focusing mainly (but not exclusively) on the US. The class is best suited for graduate students looking for an advanced analytic understanding of the sector and those wishing to conduct research in the field; it is not intended to provide training in nonprofit management.

Advanced graduate student workshop in social psychology. Current theories and research agendas, recent publications, and presentations of ongoing research by faculty and students. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Sociological research on changing family forms. Topics include courtship, marriage, fertility, divorce, conflict, relationship skills and satisfaction, gender patterns, power relations within the family, and class and race differences in patterns. Enrollment limited to graduate students.

PhD students will present their own work weekly, and read and critique the research-in-progress of their peers on issues of family, household structure, interpersonal relationships, marriage, demography, survey data, demographic methods, statistical methods, and related fields. May be repeat for credit starting 8/1/2016.

Work and employment have the ability to promote economic security as well as reinforce poverty, provide meaning as well as induce alienation, generate collaboration as well as reproduce difference. Indeed, work and employment are central components of the human experience and structure significant portions of our lives. This course introduces students to current theoretical and empirical issues in sociological scholarship on work and employment. The substantive topics covered in this course will include job search and finding work, the hiring process, changing employment relations, job loss and unemployment, racial and gender stratification at work, unpaid labor and care work, as well as work and family intersections. Theoretical and methodological innovation in recent scholarship will be highlighted throughout the course. The course will culminate with students developing a proposal for a research project designed to address a significant gap in existing scholarship on work and employment.

The sociology of science concerns the social structures and practices by which human beings interpret, use and create intellectual innovations. In particular we will explore the claim that scientific facts are socially constructed and ask whether such a characterization has limits. Course readings will concern the formation and decline of various thought communities, intellectual social movements, scientific disciplines, and broader research paradigms. A special focus will be placed on interdisciplinarity as we explore whether the collision of fields can result in new scientific advances. This course is suitable to advanced undergraduates and doctoral students.

Two quarter sequence for doctoral students to engage in research that anticipates, is a pilot study for, or feeds into their dissertations. Prior approval for dissertation study not required. Students engage in common research processes including: developing interview questions; interviewing; coding, analyzing, and interpreting data; theorizing; and writing up results. Participant observation as needed. Preference to students who intend to enroll in 327C.

Seminar. Key sociological theories and empirical studies of of the relationship between education and other major social institutions, focusing on drivers of educational change, the organizational infrastructures of education, and the implication of education in processes of social stratification. Targeted to doctoral students.

Current theories and research on the social processes, such as socialization, status processes, stereotyping, and cognition, that produce gender difference and inequality. Intersections of gender with race, class, and bodies. Applications to workplaces, schools, families, and intimate relationships. Prerequisite: consent of instructor required.

Classical and contemporary approaches to the unequal distribution of goods, status, and power. Modern analytic models of the effects of social contact, cultural capital, family background, and luck in producing inequality. The role of education in stratification. The causes and consequences of inequality by race and gender. The structure of social classes, status groupings, and prestige hierarchies in various societies. Labor markets and their role in inequality. The implications of inequality for individual lifestyles. The rise of the new class, the underclass, and other emerging forms of stratification. Prerequisite: Ph.D. student or consent of instructor.

Causes, consequences, and structure of inequality; how inequality results from and shapes social classes, occupations, professions, and other aspects of the economy. Research presentations by students, faculty, and guest speakers. Discussion of controversies, theories, and recent writings. May be repeated for credit. Restricted to Sociology doctoral students; others by consent of instructor.

The role of gender in structuring contemporary life. Social forces affecting gender at the psychological, interactional, and structural levels. Gender inequality in labor markets, education, the household, and other institutions. Theories and research literature.

This workshop is intended for PhD students whose graduate research is centered on gender and/or gender inequalities. Students will take turns presenting their research and get feedback from other students and faculty

In this seminar, we will trace intersectionality from its activist origins outside of academia to its practice in contemporary social science research (and back). We will consider the range of approaches and interpretations that have emerged over the past 30 years, since Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term to critique anti-discrimination litigation, and do so with an eye toward application: how to best incorporate the insights of intersectionality into original social science research, across a variety of topics and methods. Open to all students pursuing graduate degrees in Sociology, as well as PhD students in other disciplines with instructor consent.

