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SOC 19N: The Immigrant Experience in Everyday Life

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.

Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP

Instructors: Jimenez, T. (PI)

SOC 20N: What counts as "race," and why? (CSRE 20N)

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.

Last offered: Winter 2019 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

SOC 21D: Social Movements and the Internet

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.

Last offered: Summer 2021 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI

SOC 31N: Social Networks

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.

Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI

Instructors: Granovetter, M. (PI)

SOC 45Q: Understanding Race and Ethnicity in American Society (CSRE 45Q)

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.

Last offered: Autumn 2019 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

SOC 102A: Social Inequality in Israel (CSRE 132A, JEWISHST 132A)

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.

Last offered: Winter 2018

SOC 103: Human and Planetary Health (BIO 103, BIO 203)

Two of the biggest challenges humanity has to face - promoting human health and halting environmental degradation - are strongly linked. The emerging field of Planetary Health recognizes these inter-linkages and promotes creative, interdisciplinary solutions that protect human health and the health of the ecosystems on which we depend. Through a series of lectures and case-study discussions, students will develop an in-depth understanding of the 'Planetary Health' concept, its foundation, goals, priority areas of action, methods of investigation, and the most relevant immediate challenges.

Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-SMA

Instructors: Burke, K. (PI) ; De Leo, G. (PI) ; Luby, S. (PI) ... more instructors for SOC 103 »

Instructors: Burke, K. (PI) ; De Leo, G. (PI) ; Luby, S. (PI) ; Sokolow, S. (PI) ; Mitchell, K. (TA) ; Pagowski, V. (TA)

SOC 103A: WELFARE, WORK AND POVERTY. (CSRE 133J, JEWISHST 133A)

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.

Last offered: Spring 2018 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

SOC 105: The Sociology of Emotions

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.

Last offered: Winter 2019 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI

SOC 105VP: Contested markets in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest (EARTHSYS 205VP, SOC 205VP)

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.