161 - 170 of 255 results for: SOC

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.

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 Americas 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, minors, and co-terms. To enroll, students must contact Sonia Chan (schan23@stanford.edu) for a permission number. 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 them are text. Social scientists need to be able to digest small and big data sets alike, process them 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. The course has no computer science prerequisites. Familiarity with Python, SSH, and basic Linux is helpful but not required ¿ they will be minimally introduced in the course, as will SQL (databases) and Jupyter notebooks. Understanding regression, basic familiarity with R, and the ability to wrangle your data into spreadsheet form are expected. For more information, please see psych290.stanford.edu, where you will be able to access the google form to apply for the class.

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 course, 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.

CW: SA/GBV: Access the Application Consent Form Here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18Ahwwcl-vQoxVod0PL9HHQg752DJlh3M/edit?usp=sharing ouid=103752650760265096645&rtpof=true&sd=true. Over the past decade 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. Intimate partner violence, stalking, and online harassment are also significant problems on campuses. Survivors have come forward across the country with harrowing stories of abuse 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. The Biden Administration recently put forward significantly re-worked proposed regulations to undo what survivors saw as the harm of the Trump-era regulations. 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, survivors, activists, medical professionals, and policymakers. 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 are available for those who need them. Elements used in grading: Grades will be based on class attendance, class participation, and either several short reflection papers and a class presentation (Law section 01) or an independent research paper and class presentation, or a project and class presentation (undergraduates, graduates, and Law section 02). After the term begins, law students accepted into the course can transfer from section 01 into section 02, which meets the R requirement, with consent of the instructor. This class has both in-person and remote components. Enrollment is by INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION. Access the application consent form https://docs.google.com/document/d/18Ahwwcl-vQoxVod0PL9HHQg752DJlh3M/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103752650760265096645&rtpof=true&sd=true or contact Professor Dauber at mldauber@gmail.com 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 Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies ( FEMGEN 143) and Sociology ( SOC 188/288).

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.