In this course, we seek to understand economic markets as cultural institutions. Far from natural or inevitable entities, markets are social constructions that rely upon¿and reproduce¿particular shared understandings about how the world is and should be. In this course, we consider the cognitive, expressive, and normative aspects of culture in order to analyze the existence of markets, the forms they take, and the justifications for the effects they have. We begin by exploring the cultural constitution of market goods and actors. How do some, but not other, objects come to be exchanged via the market, and why do companies and consumers look and act the way they do? We then dig deeper into the key cultural forms and processes that enable and constrain economic phenomena. In what ways do classification, quantification, narrative, metaphor, and so on give rise to the market as we experience it, and who has the power to shape the way these processes take hold? Next, we delve into two special cases: money, which some hold to be impervious to social considerations, and cultural objects, which some hold to be impervious to market logic. Both turn out to be much more complicated. In the final part of course, we explore the cultural aspects of organizations and economic policymaking. The course readings are largely empirical research, so we will also critically discuss how sociologists use data and methods to build evidence.

This course provides graduate students with a survey introduction to influential ethnographic and interview-based sociological research on race, crime, and justice. Recent social movements such as the Movement for Black Lives have drawn attention to the problem of mass criminalization in the U.S. These movements have underscored the centrality of the criminal legal system in defining race in America. Each week, students will read ethnographic books and journal articles on the role of race and racism in different dimensions of the criminal legal process from policing to court processing to incarceration written in the early twentieth century to the present. In addition to gaining foundational knowledge on the key debates within the sociological and criminological literature, students will also gain important insight into the most rigorous qualitative social science methods for studying these topics, and how these methods have changed over time.

Seminar for graduate students who have research projects in progress that focus on questions about gender and society. Research projects can be at any stage from the initial development to the final writing up of results. Focus is on questions posed by the research projects of the seminar participants. Readings include relevant background to each other's questions and present their own work in progress. A final paper reports the progress on the seminar member's research project. May be repeat for credit

Racial and ethnic stratification has been a defining yet shifting feature of U.S. society, and such inequalities shape and are shaped by the ecological structure of places. This course is a survey course for doctoral students covering sociological scholarship at the intersection of racial stratification and urban sociology. The class will include foundational readings and discussions on urban sociological theories, urban decline and suburbanization, segregation, poverty, neighborhood effects, crime and disorder, gentrification, and immigration. The course will also include discussion of new and innovative data sources and methods for research in this area throughout the quarter. Students will develop or continue a research project designed to contribute to scholarship on racial stratification and urban sociology.

In this seminar, we focus our sociological lens on the concept of race itself. We will explore theoretical and conceptual debates about race and ethnicity, the history of counting by race in surveys and official statistics, as well as critiques of how race is operationalized in both quantitative and qualitative studies. By the end of the course, students will be prepared to conduct their own theoretically and methodologically rigorous research that advances knowledge about race and racial inequality. Prerequisite: Sociology graduate student; otherwise, please email instructor for consent to enroll.

Weekly research workshop with a focus on ongoing research by faculty and graduate student participants, new theory and research, and recent publications. Workshop participants will present their own work, and read and critique the research-in-progress of their peers. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Sociology doctoral student or consent of instructor.

Questions about causal effects and processes are critical in the social sciences, and range from macro-level concerns such as Does capitalism cause democracy? to micro-level ones such as Does educational attainment increase individual earnings / health /civic participation?. This course trains students in quantitative approaches designed to address causal questions with observational and quasi-experimental data, including propensity score methods, fixed and random effects, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity, among others. The underlying intuition, statistical formulation, and implementation of each approach will be discussed. The course will also examine topics relevant for researches addressing causal questions such as sensitivity analysis, mediation analysis, and integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Prerequisites: Soc 381 and Soc 382 or equivalent. Undergraduate students should request instructor's permission

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.

Why are some organizations more competitive than others?  This is one of the defining questions of the interdisciplinary research field known as strategic management.  In this seminar, we will survey the field of strategic management as seen through the lens of organization theory, touching on the four main theoretical approaches that have developed there.nnMost work in strategic management pays little attention to particular theoretical perspectives, and is organized more by the topic - the phenomenon being studied - such as market exit, growth, performance, mergers and acquisitions, innovation, and the like.  I have catalogued the research in strategic management both according to theoretical perspective and topic, and that structure is developed in this course.  Our goal is to help you to identify theoretical perspectives as you try to understand the strategy field.

Topics vary each quarter but may include: theories and processes of migration and immigrant incorporation; historical and contemporary perspectives on race, ethnicity, and immigration; immigration law and policy; transnationalism; nations and nationalism.

This seminar focuses on social psychological theories and research relevant to organizational behavior. It reviews the current research topics in micro-organizational behavior, linking these to foundations in cognitive and social psychology and sociology. Topics include models of attribution, decision making, emotion, coordination, influence and persuasion, and the psychology of power and culture. Prerequisites: Enrollment in a PhD program. graduate-level social psychology course.

For students doing advanced research. Group comments and criticism on dissertation projects at any phase of completion, including data problems, empirical and theoretical challenges, presentation refinement, and job market presentations. Collaboration, debate, and shaping research ideas. Prerequisite: courses in organizational theory or social network analysis.

This seminar considers the leading sociological approaches to analyzing relations of organizations and environments, with a special emphasis on dynamics. Attention is given to theoretical formulations, research designs, and results of empirical studies. Prerequisite: Enrollment in a PhD program.

The social science literature on organizations assessed through consideration of the major theoretical traditions and lines of research predominant in the field. For PhD students only.

Seminar. Key lines of inquiry on organizational change, emphasizing network, institutional, and evolutionary arguments.

This seminar examines theoretical and methodological issues in the study of the ecology of organizations. Particular attention is given to the dynamics that characterize the interface between organizational populations and their audiences.

For Ph.D. students in the social sciences and history. Research on contemporary society and politics in the People's Republic of China. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Introduction to social network theory, methods, and research applications in sociology. Network concepts of interactionist (balance, cohesion, centrality) and structuralist (structural equivalence, roles, duality) traditions are defined and applied to topics in small groups, social movements, organizations, communities. Students apply these techniques to data on schools and classrooms.

Restricted to Sociology doctoral students with preference to first year students.The traditions of structural analysis derived from the work of Marx, Weber, and related thinkers. Antecedent ideas in foundational works are traced through contemporary theory and research on political conflict, social stratification, formal organization, and the economy.

Theoretical strategies for the study of interaction, group, and network processes, including rational choice and exchange theory, the theory of action, symbolic interactionism, formal sociology, and social phenomenology. Antecedent ideas in foundational works and contemporary programs of theoretical research.

Restricted to Sociology Doctoral students only and required for Ph.D. in Sociology. This seminar is designed to deepen students' understanding of the epistemological foundations of social science, the construction and analysis of theories, and the design of empirical research.

Cross-listed with Law (LAW 7071), Political Science (POLISCI 334) and Sociology (SOC 374). Associated with the Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS). Year-long workshop for doctoral students and advanced undergraduates writing senior theses on the nature of civil society or philanthropy. Focus is on pursuit of progressive research and writing contributing to the current scholarly knowledge of the nonprofit sector and philanthropy. Accomplished in a large part through peer review. Readings include recent scholarship in aforementioned fields. May be repeated for credit for a maximum of 3 units.

Advanced research workshop with a focus on new theory and research, recent publications, and current research by faculty and graduate student participants. Topics of relevant research include, but are not restricted to, morality, cooperation, solidarity, politics, status, and power. May be repeated for credit.

This graduate level seminar is the first of an intensive two-quarter-long course in ethnographic and fieldwork methods. Students will receive hands-on training in the epistemology, theory, methods, and politics of fieldwork. This begins by learning how to critically engage ethnographic and qualitative books and articles. Next, students will become acquainted with field research techniques and issues through a number of class exercises. Students will learn the dynamics of gaining access, building rapport, writing field notes, crafting memos, and executing various modes of analyses. Finally, students will begin conducting their own fieldwork research in a field site of their choosing. Students should plan to spend at least five hours per week in the field, write and submit formal field notes, and craft a final paper that analyzes their fieldwork data. Class session will be divided in two parts. First, students will discuss the readings and topics of the week. The remainder of the class will be devoted to discussing research experiences and/or analyzing fellow students' field notes. Students should anticipate producing an article or chapter length research paper by the end of the second quarter of the class.nnPriority given to Graduate students.

This graduate level seminar is the first of an intensive two-quarter-long course in ethnographic and fieldwork methods. Students will receive hands-on training in the epistemology, theory, methods, and politics of fieldwork. This begins by learning how to critically engage ethnographic and qualitative books and articles. Next, students will become acquainted with field research techniques and issues through a number of class exercises. Students will learn the dynamics of gaining access, building rapport, writing field notes, crafting memos, and executing various modes of analyses. Finally, students will begin conducting their own fieldwork research in a field site of their choosing. Students should plan to spend at least five hours per week in the field, write and submit formal field notes, and craft a final paper that analyzes their fieldwork data. Class session will be divided in two parts. First, students will discuss the readings and topics of the week. The remainder of the class will be devoted to discussing research experiences and/or analyzing fellow students¿ field notes. Students should anticipate producing an article or chapter length research paper by the end of the second quarter of the class.nnPriority given to Graduate students¿

Sociological analyses of the rise and impact of the expanded modern world order, with its internationalized organizations and globalized discourse. Consequences for national and local society: education, political organization, economic structure, the environment, and science. The centrality of the individual and the rationalized organization as legitimated actors.

In this course, we learn how to collect and analyze social network data. We begin by learning the fundamentals of graph theory and replicating well-known network studies. In the process, we cover classic network methods from centrality to block-modeling. We then move to the frontiers of network analysis. Topics include visualization, modeling and simulation, dynamic network analysis, network experiments, semantic network analysis, and analyzing social networks at scale. Sources and ways of collecting network data will be discussed and students will apply methods they learn to data of their own.

Presentations and discussion of ongoing ethnographic, interview-based, and other fieldwork research by faculty and students . May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Sociology doctoral student or consent of instructor.

Enrollment limited to first-year Sociology doctoral students. Other students by instructor permission only. n This course provides a conceptual and applied introduction to quantitative social sciences methodology, including measurement, sampling and descriptive statistics, statistical inference, ANOVA, factor analysis, and ordinary least squares regression. Students will be introduced to both the methodological logic and techniques of statistical data analysis. The course will present the purpose, goals, and mathematical assumptions behind techniques of statistical analysis and will discuss applications to analyzing data and interpreting results. In addition to the lecture time, SOC381 includes a weekly lab section to learn statistical software and conduct applied research.n*Students enrolling in Soc381 are strongly encouraged to take a 1-week Math/Statistics refresher course from September 16 to September 20. Please contact the instructor at torche@stanford.edu for details

Preference to Sociology doctoral students. Other students by instructor permission only. Required for Ph.D. in Sociology. Enrollment limited to first-year Sociology doctoral students. Rigorous treatment of linear regression models, model assumptions, and various remedies for when these assumptions are violated. Introduction to panel data analysis. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisites: 381.

Required for Ph.D. in Sociology; other students by instructor permission only. enrollment limited to first-year Sociology doctoral students. The rationale for and interpretation of static and dynamic models for the analysis of discrete variables. Prerequisites: 381 and 382, or equivalents.

Workshop on research methods and writing research papers for second year Sociology doctoral students. Ongoing student research, methodological problems, writing challenges, and possible solutions. Required for second year paper.

Workshop on research methods and writing research papers for second year Sociology doctoral students. Ongoing student research, methodological problems, writing challenges, and possible solutions. Required for second year paper.

May be repeated for credit. Appropriate for in-person instruction.

May be repeated for credit. Appropriate for in-person instruction.

CPT course required for international students completing degree requirements. Appropriate for in-person instruction.

The Sociology Colloquium is a semimonthly seminar held throughout the academic year, in which distinguished scholars present their cutting-edge research findings. Enrollment for credit, and regular attendance, is required for all first and second year Sociology doctoral students.

Where do individuals' political attitudes and behaviors come from, and how can they be changed? In this class we will read and discuss cutting-edge research from social psychology, sociology, and political science on topics such as polarization, persuasion, elitism, social activism, and racial resentment. A central idea of the class is that social and psychological factors powerfully influence political views, and research in this area can help to understand our often confusing political landscape. Additionally, understanding the causal architecture of political attitudes and behavior is essential for taking effective political action, especially in this time of deep and growing political divides. Enrollment is permission by instructor only: please email: willer@stanford.edu

This is a course in the design of social research, with a particular emphasis on research field (i.e., non-laboratory) settings. As such, the course is a forum for discussing and developing an understanding of the different strategies social theorists employ to explain social processes, develop theories, and make these theories as believable as possible. In general, these issues will be discussed in the context of sociological research on organizations, but this will not be the exclusive focus of the course. A range of topics will be covered, for example: formulating and motivating research questions; varieties of explanation; experimental and quasi-experimental methods, including natural experiments; counterfactual models; conceptualization and measurement; sampling and case selection; qualitative and quantitative approaches. This course is particularly oriented toward developing an appreciation of the tradeoffs of different approaches. It is well suited to Ph.D. students working on qualifying papers and dissertation proposals.